The first of our 3 full days on the Pelion was a day trip over to the other side of the peninsula. We drove over to Tsagarada on the most picturesque roads, very windy with lots of mountain climbing and endless flowing corners but gorgeous autumn colours and leaves scattered aplenty. We had seen a photo Cassie had posted of her throwing autumn leaves up so on one of our stops where there were lots of leaves we tried to recreate those shots but don't think we quite managed it!! First stop was Tsagarada which is a pretty little town although we only really saw the drive through street, we stopped for a quick coffee and were lucky enough to just miss a bus load of tourists at the cafe... there was actually quite a few buses coming and going so we were quite pleased we didn't run into any of them on the skinny windy roads! One thing we did notice though was as we walked into the square there was a waiter with a tray under his arm filling a glass with water from the "spigot".. not sure what they are called but we've noticed they are everywhere and people drink straight from them so I'm assuming it comes straight from a spring? Can't get any fresher than that!! Just after there we turned off around Mouresi onto an even skinnier and windier (is that a word?) road that made it's way down to the coast, we ended up in a beautiful village called Ag, Ioannis where we had a lovely lunch then made our way back to Milies, mind you it only took us 55 minutes (with no stops) to get back as opposed to the 3 or 4 hours it had taken to drive over there! Once again Gwendols wanted time alone in her room so Deb and I headed out for a wander around the town, we did see the library that has an amazing collection of very old books but didn't actually make it inside... I do think that by this stage of our holiday we are getting weary, or lazy!! The thought of trekking up the stairs into the library was rather daunting especially after Deb and I had already done one of our "scenic route" trips, walking down into the village we saw a sign that said "Gardens of Pelion", we thought it sounded lovely and envisioned an amazing area of manicured gardens, maybe apple trees... oh I don't know exactly what we thought we'd find but we slogged up yet another cobbled stone pathway up and up until we got to a locked gate with "Gardens of Pelion" on it and we finally realised what it was we had come to see.. yes it was a Hotel/guest house/Motel.. call it what you will so as there are no U turns on this trip we continued along the pathway until we finally made our way back down to the roadway!!! Today is my 50th birthday and what a wonderful place to be to celebrate... we had dinner in a lovely restaurant, once again full of smokers though. I had maybe the best dish of the trip, baked fetta and other cheeses with peppers, basil and a hint of chilli flakes. The others really enjoyed their meals too but had serious food envy over my dish! After dinner we went across the street to a bar and had an ouzo which came with a lovely little plate of goodies, lots of olives included too.

For our second full day the plan was to head south on the west coast. The day started with an amazing breakfast, once again a huge spread which of course we had to do our best to eat cos we didn't want to offend Maria and her husband... mind you it was pretty easy to just sit relaxing on the balcony looking at the gorgeous view down to Kala Nera on the coast as we ate. With breakfast over we headed off back down towards the coast then turning left and heading on to Afissos. This is another pretty little fishing village but once again not a lot was open, we chose a place for morning tea but unfortunately I think the wrong one! I tend to dislike going to places that are crowded so chose a quieter cafe however obviously the reason it wasn't too busy is cos it has really bad coffee... the cappuccino was a nescafe cappuccino sachet, and when Gwendols asked for tea she shook her head and said "no tea I bring really good drink" which turned out to be camomile tea so was left untouched! We had also asked for some baklava but got a plate each with a half tinned peach, some yoghurt and some trifle... not exactly what we were after but nice I guess that she didn't charge us for it... or did she?? Total price was 18 EU. From here we wanted to go to Chorto via Kalamos but somehow we got turned around and ended up going back to the main road and down via Argalasti. It started when we got back in the car after coffee, you know our no U turn rule well we thought we'd just go around the block. We didn't put a destination in Jane cos we thought we'd just see where the roads were and follow them. Jane did indicate there was a road but as we went along Deb is saying "this is someones driveway, we should turn around" and GJ and I were saying "no it's a road" .. Well yes it was a road but a very narrow rough road and it got smaller and smaller and the corners got tighter and tighter to get around but we eventually made our way "around the block". At one point we were heading straight towards a wall and it looked like the road had come to an end but as we got closer we realised there was a 90 degree turn to the left, with just enough room for us to squeeze through with about a cm each side as the road not only turned but went downhill, more so on one side than the other.... I had Deb and GJ both watching out their window saying "you're right this side", it was slow going but we managed it unscathed!! Once again I'm glad we had this detour because I'm sure not many tourists have made their way down those roads much less driven them! We have found that the landscape on this side is not nearly as pretty as the mountain roads we were on yesterday.... we drove through Argalasti which we thought was a "real" town, no pretty mountain stone houses here, more practical and obviously not a tourist destination. When we got to Chorto we kind of missed the road down to the waterfront and with nowhere to park we had passed through before we realised (coming back through on our way home I worked out where we should have turned but honestly it looked more like a walkway than a road so it's no wonder we missed it) so continued on to Milina where we drove down to the beach and went for a walk on the sand... there was actually a coarse sand here, not like Vasiliki on Lefkada where the beach was all pebbles. From here we saw a road over to Platania so took that road and once again am glad we did, this is a gorgeous little fishing village and we had a lovely lunch here. I don't remember seeing any accommodation here so probably wouldn't recommend trying to stay here but it's certainly worth a day trip to. There were lots of fishing boats and I seem to remember someone on TripAdvisor saying that sometimes you can get a boat over to the islands, we didn't have time for that so didn't look into it but I would have loved to do that. On the way "home" we turned off not far after Argalasti and went via Neochori rather than backtracking on the road we'd come on. Home again we had a rest then we headed into town for dinner, we thought we'd go to the restaurant on the other side of the one we'd been to last night so we walked in and sat down... once we looked at the menu we realised this is a bar come coffee shop cafe type place but they had a menu of chocolate that you could order to eat or drink so we started our dinner with dessert and had THE most delicious hot chocolate any of us had ever tasted. GJ had coconut, Deb had mint and I had an Orange/Cinnamon, they were served with fabulous homemade biscuits... so yum! Total cost EU 12!!! From here we decided to head back to the same restaurant as last night cos Deb really wanted to try the Baked Fetta and our choices were limited. As we walked in we paused in the doorway to work out the best place to sit, given we didn't want to be surrounded by smokers, GJ was screwing up her face as the place was already quite smokey so the owner came up and ushered us to the back room and told the table of 6 men that they weren't allowed to smoke while we were there!! Awkward.... dinner was once again amazing EU40 with tip. As we stood up to leave GJ says "you can smoke now" ... I think they had all lit up by the time she finished the sentence!! Our last day and once again we were fed like kings... what a great way to start the day! Gwendoline decided she wanted a completely lazy day so Deb and I headed off to see the neighbouring villages of Vizitsa, Pintakates and Ag. Georgios... this is an easy drive, Vizitsa is about 3 minutes then Pintakates another 4 minutes and Ag Georgios not much more after that. First stop Vizitsa, a really pretty village, we had a little walk around here but didn't make it up the hill to where I think the town square is, there are quite a few signs pointing to a waterfall with hiking signs but we are getting quite weary now and it is all a bit tiring!! On to Pintakates, this I think has THE most beautiful town square I saw in the whole of our trip... of course at this time of year it was absolutely deserted but I can imagine when the tavernas are open and all the people are out it would be a fabulous place to spend some time. We did drive a bit further down to Ag. Georgios but didn't stop here, it seemed like a nice enough town but after Pintaketes we felt we needed to end on a high! A quick drive back to Milies and GJ still didn't want to go out so Deb and I made our way back to the Chocolate shop... it's called (translated) Anna has an Apple.... I ordered a nougat with dark chocolate and Deb a pistachio with white chocolate, we also ordered a chocolate biscuit which was OMG so amazing, it was really fudgy with plain biscuit pieces in it BUT we were also given some of those yummy homecooked biscuits that were just fresh out of the oven... we saw her come down the stairs with tray after tray of hot freshly baked biscuits, I'm drooling just thinking about how good everything in that shop is! Total cost was EU13 and worth every penny!! For our last meal we headed back to the place we had our first dinner, as usual it was yummy, greek salad, tzatsiki and just for something different we all ordered pasta. We had a few cats and dogs surrounding our table and of course GJ couldn't resist those gorgeous big brown eyes... Tomorrow it's off to Athens for our last few days in Greece. There's so many things I know we missed but I think we've managed to pack in so much on our road trip.

I just realised the day we walked on the beach was actually the first day, we drove down from Mouresi and turned right which brought us out at the beach in the photos, we think it was Ntamouchari. Also the photos are all out of order as they are from a few different cameras.