For photos see previous post.
I suppose Saturday was something like the archetypal winter’s day in northern Greece – cool and sunny. This was a great improvement on the middle of the week when it rained steadily for several days and I had a mood to match. I came out of a deep trough on Thursday morning to the extent that my retired doctor student said I looked 10 years younger than I had on Tuesday.
After teaching a couple of lesson in Pefka, I drove further uphill to the edge of town, parked and started walking. The mountains and hills here are covered either by open pine forest or a sort of holly-like shrub. This area falls into the latter category so generally have a wide vista in many directions. The view to the West was of the valley in which Pefka lies and down to the northern part of Thessaloniki, to the south you see the rising ridge of mountains which lead down to Chalkidiki. The highest is over 1200m and has a radar station on its summit. There was no snow on any of these peaks but it could be seen in the distance on the higher ranges to the north and south. Planning regulations seem fairly relaxed in this area as you come across houses and residential developments plonked in the middle of the upland. In some cases this mars the scenery from below, for example from Pefka a collection of large box-shaped blocks of flats can be seen breaking the green line of the ridge as you look uphill. There is a church too, which would be fine by itself, but the other buildings seem entirely out of place. The unfortunate habit of fly dumping is noticeable along the side of the tracks nearer to town, so it was good to put some distance between myself and the maze of streets below. Off the beaten track all sorts of interesting and unusual things were noticeable. On the next ridge there is what looks like some sort of military installation. I stopped for a snack at the top of the hill I had chosen to scale and found a little rock at the top of the south-west face which has been quarried out. The valley below has various industrial complexes some in a state of disuse.
The more distant views were evocative – to the southwest the green path to the three fingers of Chalkikidi, the first two with their wonderful beaches, and the third being the Holy Mountain – Athos. To the south I could see the Aegean and to the south-west that part of it know as the Thermaic Gulf. The ideal commercial situation of Thessaloniki was illustrated, as it is every day, by the presence of an enormous ship moored in the harbour. As I looked West over the north of the city and the industrial hinterland, I saw beyond the enormous refinery buildings to the time of Philip II and Alexander when this area must have been criss-crossed by armies, merchants and delegations of state, culture and science, as the hub of the Macedonian empire.
I chose to go back down across country rather than take the track on which I had come, as the low shrubs and gentle rocky slopes were quite easy to negotiate. However, I began to question the wisdom of my decision as the rocks became steeper and the thorny vegetation higher. At one point there were interesting rock formations with holes in . I came across a sort of concrete bunker type construction, which at first I though was a disused gun emplacement, but closer examination revealed that there was no point of entry only the narrow aperture which I thought had been for the gun. There was in fact a plastic pipe running into this, and as I went closer I could feel warmer air coming out and peering in I could see that it was the top of some shaft – maybe a well.
My doubts about my choice of route were confirmed when I emerged from the bushes to the top of a cliff overlooking a small valley where various rubbish had been dumped and a man was clambering about scavenging among the broken tiles. Rather than go all the way up the hill again I made my way gingerly along the top of the cliff and found a negotiable route down which involved scrambling over shale and picking the best route through the junk. The waste recycler didn’t look up once.
Another strange thing I came across was an area of grass about the shape and size of a football pitch surrounded by an extremely secure fence to keep people out (outward inclining barbed wired camber at top) and adjoined by an unfinished service building. See photo. Any ideas what it could be?
As I came back to the edge of Pefka I noticed a disused furnace, which reminded me of the sort of thing you can see in the Black Country. Pefka itself, especially this upper part seems a nice place to live with nice views and lots of fresh air, but I would certainly avoid the houses in the vicinity of the high tension wires suspended from great pylons cutting right into the residential area.
I suppose Saturday was something like the archetypal winter’s day in northern Greece – cool and sunny. This was a great improvement on the middle of the week when it rained steadily for several days and I had a mood to match. I came out of a deep trough on Thursday morning to the extent that my retired doctor student said I looked 10 years younger than I had on Tuesday.
After teaching a couple of lesson in Pefka, I drove further uphill to the edge of town, parked and started walking. The mountains and hills here are covered either by open pine forest or a sort of holly-like shrub. This area falls into the latter category so generally have a wide vista in many directions. The view to the West was of the valley in which Pefka lies and down to the northern part of Thessaloniki, to the south you see the rising ridge of mountains which lead down to Chalkidiki. The highest is over 1200m and has a radar station on its summit. There was no snow on any of these peaks but it could be seen in the distance on the higher ranges to the north and south. Planning regulations seem fairly relaxed in this area as you come across houses and residential developments plonked in the middle of the upland. In some cases this mars the scenery from below, for example from Pefka a collection of large box-shaped blocks of flats can be seen breaking the green line of the ridge as you look uphill. There is a church too, which would be fine by itself, but the other buildings seem entirely out of place. The unfortunate habit of fly dumping is noticeable along the side of the tracks nearer to town, so it was good to put some distance between myself and the maze of streets below. Off the beaten track all sorts of interesting and unusual things were noticeable. On the next ridge there is what looks like some sort of military installation. I stopped for a snack at the top of the hill I had chosen to scale and found a little rock at the top of the south-west face which has been quarried out. The valley below has various industrial complexes some in a state of disuse.
The more distant views were evocative – to the southwest the green path to the three fingers of Chalkikidi, the first two with their wonderful beaches, and the third being the Holy Mountain – Athos. To the south I could see the Aegean and to the south-west that part of it know as the Thermaic Gulf. The ideal commercial situation of Thessaloniki was illustrated, as it is every day, by the presence of an enormous ship moored in the harbour. As I looked West over the north of the city and the industrial hinterland, I saw beyond the enormous refinery buildings to the time of Philip II and Alexander when this area must have been criss-crossed by armies, merchants and delegations of state, culture and science, as the hub of the Macedonian empire.
I chose to go back down across country rather than take the track on which I had come, as the low shrubs and gentle rocky slopes were quite easy to negotiate. However, I began to question the wisdom of my decision as the rocks became steeper and the thorny vegetation higher. At one point there were interesting rock formations with holes in . I came across a sort of concrete bunker type construction, which at first I though was a disused gun emplacement, but closer examination revealed that there was no point of entry only the narrow aperture which I thought had been for the gun. There was in fact a plastic pipe running into this, and as I went closer I could feel warmer air coming out and peering in I could see that it was the top of some shaft – maybe a well.
My doubts about my choice of route were confirmed when I emerged from the bushes to the top of a cliff overlooking a small valley where various rubbish had been dumped and a man was clambering about scavenging among the broken tiles. Rather than go all the way up the hill again I made my way gingerly along the top of the cliff and found a negotiable route down which involved scrambling over shale and picking the best route through the junk. The waste recycler didn’t look up once.
Another strange thing I came across was an area of grass about the shape and size of a football pitch surrounded by an extremely secure fence to keep people out (outward inclining barbed wired camber at top) and adjoined by an unfinished service building. See photo. Any ideas what it could be?
As I came back to the edge of Pefka I noticed a disused furnace, which reminded me of the sort of thing you can see in the Black Country. Pefka itself, especially this upper part seems a nice place to live with nice views and lots of fresh air, but I would certainly avoid the houses in the vicinity of the high tension wires suspended from great pylons cutting right into the residential area.
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