Pilgrimage from Karolissia to Pella 07/05/08

Staying in our little house was great. Having walls and a roof gave us our warmest night in the tents so far. And the rain is gone…yippee!!!

And I know I say this every morning but my foot is looking better, I don’t even have a limp this morning as we head off :)

Two kilometers down the road we get a big treat. Sabine asks a woman working at a service station if she can fill her water bottle, and before we know it she has us sitting in a warm room, sipping coffee. Her mother in law makes a quick appearance bringing breakfast of bread and marmalade…

“This is home-made so you MUST eat it!!!” Pashlina says while smiling sweetly.

But we don’t need much encouragement, it’s delicious! And Pashlina is great. We could quite easily sit there chatting to her all day but after half an hour we figure we better make a move.

The Gods must be smiling on us today. Another couple of kilometers later a refrigeration truck stops and a guy waits for us to pass by. Rushing over he gives us a packet of biscuits and after checking that we are OK and have enough money, leaves with the only English we heard him speak “God bless you”.

As Sabine put it…

“That’s the sweetest thing that has happened to us so far”.

It was :) So far the Greeks have been incredibly generous.

Arriving in Giannitsa for lunch we consider trying to find an internet café, but as our road doesn’t pass through the centre of town we decide to give it a miss. Pella (the old capital of Macedonia) is only 10kms away, if they get a lot of tourists we should be able to find one there…

My foot starts to swell up again shortly after leaving so I’m happy to take a breather and an Ouzo at the first restaurant we find.

One funny thing in Greece is that most people speak German rather than English (that’s not the funny part ;) ), but if they do speak English they have an Australian accent! I am amazed at how many people I have met so far that were born in Australia. It’s great :)

And it turns out there is another one here. Steve lived in Australia until he was 26 and is happy to sit and reminisce, and as we go to leave insists on paying for our drinks…cheers mate :)

Limping into Pella around 3pm we are set for our first cultural Greek experience. Thank God we didn’t have to walk any extra distance to get here as there is almost nothing to see! Just a couple of columns and some old rocks…we are not impressed :)

It takes us two minutes to have a look and take some photos, before heading into the new town. We find our internet and after a big meal it’s suddenly 8pm. Walking a kilometer down the road we find another empty building and call it a night.