The long drive....

It seems that the weather has taken a turn for the worse, the locals are telling me that they cannot remember so much rain ever but that's what we seem to be getting again.

Picture Mr. Cool on the lake front at Kastoria

Anyway despite this we decided that we (that is Jorgos and Mantha) would go for a ride to Kastoria which is a lake side town in northern Greece above Thessalonika in the region called Macedonia (not to be confused with FYRM (Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia)), it is literally on the border of Albania every northern turning we passed has a manned customs point so as not to let any undesirables into the country. It's beautiful countryside as you would expect up in the mountains and we duly arrived at Kastoria

Picture: tree in full bloom and a small wooden house that someone is actually living in, this is only just below the snow line in March.

Sandra and I thought that we would have a nice meal in Kastoria and then a drive around the lake after which we would set off for home, Jorgos and Mantha had different ideas. We set off for a the ski resorts up at Pisoderi near Florina and when we arrived it was packed with skiers and snow boarders all enjoying themselves on piste, mid day temperatures of around -2 degrees here. The village of Pisoderi was absolutely gridlocked with Cars buses and 4x4s all there to enjoy the winter sports.

Picture: One of the Ski slopes at Pisoderi if you zoom in on the image you'll see loads of people skiing.

We had a meal at Florina which was remarkable value for money a real belly full for four people including all drinks and a sweet for twenty seven Euros about £25. Then in another flash of inspiration Jorgos said that we would move onto Edessa. This is a place which is virtually unknown to tourists and if it wasn't for our Greek friends we would not have known about it but for anyone who happens to go to Thessaloniki for a holiday I would advise them to hire a car and go and see it.

Picture: Mantha stood under one of the falls at Edessa

There are huge waterfalls and fast running rivers which go through the town and at this time of year with the snow melt they are all running at full bore, it's really spectacular. If you do an Internet search for Edessa Greece you'll get some idea of what I mean. We had all day been driving north and east so this meant that we then had to drive back from 50 miles north of Thessaloniki and by the time we got home we had travelled more than 400 miles in the day.

Picture: Sandra on a bridge at the springs of Acheron.

Thursday, Sandra and I were fed up with the weather and decided to go to Igoumenitsa and see what the situation was with regards to Ferries for coming back to England in June. We made a good move by doing this as they have a special offer on for bookings if done by the end of this month and we booked our sailing for 8th June and our return to Greece sailing for 7th September with the car 384 Euro return trip to Venice which is a really good deal. We stopped on the way at the Springs of Acheron to see them while there was plenty of Water about they are good but not nearly as spectacular as Edesssa, but the good news was that the sun started to shine. After the ferry terminal we had a ride down the coast stopping off at a Parga for a coffee a Ligia Beach for a meal at a very good fish restaurant we know there all in glorious sunshine, a nice day out on our own for a change.