The ride to Epidavros

I left the hotel about 8:30 a.m. yesterday and followed the GPS instructions to get to Epidavros theater and archaeological site. It was a steady climb through lots of olive orchards. It wasn’t a particularly attractive area. Lots of farmers were out pruning trees and the smell of wood fires was in the air. That was rather pleasant. At one point I took a break to strip off some of my layers. I took off my head band, stuck it in the pocket of my jacket and thought to myself, “Don’t lose it out of your pocket.” I lost it. I should have immediately put it in my backpack but was too lazy to take it off and put it one again. I’ll never learn.
I did a lot of pushing because it was a long climb. When I got to the little town right before Epidavros, I saw a big sign that said “Donuts” so I stopped for a cappuccino and a donut filled with chocolate cream. I couldn’t even finish it, it was so much! I took off again and finally got to The ancient theater. I chained the bike at the ticket office and went on in. It’s a gigantic site, but I just mainly hung out at the theater in the sun. There might have been 50-100 people walking up and down the stairs or just sunning themselves. Because the acoustics are so good, one little boy stood in the center of the stage and timidly sang a song. All the tourists applauded and then a little girl did the same thing. Everyone applauded.  So a young man stood in the center and started singing the French national anthem in a normal singing voice. All of a sudden, TWEET, TWEET! Some guard his blowing his whistle! Then he tells the French guy he’s not allowed to sing! We all just sat there with our mouths opened. And we REALLY applauded him. Later when I went into the museum , I asked the lady why singing in the theater was forbidden. She told me it was only meant for comedy and drama, not music. My god, it’s not like it was Beyoncé with a laser show. It was one guy singing his national anthem. That really weirded me out.
After the museum, I went back and got the bike and started back to Nafplio. I decided to take the alternate route which took me along the coast. First there was a nice long downhill before I had to turn off. This route was also pretty uninteresting. There was not much along the way except gravel pits. I did hear goat bells, but couldn’t see the goats. And it wasn’t all downhill either. I had a couple more tough climbs. But the final decent down to the bay way breathtakingly beautiful. That alone made it worth the trip.
When I finally got back into Nafplio after almost 50 miles, I took a nice hot shower before I went out for kebabs. I’m trying a variety of foods. I thing my favorite so far has been the calamari.