With only 70kms to go today…it was a relaxed start to the day.
Muesli in mugs (which Sophia had nicked from the next door restaurant…to allows us to make ourselves tea and coffee!)…and we were off down this spectacular coast.
Soon up to 200m and down again…300m and down again.
Meandered through the fantastically fertile market garden that is Leonidio, and stopped for coffee, just near where we stayed three years ago.
Before the big climb! It is unusual to see the top of an ascent…before you start. So it was a bit daunting! But actually not that big (just shy of 700m)…and at a good gradient (for the most part!).
Up and up…..
…just lovely! Sorry…a lot of these are repeat photos from 2022! But you cannot tire of them!
Or of stopping at places like this! For a well-earned Frappe…at half the price of most places!
Before the hurtle down to Fokiano….
…glorious!
And then…that extraordinary road!
We rode this last visit..and I wrote about it then. But it needs to be written about again: simply one of the silliest EU-funded projects I have ever come across. (That dickhead Nigel Farage would have a field day!)
A full 22km of ultra-high-standard two-lane road…
……carved (literally) out of the cliff-face…
…..monstrous scar on virgin marine countryside…
But here is the thing: it connects Fokiano, with a permanent population of about ten, and only accessible by that narrow, rocky, winding road pictured above….
…to Kyparissi…with a permanent population of about 200…and which is famously only accessible by one of the most terrifying roads in all of Greece.
The new road winds up and down…to over 300m…with swept corners so big that even the biggest trucks do not need to cross the centre line…but no such trucks would have a hope in hell of ever reaching either end of this road! And given the straight-line distance…it would be quicker by boat…which the local community have been using to travel between the villages for ever and a day!!
Today…we passed just two cars! Both tourists! It was completed nearly ten years ago…and so few people use it that it STILL does not register on Google maps….!!
It is a complete nonsense! Bureaucratic vandalism at its worst! I need to investigate! A job for tomorrow…!
This…by the way…is 100m after the road ends, barely three metres wide…!
And…by the way…the road out the other end..climbs up here!! In the photo. Can you find it? It is impossibly steep…narrow…and terrifying! (See photos in due course!)
So Kyparissi…certainly the jewel on this coast…remains so unspoilt. Regarded by many as the prettiest village in Greece.
Favourite of Lady Diana (she was here just before her ill-fated trip to Paris)…and many luminaries….there is actually no glitz here at all. Prices are low.
It is simply beautiful! And beautifully unspoilt!
And you can tell so many people about it without that feeling that you want to keep it to yourself….because – for most – it is simply all-but-impossible to get to!
So worth it though!
This will not be my last visit either!
The perfect family taverna for beers and food.
Wonderful day!! (…and it is getting warmer!!)
