The Walk to the Other End of the Road

We walked the other way - away from the sunset.

So what's at the other end of our road?

Well, there is a beach.  I have been to that beach before but we have stopped going onto the beach now because the carpark beside the beach (through which you access the beach) is populated by big dogs.  We counted 6 that had formed a sort of pack chasing cars and motorbikes as they tried to exit the area, and making a lot of 'dog noise'. 

F won't go down there now.  She did say she didn't think the dogs would attack a human but you couldn't say the same for a cat.  She also said that maybe they don't attack (or haven't yet attacked) humans because the humans who do go down there know how to avoid the bits the dogs regard as territory, and many probably take food for the stray dogs (like Effy feeds the cats in our cove.)

The number of dogs has gone from zero to at least 6 in the two years that we have lived near this beach.  

It isn't really a beach.  It was formed when the rubble that had been Piraeus before the second world war, was cleared and pushed into the sea around there.  It doesn't naturally have sand so the Council trucks sand in at the start of the summer.  The sand washes away over the course of the following months and reveals the underlying evidence - pieces of seaworn marble and colourful tiles that had once been somebody's floors, well sanded bricks and chunks of what we call terrazzo.

At the far end of this beach is a seawall that defines the limits of the marina (called Zeas) which is the posh end of the harbour called Pasalimani.  Despite this not being a natural beach, the sea has graded the rubble on the beach so that the smallest, gravel sized bits are at the end nearest that seawall.  That is the end where the hardy all-year-round-swimmers hang out, sunning themselves against the wall like lizards on rocks after their bone-chilling dip in the water.

Along the road between home and marina, we get views of the southern suburbs of Athens, a tennis court, a hospital, a park that is no longer open to humans (we assume its cliff-top perch became unstable, or someone stupid stood too close to an edge....), and a swimming pool bar that we have been told, and have verified on a map from 1894, is built where a thermal spring pushes warm water up to the earth's surface.

It was beside the swimming pool bar that we spotted these seats, put out to pasture, or possibly sent outside to contemplate their misbehaviour; milling around like sheep rounded up for shearing.

Tower off an early submarine as part of a display of military stuff at Marina Zeas

All this, in the evening, is on the shady side of our peninsular.  From there we walked over the hill to get home.  F walked.  I just jigged about in the back pack.  She's a bit slow on the hill sections and blames it on trying to breathe through a mask.  I notice there is a bit of gasping going on and some furtive mask removal and deep breathing when there is no one else on the street.  

I don't find the hills at all difficult - thank you for asking.  

And if you are wondering about our photos of dogs, we were standing on the roof of a house.  You can just walk onto it at street level.  The house itself has its foundations way down there on the road into the beach.