Κορώνη (Koroni): Part 1

Κορώνη was called by the Venetians as Corone and the Ottomans in their times. In greek this means flower garlands, and it looks like it doesn't mean "crown" in italian (corona). Anyway, and despite the true meaning, for me it means Greece.

We (me, Jeronimo, Ece and Laszlo) took a local/regional bus. Fortunately we entered in the first stop, so I expect the other people who stayed stand just enjoyed the sardine experience. Unlike in Portugal we enter the bus without paying and we start the trip right away. A few stops after a man starts to collect the payments. At least they know the numbers in English and are smart enough to understand I wanted to pay 2 tickets, one for my friend too. Of course I could have said "Ghia Koroni parakaló. Mu ké tu" (this is the sound of the thing, i dont want to risk transliterations...eheh). Probably he would understand I suppose... Anyway we met an old man in the bus who is living in South Africa after working there many years. Very nice person and he even gave us a bus schedule with all the links and times from Kalamata!

Then, after 1h45m we finally reached destiny. I really am no good....for a bus driver! The streets looked sooo narrow when we are inside the bus! And the balconies on the houses didnt help... But he managed to go down to a plaza one street near the sea. Guess what was in the middle of it?! A church! Very good!... Now that I am here, let me count them... hmm... 1... 2... 3... 4... and a Monastery! For a city with 1668 inhabitants... Yes I think it is apropriate! I just need to tell this to the mayor of my home town so he can start to save some money to build 3 or 4 more churches. In Amares, the town, all! This is Greece.

Advancing... We started to look for the castle of course. On our way there we found a great view over a sea with waves! Yes, waves, more or less like in Portugal. Not ondulation like in Kalamata where the sea looks lazy and is just moving to say that he is there.

We then walked into the castle/fortress and we decided "right". There was a cemetery and a bird wandering above my head of which I took exactely 15 photos. Those helped me to discover (at home) that my camera's sensor had some dirt... A bit further in the walls and a good view again.

The water looks great at least! (you will know why I say this further on)

The nest thing of interest was a tower just a bit to the inside of the previous location. Lookde very at first view, it looked well preserved. We went uo the wall and we saw the tower from there. At the first view it looked that the only way to reach the tower would be to jump down to some wooden planks and then walk carefuly towards the tower... I found two balls somewhere and then I did it. Reached the tower I just found an entrance/exit that passed just below the stairs we took to go up the wall!... Saintly stupidity... I called the others (by this time we had already lost Jeronimo somewhere as usual), we found some stairs leading down in a totally dark tunnel and after a while we decided: Let's go!

To be continued...