This should be listed as one of the world's great scenic coastal drives

Before we left our parking spot on the basketball court, we had to wander down to the historic village of Vathia to have a look around. 

The village of Vathia dates back to the 16th century. It's such a remote area that it has never had a large population, however the population has fluctuated wildly. They say that at one point in the 1800's there may have been as many as 400 people living in the area, and even as recently as 2001 there were almost 200. 

However now, there might be 20 living in the area full time, if that. And even fewer in the actual village itself.

Unfortunately, we got there and someone else had beat us to it.

We're supposed to be getting some rain through the weekend, so we wanted to take advantage of our last really nice day to stay outside as much as possible. 

So we drove to the seaside village of Mezzapos, found somewhere amongst the narrow streets where we figured Max would be safe, and set off to do some exploring.

We are liking the scenery in this area!

So much so that we're not getting very far each day! Not that we're in a rush... although we've got a loose goal of reaching the Turkey border by the 20th, which is now only two weeks away. 

And the border crossing is 1,400 kms (868 miles) away. I know, that's only 100 kms (67 miles) per day so we've still got quite a bit of time. And as I've said before, if we have to hop on the motorway towards the end to make up some time, then that's what we'll do.

Beautiful drive south of Kalamata

We slept fine parked on the street in front of the cycling path. When we woke up, there were four other vans that had parked there, as well as three more on the other side of the small river separating the two beachfront areas.

Almost all other vans and motorhomes that we see are from Germany. We've seen a couple from France, and one from Slovenia and one from Austria. But nobody from the UK. We think that because of Brexit and the fact that the British now have to deal with Schengen visa rules, the British are staying closer to home, like Spain and Portugal.

It's illegal, but I'll go ahead and do it for you anyhow!

It's been really nice during the day, but it still gets a bit chilly most nights. So normally, we have to put the heat on for twenty minutes or half an hour when we get up just to take the chill off. 

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.

The ancient city of Messene

On the first Sunday of every month, the ancient sites of Greece are open to the public at no charge. So we took advantage of that by going to the ancient city of Messene. 

We had been parked only a few kms away, and they open at 8:30am. We didn't figure we would need to be there that early though, so first we explored a couple of nearby sites that were not part of the old city itself.

Well that was a great way to start the new year!

We had spent a quiet New Years Eve in the parking lot of the Polylimnio Waterfalls. There was one other van there, also with a Germany licence plate.

On the first day of 2022, we were on the trail by 10:00am to the waterfalls. I hadn't actually done a lot of research, other than knowing that the trail was about 3 kms (1.9 miles) long, and that there were a series of different waterfalls.

December Expenses, and 2021 Expenses Review

Well, 2021 was our most expensive year since we set out with this abnormal lifestyle in 2007. In fact, it may well have been our most expensive year ever. We spent a total of $38,665 CAD  ($30,595 USD, more or less).

But before we get into more details on the full year expenses, let's talk about December. We spent a total of $2,494 ($1,973 USD). Overall, it was a decent enough month considering we paid for Ruth's Invisalign dental treatment in full during that month.

Great meal at a rural taverna, then to Voidokilia Beach

When we left the camping spot on Thursday, the rains had pretty much gone. Looks like we are ending the old year and starting the new year with beautiful blue skies and sunshine!

The people there had told us about a taverna in a small village at the base of the mountains. Apparently it's well known to the locals, and the best place for miles around to have great traditional local food in a homelike setting at cheap prices. They said the roads were good enough for Max to get up there, the only thing we weren't sure about was finding an overnight spot. But we always figure something out!

2021... Our year in review

We started 2021 in Turkey, and we ended it in Greece. Two countries that are very close to each other. But in between the two, we did a whole lot of traveling. In fact, we were in a total of 13 different countries this year!

And of course we did all of that travel during the Covid pandemic, but it really wasn't that difficult. We did a total of 5 or 6 PCR tests (all negative) until we were able to access a vaccination shot in July and that reduced the need for the PCR tests. 

Remember the package we were waiting for?

Just thought I would give you an update, just because it's so ridiculous.

To give you some background, we were in Albania when we decided to order a motorhome water filter from Germany. Prior to ordering, the company said that it would take "6-8 days, although likely sooner than that" to ship it to Albania. Their exact words. So based on that, we ordered it on November 24th, prepared to wait around for 8 days.

The place is getting pretty busy

Once again, it was mostly overcast and we didn't see the sun all day. But we did manage to get out for a 5 km (3 mile) power walk along the beach road Tuesday morning before the showers began shortly after we returned to Max. We timed it well!

There are now five camping vehicles here. It's all young people... or at least younger than us!

Thinking about boosters, and renewed our medical Insurance

Pretty quiet day for us yesterday. It was supposed to rain all day, but by 11:00am it was still not raining, so we decided to take a chance and hop on the bikes and go to a grocery store about 6 kms (3.5 miles) away. 

6 kms uphill all the way! And with a bit of a head wind. At least it was paved. And it made for a pretty easy ride back to Max, although we sure got our exercise on the way up.

We ended up at an interesting spot!

We had a stretch of decent weather the last few days. Highs around 17C (63F) and lows around 10C (50F) which is pretty typical for this time of year in this area. Certainly not tropical, but not cold either. 

But they were calling for some steady rain Sunday night through Wednesday, so we figured we had better find somewhere to ride out the bad weather.

A Christmas feast

We woke up Christmas Day to a few raindrops, and it was mostly cloudy all day but we did manage to get out for a bit of a walk. Otherwise, it was a relaxing day and we played a few games of backgammon, cribbage, and yahtzee.

Then later on, Ruth made a fabulous Christmas dinner, and we had a good zoom call with my side of the family.