Vergina

Mr B pointed out there is a beer named after this place.  F wanted to see the royal tomb of Philip II of Macedon (father of Alexander the Great).

I had to stay in the van and guard it against stray dogs, so no commentary on the tomb.  They were away for a while and didn’t bring me any photos.  Apparently, you can read about it up here

While they were sightseeing, I nibbled on my lunch and napped.

True to form we found our way from there to our beds for tonight by a series of country lanes (courtesy of Mr Goggle).  He doesn't always get it right but that introduces some interesting diversions.

Our track took us through many miles of peach orchards, following many miles of irrigation ditches and canals. The soil there was a deep rich loam (I, the Tigger, am an expert in soil textures.) It's clear why this area is so intensely productive.

On the outside today's guesthouse looks a bit delapitated. We were met by a young man who called me cute, said he had been managing here for a month  and is working through a maintenance and repairs list that was very long when he arrived. Inside, however, the place is the best studio apartment we have stayed in on this trip (possibly ever), and it has great views over Lake Vegoritida; from two balconies. It has its own grounds, and is more or less surrounded by countryside (including dangerous bell-ringing quadrupeds, but being on the first floor and having balconies and windowsills from which to observe them, I feel quite safe). We watched a man and dog muster them off the hillside just before sunset.

Tonight there is a fingernail of moon hanging in the sky over this lake and we can see twinkling lights of a town on the other side.

Some random pics from travels 

Bottom of the garden - Theologus

Bell-ringing animals out there -Theologus

Approaching Keramoti on the ferry from Thassos

And some random tales from recent days - like the Bailey Bridge (or the Greek version of one) that we crossed in our drive round northern Thrace. You won't find many of them around these days. We didn't stop to photograph it because there was a cohort of police/military types contemplating a large truck fording the river on a track beside the bridge. We seem to have made the right decision. Further along the road we were stopped by the same police/military types (wailing siren, flashing lights!) who checked all IDs except mine, then wanted to know if we were photographing the road pointing to Mr Bs phone set up on the dashboard.  

That had us looking for secret military installations - which we found in the form of a series of corrugated iron garden sheds (a la Kiwi farm style lean-to built from recycled sheets of this versatile building material) and painted in camoflage colours by an out of work third rate graffiti artist. (No pbotographs - you never know who is looking back! And given the number of tanks, and general military presence we had seen in Thrace, we decided discretion was the better part of valour.)

Today we got stopped again by police.  This time we were going the wrong way on a one way road (we were only going 'one way' officer),  200m the wrong way, probably for the first time (that we are aware of), definitely unwittingly, and of all the cars we had to meet it had to be a police car. I really don't know them officer, I just hitched a ride (12 years ago. It's been a helluva ride.)

And today:

Vergina