We headed south from Kavala, aiming to stop at Platamon, on the narrow strip of coast between Mount Olympus and the sea.  However the journey was quicker than expected and that same narrow strip of coast was shared by a motorway and a railway line, so we decided to continue south towards Volos.  This meant going inland at first, through the beautiful Vale of Tempe, the narrow gorge between mounts Olympus and Ossa, then across the Larissa Plain.
Volos is a large city situated at the head of the Pagasitikos Gulf, a huge inlet of the Aegean which is almost landlocked, making for calm warm waters.  The arm of Thessaly which creates this is most picturesque, consisting as it does of a chain of mountains peaking at Mount Pelion, mythical home of the Centaurs and summer resort of the Greek Gods.  Volos was in ancient times known as Iolkos, the port from which Jason set sail with the Argonauts to find the Golden Fleece.  It is still a major port, the third largest in Greece, and it is a nightmare to drive through, even without a caravan!
 
South of Volos, 15 miles along the Pelion peninsula, we found Camping Hellas, a delightful site in an olive grove right on the beach, based round a lovely taverna.  Sadly, being end of season, the taverna was closed, but the bar was still open and wi-fi was available, which gave us a chance to update the last two blogs.  There were about a dozen other campers, all German.  The Pelion peninsular is yet another lovely area of Greece that rarely appears in our holiday brochures but is well-known to the Germans.

The spot was idyllic but for two things:  camping in an olive grove provides great shade from the heat of the sun, but in wind and rain the sound of hard olives falling on to a caravan roof is a tad disturbing.  Secondly, being a seasonal Greek site not much attention had been paid to drainage, as during the long hot dry summer it is not needed.  However the previous week's stormy weather and  heavy rain on our first night showed up the inadequacies of the drainage!    During our travels we have been very lucky with the weather, particularly when we hear of what is happening back home, but when we have had rain we have certainly had it in one of its extreme manifestations.  That night in came down in sheets, and the roar of thunder was continuous as it echoed round the mountains behind us.  At the peak of the storm we had a lightning flash right above us, with a crack of thunder that sounded like a huge explosion.  Given the Greek air force activity during the day we wondered if we were being used for target practice. We emerged next morning to a wet muddy site, with one motor home surrounded by sandbags and another where the occupants had had to dig a ditch around it to prevent them being flooded! Our awning was under water, but fortunately nothing was damaged, it soon dried out and for the rest of our stay the weather was hot and sunny.

 
We didn't feel like doing a lot of driving, particularly along Greek mountain roads with Greek lunatic drivers, but the second morning we had to visit a supermarket, so took the opportunity to go up above Volos to Portaria, a charming village full of springs and traditional Peliot buildings.  From here the views over Volos were superb.

On Friday morning a call to the Alexandroupoli camp site revealed that our replacement mover motor had finally arrived, so we set off straight after lunch for the long drive back to Alexandroupoli, arriving there at 8pm.  We checked into a small hotel and went into town for a delicious fish meal.  Saturday morning we went to the site to be told that there was no parcel.  I erupted, as only I can.  Eventually another member of staff produced a key to the office and there it was.  What a relief.

On Sunday we decided to go for a trip on the Pelion Mountain railway, a narrow gauge steam train that winds its way up from Kato Lehonia to Milies. Disappointingly the steam train is replaced by a diesel out of the main season. Our disappointment was soon forgotten though when we saw the views from the train. Taking an hour and a half to do a trip of about 35 miles, it is not exactly an express, but when one sees the engineering that has gone into taking the track round each valley head, round each headland, climbing steadily all the time, pace does not matter at all.

At the head of the line is Milies, a lovely little village dominated by a central square with an excellent taverna for lunch. Lesley had roast goat (I kid you not), while I stuck more conservatively to lumps of pork in grease. Both were delicious. At the edge of the square was a super little church. It looked just like a barn or a village hall, disguised during the Turkish occupation, as so many churches were.  Inside is the lifetime's work of a monk from Mount Athos, who dedicated himself to painting the walls and ceiling. In order to prevent sound escaping to the outside world there is a complicated system of empty wine jars in the roof and wells under the floor. When the building was slightly damaged by a quake a few years ago the Greek government, in assisting with its restoration, discovered that these wells and jars left the inside of the building acoustically perfect, the wine jars acting as tweeters and the wells as woofers, the most acoustically perfect building in Greece or even in Europe. (Well that is the tale of the caretaker. It is perfect or it is not, it cannot be more perfect!).