The day began with another of my valiant attempts to leave a town or city. In the end I caught a bus to Elfesis, a thirty minute ride to the north-west of the city. I soon picked up a lift in the rain on the back of a motorcycle that took me the couple of kilometres to the main Athens-Korinthos highway.
I had an omelette – there I go again, breaking eggs in my wake. Suitably energised, I spent quite a while walking and waiting for my next ride. This was in a truck that took me to the outskirts of Korinthos. More waiting around and then hit the road again. I walked quite a way in the heat until I picked up a lift in a sports car. The driver was a Greek soldier hating every moment in the army and telling me he was going to do a bunk. He dropped me at a petrol station in Tripoli. I waited an hour for another lift but come 19.30 I called it a day and found myself a hotel room for the night.
The journey today has been through some beautiful landscapes, with winding mountain roads and a few heavy downpours. In real time (2025) I looked at a map of my route and noticed that at some point I crossed the Corinth canal. I did not put this in my increasingly inaccurate travelogue, which is strange because vividly remember walking across the bridge and marvelling at this 4 mile stretch of water (only 80.7 feet wide at its base) joining the Gulf of Corinth in the Ioanian Sea to the Saaronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. Construction began with Emperor Nero breaking the ground with a pickaxe in 67 AD, but due to multiple reasons it was not completed until 1893.
But at least most of my omelettes get a mention.
Tomorrow finds me in a small town on the Peloponnese peninsula with a big name in history. I wonder if it “rings” any bells?
Psychologist on the Move 