Middle-aged flash packers

I was sad to leave Kala Nera today. The weather was beautiful and I could easily have spent some time by the pool, wandered into town, had a little walk by the beach etc,etc.

But a traveller’s life is not about putting down roots, it’s about hunting down new experiences and being a road warrior. Unfortunately.

Anyway, we hit the road by 9.30am, keen to miss the traffic.

By the time we got on the dual carriageway it became clear there was no traffic. Wonderful. 

We stopped briefly at a brand new services with not a soul in it apart from staff. It was right opposite Mount Olympus, which still had a bit of snow on it. 

We blatted on, again with hardly any traffic. Had an apocalypse happened that we knew nothing about?

The Garmin took us on another of its strange routes about 20km from Lydia, but this time I was pleased as we drove past the most majestic mountains. I think they must be the Carpathians as we are close to the Bulgarian border. They’ve just been added to the route home list.

We eventually arrived at our destination, the Anestis Studios in Lydia.

Lydia is a very small town, in fact it’s more like a village. We chose it because it was a good place to stop before hitting Turkey and also there are some Roman ruins here. What I didn’t know was it’s famous in its own right due to a lady called Lydia. She was the first woman to convert to Christianity and be baptised. She was baptised in Lydia and a baptistery has been built here in her honour.

Lydia was a cloth trader and only traded in purple cloth. 

As purple is my favourite colour, I decided we should visit the baptistery. Very nice it was too. A small memorial had been built around the river she was supposedly baptised in and the little church was gorgeous. Very simple – white marble but with vibrant stained glass windows. 

After this, we walked on to Phillipi. This was a Roman city, famous because there was a huge battle between Cassius and Brutus versus Marc Antoni and Octavius. Marc and co won, with both Cassius and Brutus killing themselves.

The ruins were ok but not fantastic. It’s not like Turkey where you can wander around the ruins, nothing is blocked off. What was nice though was the amphitheatre was being set up for some sort of theatre production – nice to see something ancient still used today. 

Forgot to mention – hardly anyone at either of these places. Is there anybody out there?

Being a one horse town, there was no where to eat nearby so, on recommendation from the lady at the studios, we went to Ano kefalari and ate at a restaurant there. 

It was a very pretty riverside village and we ate right by the side of the river. Lovely. Only one other table was occupied. 

Tomorrow- Turkey. Maybe some more signs of life there.