|
Travel Diary from Day 5 (Tuesday April 18th
2000):
Earlier today we drove west towards Drios
Cave in the region named Mani. Suddenly the vegetation changed. Until
now it has been bushes and small trees with lots of flowers. Now we
suddenly came to a place with very tall trees with leaves. Since it
is spring and the leaves just has become green, they are very light
in colour, like at home in the springtime. In between there are big
trees filled with lilac flowers. We don’t know what kind of trees,
but they bloom on bare branches. It makes an enormous contrast to
the green leaves on the surrounding trees. We, who thought it was
impossible to see something more spectacular than we had experienced
yesterday and earlier today in Upper Monemvasia, were once again
without words. We just had to stop and takes photos of the sight.
|
|
|
|
Travel Diary from Day 6 (Wednesday April 19th
2000):
Today hasn’t been a good
day so far. First, when we arrived to Drios Cave it was closed
because they didn’t have any electricity. We were told that they
didn’t know when they would get it back. This cave is really one
of the most magnificent in the entire Greece, maybe in the world.
Here you will be taken on a tour around the cave in a boat, as it is
situated at sea-level and partially filled with water. It is
supposed to be a fantastic experience and we decided that it was
worth a little wait, so we continued further south to the Peninsula
called Mani. There was little vegetation on the Westside compared to
the Eastside of the Island, some of the areas didn’t even have any
at all! But it increased the further South we came with amongst
other (at least 10 m) tall and pointy cypresses. The landscape here
tilts down towards the coast and on the mountain sides we found some
magnificent villages – some say that this is Greece: Toscana. It
is just unbelievable beautiful, the houses are made of natural
stones and you will often find large towers in each village. In this
area it were the towers that dominated and not the churches as in
many other Greek towns/villages.
|
|
|
|
This is a couple of typical looking villages from this area
of Peloponnesus. Unfortunately this day was a bit cloudy, so they came
out a bit dim.
Travel Diary from Day 6 (Wednesday April 19th 2000)
continues:
After a couple of hours we drove back to the cave, but just to
learn that they were still closed because of high water level - the
caves were actually flooded! This was probably the reason for the lack
of electricity earlier and because of this the boats couldn’t enter
and neither could we.
|
|
|
|
This is the area surrounding Drios Cave from where you exit the cave
after the tour.
|
|
.
|
|
A bit creepy…
Travel Diary from Day 6 (Wednesday April 19th 2000)
continues:
We were offered a quick tour around the cave on
foot at a reduced price of 1500 Drachmas compared to 3500 Drachmas,
and given that we were here we accepted the offer. The guide rushed us
through the area where the boat tour normally ends, and the guide was
in such a hurry that we almost didn’t have time to take any pictures
– we didn’t spend more than 10 minutes inside the cave but we
managed to take a couple.
|
|
|
|
Fortunately we succeeded in taking a few pictures from inside the
caves even though we missed the guided boat trip inside the caves.
|
Norsk utgave (Norwegian edition)