We left Dimitsana pretending to head for Olympia, the story behind which I am presuming Liane would have told in her last entry; due to her doing the "hard yakka" of sorting out and uploading photos for her blog as well as writing I am currently writing a day ahead of her so never know exactly what stories she has or will tell.....it's really kind of fun as by reading hers I get to re-live our travels and remember things I had forgotten etc.....but yes anyway, instead of going to Olympia we were actually heading north again. The initial plan was to only drive as far as Kalavryta, a couple of hours away, with a stop at the Kastria Cave of the Lakes on the way, as we had planned just a one night stay so wanted to arrive early.....The visit to the Caves was hysterical, well I found it funny and was in danger of getting a fit of the giggles though Gwendoline was positively fuming and I think Liane was rather angry about it too.....it seems our guide, and I use that term in the loosest possible manner for reasons that will soon become clear, only had two phrases of English which were "tickets" (said brusquely with out stretched hand, no greeting in either language forthcoming) and "no photo" uttered in a stern warning voice if and when we lagged behind.....which was easy to do as he was Speedy Gonzales for sure....The only others on the tour were a Greek couple and the guide spoke EXCLUSIVELY to them and totally in Greek....OK fair enough we are in Greece but seriously he didn't acknowledge us at all.....not a glance or a smile or a nod.....nothing AT ALL....We were like the naughty and annoying school kids at the back of the pack that the teacher ignores except to tell off...."no photo!"......really it was so bizarre it was definitely giggle worthy.....I also had inadvertently kept on my prescription sunglasses and had to take them off as it was of course dark but then couldn't see very well as I need spectacles for anything at any distance....so yes for me there was nothing to see as well as nothing to hear! Definitely an experience!!! From there we continued to Kalavrita which was just up the road. This was our intended stop but none of us took a shine to the place, no particular reason any of us could pinpoint, just not a nice "vibe".....maybe it's the horrific story of the massacre during WWII,
the monument of which we had stopped at on our way into the town. Though we had read of it previously somehow standing where it had actually happened was extremely confronting and upsetting. As so often is the case it is just so hard to believe the actual things that human beings are capable of doing to one another.....war indeed is a terrible, terrible thing......As we didn't want to stay there overnight we decided to continue as far as we could towards Lefkada which was to be a 2 night stop and just stop for our 1 night somewhere along the way. Liane had plotted a coastal route up to Lefkada in her mind and we had been looking forward to doing that but at Kalavrita we discovered (thanks Jane!), that if we kept to the main motorway we could actually get to Lefkada in 3 hours and then really relax and chill here for 3 whole days.... A quick discussion ensued where we all gave an opinion but as it was her "day" Liane had the final decision.....I don't think this one was that difficult though as we were all on the same page.....YES.....let's get there!!!

(L) So breakfast at 8 was another gorgeous spread with the ever hovering Aris never far away although his wife had returned from a few days away so she seemed to constantly be telling him to leave us alone... although we don't actually know if this was the case that is what we surmised from their tone of voice and the fact that as soon as she said something he immediately went to the kitchen... only to return in about 5 mins and the whole scenario would be repeated. We were all stiffling giggles and whispering for fear of him overhearing us and jumping into our conversation with maps and advice. The plan was for me to pop into the office to pay and the girls to make a getaway to the garage with the luggage. When we had checked in and gotten such a bargain price from him he had told us to please not say anything to the other couple he had staying cos they were paying more than us (obviously their bargaining skills aren't as good as ours!) so he discreetly wrote the agreed amount on some paper and pushed it across the counter to me as the said couple were still eating their breakfast. Then of course he came out and absolutely insisted on carrying 2 of our bags down, seems the girls weren't quite quick enough!! Once at the car our plan had been to programme Jane for the next leg however Aris gave us all big hugs and European kisses and stood outside the garage to wave us out!! I know I've "taken the mickey" but he was seriously a lovely man and really made our stay not only in Dimitsana but in Greece, he was the epitome of Greek hospitality and I know we won't find such a warm welcome anywhere else we go.
So onward to Olympia??? No, we really would rather head straight for Kalavryta, thank goodness it's the same road out of town or Aris would have been quite upset to watch us heading in the wrong direction!! Kastria Cave of the Lakes was something I'd discovered through reading TripAdvisor, it cost us EU 9 per person and although we were totally ignored and made to feel like something nasty the guide had on his shoe I am glad we stopped there, it is gorgeous and just amazing. The formations look like some sort of alien beings, I'll try to copy some photos from google images to include because as Deb said "No photo"!!! As it turned out GJ took some sneeky shots so can include those. Not much more to add to Debs description of Kalavryta, I got quite morose just standing at the memorial site and when we drove into town it really just didn't feel right to me. The story of Kalavryta is in the WW2 the Germans marched the entire male population over 12 years of age of the town up to the hill above the town and machine gunned them down, not one male survived.... this was in retaliation for the killing of 78 German soldiers that had been taken captive by the Greek resistance .... one of many truly tragic stories of the war. We had a wander up the street and yes, it's pretty but we decided to just have lunch and press on. Lunch was at Elatos where once again we had Greek Salad, Tzatziki and a glass of wine, we also ordered fried cheese balls and meatballs in tom sauce total bill was EU 30, we had sat down and waited but when no-one came out I popped in to check they were open, not much English spoken but I managed to ask if they were indeed open and was told yes go sit down... yes well they would come.. in Greek time.. but we didn't want a 2 hour lunch!! Eventually an older man came out and we managed to order by pointing to the menu, a young (and very handsome) man came over and tried to take over as he spoke English but was shooed away by the older man.. again not sure exactly what their conversation was but in the end the young bloke left! After lunch we wandered around town and ended up at the railway station because you have to find a loo where you can... GJ went in first and the young boys outside started laughing and carrying on, 2 seconds later Gwendols comes out saying "I think that's the mens, there's a urinal in there"... which is why we have a photo of a womens toilet sign, so we know the difference!!! So from here we had Jane plot a course to Lefkada and the rest of the trip was mainly on good roads, going over the Rio Antirrio bridge was incredible.. just look at the photos to see what a marvel of engineering this bridge is!! Toll however was EU 13.20 so I'm guessing they're still paying it off!! We arrived in Lefkada around 5 pm but Levkas, the main town, looked a bit big for us so we continued on around the coast, after about 10 mins we decided to let Jane find us a beachside village and she discovered Nidri, which coincidentally was one of the towns I had in my research notes... sooooo about 5.30 we arrived in Nidri. We parked the car to go in search of accommodation but everywhere looked shut up for the season..... didn't take us too long however to find the George G Hotel which was EU 105 per night for 2 rooms so pretty much right on our original budget. Settled in we went for a wander into town, had a drink and then found a place for dinner.... we wanted something a bit different so got pizza but .... it just wasn't pizza!! It was nice though and 2 pizzas, wine, softdrink for GJ came to EU35.