Yassas!! and Kalo Pachka (Happy Easter) It Greek Orthodox Easter here which is on par with our Christmas so all buzzing. I\'ll back track a bit \'cos we\'ve been covering a lot of miles. We had a VERU early start on weds 19th to get the 6:30 am (!) bus to Kalamata. Sat in the villagesqaure in the dark watching the place slowly creep into life. Still very warm even at this time of day. The bus rolls in on time and we head off, all the streets in the villages are far too narrow for these newer busses so its a real battle with an inch at most to spare at each corner. Arrived in Kalamata & hiked across to the railway station for our epic journey North. We met a well travelled Italian at the station and had a long chat about our travels now & past & swapped some good info. The journey from Kalamata to Patras took us up the West side of mainland Greece following the coast much of the way through stunning scenery. Greek trains are great, comfy & personal. Each train has a permanant cleaner scrubbing windows doors & floor all the time (could this work in UK? Train to London was filthy!!) As we have done many times on this trip we changed plans whilst on the move, we sussed that the train looped right round to Corinth in the East so would pass through Diaofto and we had planned to see the amazing gorge there (but thought we couldn't fit it in) so spoke to the conductor & he said no probds...he didn't even charge us the extra 7euros. Next to us were an elderly couple loaded with bags for Easter who were in a bit of a panic about getting all their stuff off the train at their stop so in my dodgy Greek I said I'd help them off & take their bags off for the. The old dear gave us a pack of Halls mentholyptas (Lorraines coughing must have hit a spot!). Just before the station the old boy prodded Mark in the back to get up & ready ther piles of bags! It was a job but with Mark, the conductor, the platform chap et al we gat them off, wished them 'Kalo Pasca' and carried on to Diakofta. We had planned to stay in Diakofta and get the train up the Vourakis Gorge the next day but as we arrived at 3pm the rack & pinion train was just about to set off from the next platform so we grabbed tickets , only just! behind indecisive Germans at ticket office, but this is Greece & the train driver saw us waiting & held the train! The trip up the Vourakis Gorge is a far greater experience than anything we've read about this or can describe here. Just breath-taking....... This train climbs 2000 plus feet up the side of a steep geoge switching from side to side top gain a foot hold over the torrents of snowmelt below. At times when looking down from the carriage window you look vertically to the bottom of the ravine hundreds of feet down, at the same time you look up and can't see the top of the cliff above! The view from the front is like a Disneyland Roller coaster, except that this isn't a safely cocooned "made-for-tourists-runaway-train" ride, this is real, Greek and perched on two narrow rails! We arrive an hour so later at Kalivrita which is Greeces premier (in fact only) ski resort. This is like Wengen in Switzerland (Except that even up here its warm) the snow line is above us, skiing ended a month back. The church here maks the massacre of 1500 men and boys by the Germans in WW2 as a reprisdal for Greek resistance. The town clock is frozen at 2:23pm. We take the next train down for a re-run (downhill) of the previous spectacle. El Rodente gets to ride with the driver! Before we left we checked with the ticket clerk/conductor to see if we could get back to Patras, but he sys that there are no more trains. No prob, we'll either check out buses or stay in Diakofta. After another hours hair raising dive down the mountain we arrive at diakofta. I ask the guy in the ticket office if theres a bus into Patras, he says no, but there is a train in 5 minutes!! (Mr "No-train-to-Patras" is sitting next to him, drawing deeply an his cigarette and looking sheepishly in every direction but Marks!) this happens a lot, we get a second opinion every travel move these days! So we jump the train & arrive back in Patras. Ok Andio all, Will add the next installment shortly el Rodente