But Monday morning we were heading into the city of Kalamata (pop 70,000) to do some chores, so we got up at sunrise and drove in right away. Might as well warm up with engine heat.
There were some weird foggy looking clouds as we headed down into the valley.
It was kinda neat looking!
We stopped in the village to take this photo of the Messene ruins.
Our first stop was laundry.
I found a listing on park4night that said prices were reasonable, and service was fast. And, it wasn't a typical coin laundromat. It was more like a lavanadria in Mexico where you drop your clothes off, and they wash, dry, fold, and bag it!
We arrived there early, at about 8:15am, but the place didn't open until 9:00am. We went in shortly after that, and the girl spoke quite good English. We had our laundry bag full, plus our bed sheets and comforter cover. She said it would be ready in 2 1/2 hours, and it would cost €10 ($14.50 CAD, $11.25 USD).
Sold! Best laundry place we've found since we arrived in Europe! (GPS 37.040462, 22.08236)
We went back to Max and had breakfast and some computer time, and returned to the laundry at noon to pick everything up.
Ruth, with our bag of clean laundry!
From there, we needed to do a big grocery shop, and get one of our propane gas tanks filled. And have some lunch. But we needed groceries to have lunch! So we stopped in at a Lidl and did a big shop. As we left there, I knew there was a gas station with a propane Autogas pump, so we pulled in to do that.
The attendant spoke some English, and took one look at the tanks and said, "It's illegal". I explained that the tanks have the new automatic 80% fill stop, but he continued... "The government says it's illegal to fill those tanks..." and without giving me time to argue, he continues "... but I'll go ahead and do it for you anyhow".
Okay!
And he did. We've kind of learned that even though it's illegal in many European countries, the people in the business know that it doesn't make any sense, especially with these newer style tanks. And, they know that if they refuse you, you will just drive around to enough stations where eventually someone will do it anyhow, and they will not get the sale. So they might as well just go ahead an do it.
By now, it was getting on to 2:00pm and we still hadn't had any lunch!
And, we really did kind of want to wander around central Kalamata. It actually seems like a nice little city. So we decided to stay the night, which wasn't in our original plans. We found a nice spot on the street near the harbor by a park with a cycle/walking path overlooking the sea. It's also listed on park4night, and three other motorhomes ended up here as well. It looks pretty safe too, because there is a constant flow of walkers, cyclists, and joggers using the path right outside our door. So we will take off on the bikes ourselves this morning and do some exploring.
On to other news...
We never told you the final totals in our games competition for 2021.
We play backgammon, yahtzee, and cribbage, and keep track of our scores on an annual basis.
It turns out that I had a good year, and won all three games.
We didn't have our backgammon game with us until we returned to Canada in August, so it was a shortened season. I won 147 - 124. Ruth had actually been quite far behind, but she did better than me in December and did some catching up.
In cribbage, I won 53 - 39 which is surprising because Ruth is normally better than me at cribbage.
And in Yahtzee, it was 297 - 259 but most of Ruth's losses were in the first half of the year. She had been behind 154 - 120 half way through the season, so she actually beat me in the second half of the year. That was games won and lost, but we also keep track of total scores which I also won at 143,139 to 139,572.
Oh, and I need to tell you about that photo from yesterday at the ruins site...
What is this?
It was found in the marketplace area of the ruins site, and is a measuring table. The two cavities were used for testing the capacity of containers used by merchants who were selling dried fruits and grains.
This morning, we are riding our bikes into central Kalamata, then heading further south along the coast.
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And in Canada...
You wild rebels, you! I hope Interpol doesn't come after you.
ReplyDeleteYep, we real rebels, they better lock us up and throw away the key. lol!
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