Driving Through the Mountains

Hi everyone. I hope you had or are having a lovely weekend.

I also hope no one is totally sick of my Greece photos yet. 😏

     One thing I loved about my trip to Greece was driving around and experiencing so many different 'things."  I'm not finished sharing photos from our visit to the Trikala area, and I will get back to that. However, when we left Trikala we  were driving west and had some mountains to cross before we reached the Ionian Sea.

      Here's a through-the-windshield view as we headed out. And FYI, there weren't always places to stop for photos on this day's drive, so there are photos that may not be perfect set ups or have bug splats from the wind shield. But those windshield photos still tell the story.

    We were looking for a bridge with 2 waterfalls, but before we found that, we came to this cool arched bridge called the Stone Arch Bridge of Pyli. According to what I read, this bridge was built in the 1500's and at one time was the only way to travel  to or from the village of Pyli and other villages in the area.

After we stopped and checked this bridge out, we drove on further, and not for the first time, missed where we wanted to go. However, we found some beautiful scenery when we went off the beaten path.

The  road just got narrower and narrower. That was our clue we missed the second bridge with the waterfalls. Here's a couple more through the windshield views as we were trying to figure  out where we were.

We also drove by one of the many road washouts we would pass that day. It must have been a tough winter with big spring snow melt.

Once we realized we were going the wrong way, we turned around and found the  arched bridge with the waterfalls that we wanted to visit. 

This bridge is the Stone Arch Bridge of Palaiokarya. I had a hard time finding info about this bridge, but I did find out that the waterfalls are man-made to go with this bridge. This is a really pretty view though, and I'm glad we found it.

   After we left this bridge we had a couple of choices of how to reach the ferry for Corfu (in case you don't know, Corfu is an island), but we chose to head along one of the roads through the mountains. We stopped to eat not too much further down the road, and here's the view from inside the restaurant and in the parking lot.

As we drove further along the road, the mountains got even higher and became snow capped. The road also wound back and forth and was one of the longest stretches of curvy roads I've even been on. It took us around 3 hours  to get across the mountains, and even though my photos aren't very amazing, the views certainly were. 

We passed more road washouts and places where stones had fallen or rolled down into the road.

We also passed a few monasteries. I'm not sure if either of these were still in use or not, but the second one looks like it most likely was.

We passed through one area where the trees were covered in lichen. I've never seen so much lichen.

Occasionally we'd pass a village along the way. That explains the electric wires in so many of the photos.

And did I mention the road was curvy?

We also found the village where my friend's grandparents came from, but I'll save those photos for another post.

     At one spot along the way, we actually came to where there was some snow on the sides of the road. Luckily we didn't hit any snow on the road.    You can also see that it was getting dark.

     This was quite the driving adventure, and definitely one of the many highlights from my trip. By this point in the day we were ready to drive the rest of the distance along a highway to catch our ferry for Corfu. 

Have a great start to the new week.