Some of the creatures I observed in the course of my holiday in Greece.
Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in Greece (12th to 19th May). This one is an almost purely pictorial post showing some of the plant and animal life that I encountered there.
During one of the walks I saw a tiny snake which concealed itself very quickly, and I missed many other intended shots, but I think I got a fair selection!
Where lego and New Zealand birds meet, courtesy of Heather Hastie.
The creation is magnificent, and Heather’s idea of using it to launch a whole lego range devoted to indigenous New Zealand birds is even better. It is a little unfortunate to use this phrase given one of the most famous quirks of these birds, but the products would absolutely fly off the shelves…
Note – this is Heather’s story and if you wish to comment you will need to visit the original.
Source: Kakapo Lego (plus Tweets)
The tannery at the open-air museum fo water power in Dimitsana.
In my previous post in this series about my week in Greece (May 12th to 19th) I wrote about the Open-air Museum of Water Power at Dimitsana, and stated that I was going give the tannery a whole post to itself, and here it is.
As well as containing everything used in pre-industrial leather making this section features a short video detailing the process in its entirety. To get from a batch of skins to leather from which stuff could be made would take a couple of months.
This is the centrepiece of a fascinating museum. The tannery is the second-furthest part of the museum from the entrance, with the gunpowder mill directly below it.
An account of the opn-air museum of water power in Dimitsana (apart from the tannery, which I am giving a post to itself).
Welcome to my latest post about my holiday in Greece (12th – 19th May). We are now dealing with the Friday, the centrepiece of which was to be a visit to the Open-air Water Power Museum at Dimitsana and a meal at a restaurant that serves meat from wild animals shot by the proprietor. This post deals with the Dimitsana section of the day apart from the tannery which I shall give a post to itself.
For Thursday night’s supper we had eaten pork chops, and my mother had failed to finish hers. This it turned out was the first warning of a stomach problem that would lead to a serious alteration of our plans for the day. Although she felt well enough to make the journey by about 10 o’clock, the restaurant meal was out of the question.
The journey from Tseria to Dimitsana is somewhat over two hours in duration. It involves quite a lot of scenic stuff but also one truly abominable eyesore, modern Megalopolis (to give you an idea of the sheer visual awfulness of the place its most prominent features are a pair of giant cooling towers). Little remains of the original city – some pillars from the theatre is about all one can actually see.
Dimitsana is a mountainside town, which means that going round the open-air museum involves going downhill and then back up at the end. The water was running more vigorously than it had been on my previous visit – perhaps because it was earlier in the year.
This museum is well worth a visit, and we were there on Museum Day, meaning that admission was free.
I know it is now Monday morning, but please do come and join the fun at Rachel’s Sunday Social…
Sorry for the late start today!
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Continuing my account of my holiday in Greece.
Welcome to the next post in my somewhat spread out series about my holiday in Greece. This post follows on from my post about Nestor’s Palace, in which you can find links to all my previous posts about this holiday. Unlike my previous posts in this series this one covers events from two different days, the Monday and the Thursday.
There were a few things to be done in Kardamili, including finding some sandals for me, and we decided havuing finished there to make the journey to Trachila, which is at the end of one of the roads beyond the resort town of Stoupa (the other, the main road, goes up into the mountains to Areopoli and then on into the inner Mani and down to very southern tip of mainland Greece). This was a pretty journey, and Trachila itself is very pleasant.
On Thursday morning my mother was going to Stoupa for a “Stitch ‘n’ Bitch” session at Patriko’s, while I made use of their internet connection. Then we were going to walk along the sea-front to the village of Agios Nikolaos, have a light lunch at an establishment there that my parents knew, and then walk back to Stoupa before heading back to Tseria. This was deliberately a day on which we did not go on any major journeys as major excursions were happening on Wednesday and Friday.
An account of Nestor’s palace at Pylos.
Through a combination of work commitments and still having large numbers of photos to edit it has been a while since I posted, so just to remind people I was in Greece from May 12th to May 19th, and have so far produced five posts relating to that holiday:
Whereas nothing at Methoni is above 800 years old, and most of it is around half that age (making it a youngster in terms of Greek sites) Nestor’s Palace at Pylos (about 15 kilometres from the modern town of that name) was in its pomp 3,300 years ago or thereabouts, which means that even by Greek standards it counts as old (although Gortyn on the island of Crete is about twice as old as even this). In an effort to preserve these remains a shelter has been built around the site, and part of this structure is a raised walkway from which visitors view the site – no walking round at ground level these days.
It is now time for the combination of my camera and photo-editing skills to take over and give you a virtual tour of Nestor’s Palace…
Here are my remaining sea views from the palace itself…
A virtual visit to the Bourtzi of Methoni.
In my last post I gave you a photographic tour of the main castle at Methoni, finishing at the gateway to the Bourtzi, a small outpost castle that guarded the sea, which I shall now focus on.
Here are the origins of the word Bourtzi:
There were a few final photograophs as we headed back to the car preparatory to moving on to Nestor’s palace.
A photographic of the main part of Methoni Castle, setting the scene for the Bourtzi of Methoni, the subject of the my next post in this series.
Followijng on from my last post which described the journey to Methoni this post covers the main castle, while my next post will deal with the Bourtzi of Methoni.
Methoni castle was first built by the Venetians in the 13th century, and then massively expanded when the retook possession of it from the Turks in the late 17th century. Here is some official information:
Here is the approach to the Castle:
Here are some pictures from inside the castle…
Why not join in the fun at Rachel’s Sunday Social…
Sunday Social is a place to mingle, collaborate, and share our blogs. Sunday Social is one more place where you can share a post that maybe didn’t get as much feedback as you were hoping for. Sunday Social is a place to meet new bloggers.
This weekly post is a “wild card” of sorts. There aren’t many rules but I do ask that you follow a few guidelines.
How do you participate?
It’s very easy.
Voila! That’s it.
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