Exploring Parga’s Surroundings
By Helen Grubner. Filed in Uncategorized |
Friday, 8 July 2022… With the weather forecast predicting slightly cooler temperatures, partly cloudy skies and possible thunderstorms, today seemed to be the ideal day for getting out walking and visiting the Ali Pasha Castle.
The Ali Pasha Castle or Castle of Anthoussa was built by Ali Pasha, the Turkish governor of Ioannina, in 1814, above the picture perfect village of Anthoussa. Overlooking the entire bay of Parga, the walls of the Castle are still preserved and the views are impressive.
With Studios Spiros Parga located near the upper main road, it made perfect sense to head off that way this morning. Eventually arriving in Anthoussa, I enquired there as to the best route to take up the hill and chose the path over the road access.
By the time I made it to the top, it appeared that the forecast could well be correct as the skies darkened and scattered rain drops fell. Thinking it may well set in, I rushed to take whatever photos I could before making my way back down to Anthoussa, ending up at Cafe Bar Neon for another of those well earned cold beers.
Up at the Castle I had struck up a conversation with Ashley from the UK and whilst I was sitting at Cafe Bar Neon, Ashley and Lee arrived back in the village and also came for the same reason to Neon. Nikos, the very entertaining and most delightful owner of the place, made us all feel so welcome and it was such an enjoyable part of the day. Nikos’ cat “Bouncer” took a real shine to me too and the entire village had such a lovely feeling.
With plenty of time on my side, I decided to take the lower road back to Parga. So pleased that I did as the walk was spectacular… past the old watermill, giant olive trees, in fact, a sea of green. Stopped at Infinity on Valtos beach for a Greek Salad. By the time I reached my accommodation, I had clocked up around 10km for the day… many of those you could say had a moderate level of difficulty.
Saturday, 9 July 2022… Without a shadow of a doubt, today has been my quietest in 6 weeks. I’m still battling to sort out the changes to my travel plans either end of my Emirates flights home… a real pain in the proverbial.
Unfortunately, with the no buses on weekends scenario here, nothing else has turned up to get me back to Igoumenitsa tomorrow so the E55 taxi is booked. I can only do what one must do and by tomorrow evening, I should be settled into my apartment on the island of Paxos.
