Kirstin & Vincent

What a great week with the “boys”.
The whole week it was too windy to sail… but perfect wind to kitesurf.
We slept directly at the waterfront- we were very welcome to stay next to the windsurf club nissakia, using their facilities and filling up our watertank.

The wind starting at around 11 o’clock and we are leaving the water after the sunset. So great to be on the water with 4 of us…

Pita Gyros and playing cards in the evening.
Kris will be 20 years old next Sunday. We already baked a cake and celebrated a bit – it will be his first birthday where we are not around…… 😒

Nick left to Capetown/South Africa last night and Kris this morning back to the Netherlands.
Thankful for this quality time, sad that they left and curious about our following route.

Strong storm-alert last night and the first rain at least for us since a couple of weeks. But it seems to stay dry the rest of the day.
We decide to do some culture and hitting toward Athene to finally visit the city and the famous Acropolis. We were waiting until we are complete with Kris to put this on our day program.
The temple of Poseidon in Soedion is again on our way from Anavissos to Athene city and while Vincent and Nick staying in a cafeteria Kris snd me looking at these old ruines (4th century BC).

Driving and finding a parking space in Athene is not this easy but Vincent is navigating the Mog great in these small roads.
We didn’t know but the first week of the winter season (from 1st november) the entrance is for free. It’s Sunday and there are not so many tourist busses and people around.
Cool to visit and walk and read some of Greece culture and history – if we believe in or not.

Finishing the day in Plaka, the oldest and authentic district of Athene. A lot of little cafes and restaurants and touristic souvenir shops.
Enough of a city-day-trip. We’ll drive back to the sea… it suppose to get sunny and windy again the next days.

We checked the wind forecast for the next days and it said: a lot of wind at the east coast. Now we have to find a kite spot not to far from here. An local surfer from Athene named us Elafonisos, a beautiful very small island all in the east/south of the Peloponnese. Anyways great to visit but also one of the best kite spots to be the next couple windy days.
We have to take the fairy from Neapoli only around 2 km and arriving on this little pear in Elafonisos, the only small village on this island. A few houses, white-blue, fisher boats and a white little chuch, some bars and restaurants – most of them are already closed. Like a goast town – you don’t see anybody on the street, no cars, nobody on the beach. It’s really end of season!

The beaches are amazing….. sunny summer warm (27 degrees) and wind, 5-6 bft… Three days long! Perfect to kitesurf. And the whole island for us!

While we are still trying to get better kite control and handle the wind gusts, Nick is playing easily on the water with his board. Sometimes we practice self rescue or he has to pick us up somewhere downwind or save our board. Cool to have our private kite instructor! What a great quality-time together!

Today no wind…. We stay another half day on this beautiful lonely beach, taking some shots with the drone from the air (and didn’t adjust the colour of the pictures!!!) and taking the fairy to leave this great island in the early afternoon.

After this adventurous way to the launch/top next to a little church we decide to leave the car up there and fly down. Nick wants to watch the start and takes the bike to see us at the beach for the landing.
No thermic in the air but great to fly over the olive fields of Kalamata and to land on the long beach Paralia Kalamáta.

The way down was already excited for Nick but Vincent decides to get up with the bike again to get the truck. It takes him the whole afternoon, climbing and walking pushing the bike up the steep 13 km with a temperature of 27 degrees. Bad idea while Nick and me relaxing/ swimming at the beach.

Artemida is one of the windsurf and kite spots in Greece. And we are really lucky. It is like Nick brought some wind. And how great is it to be on the water with him. High jumps, loops and so easy and cool board control- he improved so much in these last three months daily kiteboarding. We learned a lot from him the last days and had great fun surfing together or just watching him….

Happy to have him now almost three weeks around.

Koos and Vincent hoped to fix the dynamo problem with the help of some guys from a garage. So we are finally leaving to Lefkada in the afternoon. Instead of rain we get blue sky and clear blue-green water…. Great island….

We want to stay a couple of days on Lefkada as holiday. Lefkada is great to fly with landings on the beach. On the other side it is one of the surf-and kite spots of Greece. We hope to get both. A local pilot advised us a place at Kathisma Beach and he is already waiting for us. Parking the car at the beachside, taking our gliders and getting a first impression how beautiful Lefkada is from out the air while souring along the ridge. Landing beer, bbq and sunset – what else…. Today we had a relaxing day, the men where working on the dynamo problem again (hopefully it’s solved now), and getting a short evening flight….

So many impressions every day being on the road. We were looking forward to a couple days of vacation. And yes: we had some relaxed days in Lefkada. It’s the only island in Greece you can reach via a floating pontoon bridge. What a beautiful island. Blue sky, blue horizon and extreem blue, turquoise water….
Great to discover the little white pebble beaches and harbors. We stayed the nights at Kathisma beach, where usually camping is not allowed. Out of season it’s no problem and we meet some other campers and their stories.
Only the circumstances for flying a long distance wasn’t ideal and for kiting wasn’t enough wind.

Waking up between cows and a stunning view over Ioannina. We slept at the paraglider launch up on 1400 m. During the night some hunters crossed the field. They are hunting for bears, pinqs and rabbits at this season. They told us not to leave food outside because of the bears. We would love to see one today around the Vicos Gorges.

The little roads down there are exhausting to drive…. It’s a National Park with tree’s… trees everywhere. Until you get a view …. Amazing.
We also found some of the old bridges with semi-circuit arches – parts of this Unesco heritage area around Zagori. Our little friend Lena (5) named them camel-bridge and I know now why 😊.

The temperature in this season is still around 28 degrees during sunny days. As usual we try to avoid the tourist attraction view points so we decide to catch a view on the Vicos Gorges from out Viradeto after a little walk. The Vicos Gorges is one of the deepest in Europe. The wide and deep space between the rock walls reminds more on a canyon in USA than in the North of Greece.
We stayed awhile just enjoying this calmness and view. It would be great to fly over it but this is not allowed…
But if we hurry up there is still time for a sunset fly from the place around Ioannina, where we flew the day before. Why not! Wind and weather and sunset is perfect.
After a landing beer with some very nice local pilots we could stay at the the landing field between sheep’s for the night.

Sarandë is a vacation and tourist center at the southern coast of Albanian. We stop there for lunch and were surprised about all these chique hotels, clean beaches and fancy clubs. Compared to other National Parks we crossed the Butrint NationalPark is not this special. We had to take a little cable ferry (gps (39.7437514, 20.0189166), weight allowance was 10t and the Unimog is 11t 😬. After a short trip through and around the lake we found a nice little spot for the night.

Berat, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008, is one of the main cultural centers of Albania. The unique style of architecture influenced from several civilizations over centuries makes this city so special.

Usually a lot of tourists are walking around in all these small streets. After the main season a lot of restaurant’s and shops are closing and the streets are getting cleaned and renovated.

We had a really a nice stop in Berat – worth to visit.