Freewheeling out of Kavala
(Kavala – Ateron – Vlore)
Freewheeling out of Kavala with no fixed destination, we were on the road early and up into cooler air for an hour or so. We took a coffee break just the far side of Thessaloniki, in a café/bar/hotel outfitted for serious nightlife, with disco lights, ultrasuede loveseats, and oversized speakers near the tiny dance floor. The kind lady who served us espresso with fat slices of homemade cake told us her sons own the place but she handles the morning trade because the boys sleep in after keeping late hours.
Arnissa looked promising on the map, on the shore of a large lake with ski resorts to the north, but proved instead to be a solid farming community without tourist services. The taverna was open, though, with several tables of men taking various refreshments on a wide, vine-shaded terrace. When we walked in the men grinned at us and hollered as one for Mina, who came from the kitchen and served us a very good tomato salad with a slab of feta cheese, some tzadziki (yogourt with chopped cucumber and herbs), and peppers stuffed with rice and meat. While we ate, a light breeze cooled us and Mina and her husband picked fresh plums, round and dusty pale green. We hated to leave such a refreshing oasis but pressed on through oppressive afternoon heat.
Minutes later we found the Ateron Suites Hotel and Spa—complete with swimming pool and enormous, air-conditioned rooms—and marveled at our luck. It seems we’d stumbled on the Sonoma Valley of Greece, a wine country destination dotted with boutique hotels and fine restaurants. We relaxed by the pool and then took dinner at a lakeside restaurant nearby.
Next morning we left Aminteo (the name of the town closest to our hotel) with two bottles of local wine. At the border with Macedonia we bought the required auto insurance and crossed into the homeland of Alexander the Great. We made directly for Lake Ohrid, a UNESCO world heritage site and home to a cluster of early Orthodox churches and the monastery of St Naum. Sadly, the town, the lake, and the monastery were overrun with tourists and Macedonian holiday-makers. The hotel at St Naum offered expensive rooms in a carnival atmosphere, and we fled after a brief stop to visit the church. With its extraordinary iconostasis and well-preserved frescoes, St Naum did not disappoint, but the rest of the scene put us right off. We drove on and took a room on the Albanian side of the lake in Pogradec (logging two borders and two new auto insurance policies in a single day), much more subdued and relaxed, without all the souvenir-hawkers and t-shirt sellers.
By now I had started to feel woozy and unwell. I felt light-headed and off-balance, feverish, and my vision had gone double, which worried me. I managed to Skype my doctor in DC (yes, she actually took my call and spoke with me!); she suggested I have my vision checked right away. So on Tuesday we climbed the Qafe Thanes (Chaf Tah-nus) mountain pass in the cool of the morning and drove into Fier, a large city on our route to the Albanian port of Vlore, where we planned to take a ferry to Brindisi. All the doctors at the American Hospital were on vacation, but the state public hospital was full of helpful doctors. With a bit of English and some Italian, we communicated with two young doctors and consulted an ophthalmologist and a neurologist. I still didn’t feel well, but we were satisfied that I would be okay to continue until we arrived in the EU health-care zone.
At Vlore we checked into a pleasant, air-conditioned hotel where we napped most of the afternoon, emerging after dusk to share a good pizza and returning to sleep the night in comfort. The next morning, Wednesday the 8th of August, we boarded a ferry bound for Brindisi.
