Monday, April 29, 2019

2019 Eurasia Adventure - Pylos Revisited

Somehow in all our planning we failed to realize that in Orthodox Greece not only is Easter Sunday a holiday but so is Easter Monday! And on top of that this year with Easter being so late this same week on Wednesday is May 1, May Day in the Socialist calendar or Labor Day for much of Europe.

None the less there were some sites open today and we scheduled ourselves to go back to Pylos. We'd visited her briefly last year but we did not go to the big castle that is in town.

Off we go
When we booked our arrangements we thought we were going to be 11
We couldn't get the change in numbers to the agency in time to change this trip
Plenty of room

The weather was beautiful with a clear sky that made photographing the spectacular colors of the Greek Mediterranean pop

View of Pylos


Niokastros
The New Castle
Built by the Ottoman after their naval defeat at Lepanto in the 16th century
It then went under control of the Venetians in the 17th century before returning to Ottoman control until the war for Greek independence in the 1820's

Send in the assault troops!!!!!



 

The views today from the castle were spectacular



And the spring flowers added a color element not anticipated





Church of the castle



We then went into the town of Pylos itself
On Easter Monday it seemed after all had done their grilling and cooking on Easter Sunday that they were in the town square eating and enjoying social time with coffee and drinks
But once we left the square, it was as if the town were deserted 


Family
#3 and 3.1 in contemplation
de-I, the photographic force runs strong in your family
3.2 - Grim Avenger
Seeing this, I could only think about Pripyat 
 
Never seen before
Grape vines planted on the ground floor of a building and trained to grow up until they spread out on the second floor!


We finished our day going to a near by village of Gialova
Every restaurant along the beach front was packed 
We were fortunate to get a table at the first one we came to and enjoyed celebrating a big lunch on Easter Monday like all the other townspeople