Johannes, Ari and I had done the bare minimum to plan a trip to Greece. This meant we had booked an Air BnB, rental car and found a location. Craig had also decided to join at the last minute finding a convoluted path from Geneva involving many train connections and a flight from Milan.
Day -1
I visited Sam in Munich and stayed the night there.
Day 0
From our respective countries Ari, Johannes and I flew to Athens. I got there first and passed the time working in the airport for a few hours. By 10:30pm we’d got our rental car and found our way North to our accommodation, especially picked to be not too far from a couple of climbing crags. We went out to a 24 hour restaurant down the road named Beat, which is apparently frequented by those that have just finished losing all their money(?) at Athens’s only casino, not far from there. As you can imagine Beat was a classy joint – no, not so much.
Day 1
We spent a nice day climbing at one of the crags nearby after a slow start and excitement learning how the Greek road rules work/don’t work. Perhaps suggestions would be a better description of them. The climbing was quite nice but a little fingery for me and it didn’t take too long before I became unmotivated. The sound of barking dogs in the small town below the crag didn’t stop while we were there. For most of them this was their only freedom aside from a small fenced area to run back and fourth in. On our way back to the accommodation, we watched as a black Mercedes sped past us in a 20km/h zone doing at least 80km/h.
We went out to a restaurant that Google kindly recommended for dinner. The waitresses were very friendly and quite surprised that we were there. Apparently no tourists ever go to this part of Athens. We wondered around killing time after our dinner until we stumbled on a shop selling ice cream and delicious sweet treats. These were consumed on a bench nearby before we traipsed back to the car and drove to Short Term Parking I at Athens airport to locate and collect one Mr Scott. Craig had had a surprisingly successful trip considering the number of connections and modes of transport. The biggest issue seemed to be the beer he’d poured through his luggage, giving his clothes and climbing harness a good wash.
Day 2
We left in time to still call it morning and drove to Leonidio, also known as something else in the Greek script that they use here. Leonidio is South West of Athens, and an approximately 3 hour drive. We strung out the drive a bit by stopping at some old Greek thingumy-jigs. Unfortunately I’m not very cultured and most of it was lost on me. There were some quite nice stones though so that was good. We arrived in Leonidio in the early evening and were given the grand tour of our Air BnB by the very friendly Greek woman. She seemed to sense our disappoint and talked positively about everything that could be talked about. Not the living room of course because there wasn’t one. Anyway, we were there to climb, not to enjoy the luxuries of home, even if our middle-aged-ness enjoys that sort of thing these days.
Day 3
We dove the few km into Leonidio from our Air BnB out near the beach. Looking very much like tourists we found our way through the small town towards the big cliffs that line the sides of the valley. There was a strange mix of locals, and climbing types both easily distinguishable. The locals tended to be riding motorbikes too quickly through the narrow streets without wearing helmets and the climbing types tended to be carrying ropes and wearing the typical sport clothing, or hanging around in small looking cafes. We followed a steep track that lead out of town and directly up to the rock walls, climbing perhaps around 200 vertical metres.
We located ourselves in the guide book and started off climbing some easy routes. I climbed with Ari, while Craig and Johannes climbed the route next to us. The rock was very nice. There were plenty of bigger handholds, which suited me well. It was also very grippy, not at all like the polished lime stone in Arco. It was very well bolted and the bolts and anchors all looked very new. We climbed at the sector named Douvari which offered a mix of routes mostly between around 5a and 6b-ish Ari and I stuck to the 5s and did a few nice climbs between 5a and 5c.
We headed back down in the afternoon and after a shower ended up at a Greek restaurant where we consumed much aubergine and olive oil – tasty.
Day 4 Easter Monday
It was a rainy day. The others went for a rainy drive to the nearby monastry and had a goat soup that was apparently more goat than soup. I did a bit of work.
Day 5
I worked in the morning then ran out to the nearby crag where the others were climbing. We did a bunch of nice routes between 5a and 5c.
Day 6
We headed back to the Douvari Sector where we first went climbing in Leonidio. We did some more nice climbs and then I ran back towards the beach to our accommodation for a work meeting and a few hours of work. We burnt ourselves some food on the BBQ in the evening. It was quite a nice feed. Craig got his fix with the average-in-many-ways beer by the same name.
Day 7
For something different we drove out to a crag on the coast road, a few minutes drive to the North of our Air BnB. We climbed at three different crags there, including one in a small canyon of sorts. My climbing motivation waned reasonably quickly and I took photos with my flying camera for a bit near the end of the day instead.
Day 8
Ari and I hired two old hard tail mountain bikes in Leonidio for the princely sum of 7EUR per bike per day. We rode up the switch back road that leads out of Leonidio up into the hills. Johannes and Craig drove ahead and started climbing. It was a windy day and I lead just one climb at the crag before losing motivation. The others climbed a bit and then I went biking with Craig further up into the hills. After 45 minutes of cycling the road stopped going up and dipped down a bit. We turned around there and rolled all the way back down to the crag, looking out to the blue sea in the distance. Ari and I rolled into town from there and it was time for dinner there. Afterwards Craig and I took the bikes for more of a spin around the town then walked back to the apartment.
In the evening we came back into town and had a look at the Orthodox Easter celebrations. There was a large slow moving procession walking down the main street. Candles in orange peels lined the streets like smaller versions of Halloween pumpkins. Every few minutes there was a large bang as some, presumably spotty faced youth, exploded a home made bomb. It seems to be somehow connected to the Easter celebrations. The police were uninterested.
Day 9
We drove back to Athens and had lunch on the coast before going for a post lunch dawdle up a hill. We dropped Craig at the airport and he began his journey towards Italy for a few days of hiking in the hills.
Day 10
Off to the airport and into a plane back to Munich.
Below: More photos.
