An interesting night at our accommodation in Sparti, with requests to the owner completely ignored ... no additional bed cover (just a sheet), no tea towel or sink plug for washing and drying dishes ... and no hot water! This one we fixed ourselves. The trip switch for the hot water had been turned off ! Oh well, not a glowing review coming up !
Good news is that there was a great coffee place just across the street, which was our second stop for the morning after going to the mini mart for some more water and oats.
We then started our road trip to Kalavryta, a projected 3 hour drive for only a distance of approx. 150 km which equates to 50km/hr average. It took all of this because it was through beautiful, winding mountainous ranges. Some interesting sights along the way included road blockages by livestock, dogs, goats, cows and sheep. To our surprise we came across groups of hunters in camoflague gear loading a dead wild boar onto the back of their trucks.
The reason we are coming to Kalavryta was for us to ride the Odontotos rack and pinion railway to Diakopto and back. The ride of 22.35km takes an hour through the Vouraikos Gorge with its massive drops, sheer cliff walls and mountains above. The Vouraikos River below was winding its way over boulders, down waterfalls and sometimes it slowed to just a trickle. It was started in 1889 and completed in 1896, having a very narrow gauge of 0.75m and it runs every day of the year regardless of the weather. The scenery varied greatly along the way with stretches of dense trees, then barren high rock surfaces or mountains sparsley scattered with trees, some of them blackened from a fire going through.
Kalavyrta is 750m above sea level and is a popular ski resort in winter, so consequently not all businesses or accommodation are open...unbeknown to us, this included the spa and leisure resort (their Facebook page states otherwise) which we had only 2 days earlier pre-booked online for tonight! Stay with me....
Using the directions link from the resort's web page, Google maps took us to the wrong location. Slowly we continued driving on a short distance along the winding road but with a bus close on our tail, we pulled off across to a clearing on the other side of the road to allow it to pass. Amazingly we came across a sign set back to our accommodation taking us down a hidden road and over a river.
We drove 4km along an extremely narrow road which was hugging a cliff with overhanging rock ledges and evidence of small rock falls scattered in front of us. Travelling already at a snail's pace the shocking road surface slowed us down even more along with the fear that a car could be coming toward us with nowhere to pull over to pass. In places the road under the guard rail was non existant.
With the road nearing an end and one last chance to do a U turn, Graeme door knocked but found no-one home anywhere to obtain directions. Retracing our drive a short distance, we found our resort but no-one was at reception to greet us at the time pre-planned. We made a call and with real time directions eventually found our room...believing that out of a possible 100 room spread out complex, we were the only ones there! Not a sole was around the vast grounds except the local cat which greeted us each time we opened the door.
The room had an alpine lodge decor, stone walls and floor, with a full size spa bath next to the bed and a big open fireplace. The fridge needed plugging in, the wifi was hopeless but there were no noisy neighbours. Tania locked the door!! After a great night's sleep, we headed back out along the same road the next morning, wondering how would we ever navigate the narrow road during high season when the resort was pumping.
Holy traffic snarls Batman. That all sounds like quite a challenging and, possibly at times, scary drive.
Elizabeth and I had similar experience at a hotel we had booked in Morcote on Lake Lugano. It was not peak season and no-one was there to greet us. We had to make a phone call to the owner who gave us directions to find and get into our room. There were a few other guests, who no doubt had similar experience.
On the bright side, you had a peaceful night’s sleep and have a fabulous story to tell with relish.
no tea towel or sink plug for washing and drying dishes … and no hot water???
A good coffee fixes everything…just ask Hyde Park Bakery 🙂