Touring my guest around South East of Athens


Fancy a bit of the joy my last guest had?

I'm more than happy to share!

We say that "you can tell a good day from the morning" and if this is true blame for the joy this far from unattractive starting point:
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Among the first attractions to visit was the oldest theater of the world @ Thoriko . I've already posted about it here . To avoid redundancy this time I will only focus on this guy that we found there:
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This cat kept following us through our whole walk around there meowing all the time and skinny as it looked I was so sorry for not thaving anything edible with me. At some point the cat climbed on my leg and I must say I can still feel those sharp nails that went through my jeans as if the latter was non existent.
Here's one more shot under this beautiful bucamviglia:
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And here's this guy in action struggling to climb up the theater with us:


Time to hike up to the top of the hill behind the theater of Thorikos despite the hot and windy day. Just in case anyone wonders why here's the answer:
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360 uninterrupted view sea included. What more can you ask for? Even though it's not even close to be considered high a stunning view like this it does make you feel like standing on top of the world.
At least yours truly did:
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I told you it was a windy day didn't I? Here's one more funny proof of that as I struggle to even use my phone:
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This group of rocks kindly offered to frame my picture:
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You can see this view at 01:16 - 02:14 of the video I will post at the end (which also has description & location of each part).

Back down at sea level I had the honour to see a series of impressive sand creations made from the kids of the local summer camp.
Here's the first one:
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Hard to capture the whole scene as it went on for many meters so here's a video where you can see the rest ones:


Time for some more hiking though with the intention to see graves from the Mycenaean period (1500B.C.) located on the top of another hill, pretty close to the previous one. I've taken my car numerous times up to the top but the gravel road gets worse every year due to steep inclination and rain washout so I leave my car at the foothill and continue walking:
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The first part as you can see above is relatively easy but later gets tough for the car.
I tried to capture some tricky parts but the pictures don't tell the whole truth:

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My car looks like a 2 pixel thing from here at the end of the road (center left):

A couple of turns before the top is the most well preserved grave.
Even if it wasn't you must stop anyway for that view:
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This 3500 years old tomb located there definitely worth the extra steps.
Here's the entrance:
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And here's some shots from the inside:
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As you can see the entrance is supported for obvious reasons. Here's one more shot from above:
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There's more to see a few meters higher at the top of this hill. Among them obviously the view:
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But there's also a whole cemetery up there. Here's a distant shot of the biggest tomb:
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That's a much smaller one:
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There's ten or so like this around, most in even worse condition than the above so let's have a look at the big guy which is the main attraction there:
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From that peak you can see the other one that I visited at the beginning of this spot:
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Those two are back to back and if you manage to see this pair from far they intriguingly look like Aphrodite's breast 🙂

Here's some more burial ruins:
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00:15 - 01:16 of the video at the end of the post was taken at the above spot.

Time to take the road back down:
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The village of Agios Konstantinos 10km away is waiting to show its ruins of the past, most of them related to the intense mineral activity during the mid-late 19th century. I am always impressed by the stories abandoned buildings like this have to "tell":
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One of them is what used to be the place where miners used to register before they enter the mines to start their shift:

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Let's have a closer look:
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You can enter this mine but we had other things to see than spend the day in the dark. 02:14 - 3:29 of the video at the end is from this place.

In the same village one can see the remains of the train bridge that served the purpose of carrying the minerals from the mountain down to the silver factory in the town of Lavrio:

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While walking around I saw one of the most absurd images of my life. I mean...a few dog houses, a smashed car and a tree stomp?
Really?!
WTF at its best...or maybe worst?


Ruins from the silver rush of that area are not over yet and we enter one more abandoned building to capture some more:
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Now look what a (local?) artist has added in this (once industrial) room:
I love this!


Time to move on and discover some more. The plan was to visit a local cave outside the village. After a nice drive in a pine forest and a bit of walk we managed to see this:
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However, the cave is now closed (I guess for safety reasons) and there's nothing more to see other than that:
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The first 15 seconds of the video at the end were recorded there.

Time to go back at sea level again for some soothing moments.
Of course others had the same idea too:
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Accidentally in the above picture I captured one of the most adorable couples ever. Look at them!
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So what could make things even better? A sunset at Sounio. Just in time before sun's goodbye:
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A walk by the sea under the blue sky peppered with purple never hurt anybody:
Look at that tiny moon above me!

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Here's a video summarising (most of) the places above:

I hope you enjoyed it and wish to see you on my next one(s)!


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