Week Seven

I get about 5.5 hours sleep before it's daylight and we're travelling along the Mediterranean coast through all my old friends - Monaco, Menton and so on: I'd forgotten just how mountainous Menton is - along this whole stretch of coast, the mountains come pretty much down to the sea. At Ventimiglia, the Italians outdo even the French: as well as passport control, they had sniffer dogs checking out all the passengers.
After the vast improvement in Spain, how will Italian railways shape up? Well - the timetables in Ventimiglia station are a patchworks of Tippex and biro, but the train leaves 2 minutes early (which is odd, and probably worse than leaving late): it's clean, and there are enough carriages. I share the compartment with two Americans until Genoa, and then with a gay Italian who normally lives in San Francisco, called Massimo (seriously). There's a fairly whopping 13,600 lira supplement for what is, effectively, an average train. It gets into Pisa approximately on time, and then Pisa turns horrible. For some unexplained reason, the luggage lockers are not working and left luggage is closed. I ask at Tourist Information (just round the corner from the station): the chap there agrees that it's a problem, but knows of no solution - his unspoken comment is "At least it isn't my problem." I quickly check Thomas Cook in case there's somewhere else really close which might have lockers, but there doesn't seme to be. It occurs to me that this could be a security measure of some sort (as if international terrorists would think Gosh yes, let's blow up Pisa railway station - that'll get their attention!: if it is, then it might also be in force elsewhere in Italy, in which case I might have problems in Naples tomorrow.

I decide to set off regardless, with my 20-odd kilo rucksack, to the other side of Pisa: the only really significant things in Pisa are grouped together (all three of them) in the Cathedral square. There are several other churches, and an okay piazza, but the Tourist Information man (whom I'm already thinking of as Mr. Helpful) doesn't even mention them. My route takes me past the bus station (nope - no lockers there either), and then across the river Arno beside a natty little baroque chapel, and finally the Cathedral complex - tucked in the north-west corner of the old city walls (just walls, but still standing for most of the way round).

There are four buildings here: the Cathedral (Duomo), bell-tower, captistry and the cemetary cloister (Camposanto). The Camposanto is easiest to dismiss: built after the other three, it doesn't bother competing: it's a marble-covered cloister, that's all, in southern gothic simplicity and is notable only for a certain understated style. The Duomo - well, this was Pisa's statement to the world that there was a new power in Italy (actually there wasn't, since Pisa couldn't affort a cathedral like this). It was started about the time of the Battle of Hastings (the last great Viking battle/invasion) and nothing on this scale had been built in the west since the fall of Rome 600 years earlier. This one building marked the end of the Dark Ages, invented the romanesque style (based on the Roman techniques/styles which would have been visible dotted all around the country), and changed the goalposts of what was impressive in a building. Interestingly, as a building (apart from a lean towards the front), it's not really up to what the Romans were doing in (say) 100 A.D., so there was some backwards slippage. But the ornate pseudo-Byzantine dome on top shows that the architects were at least aware that Imperial building techniques and styles had moved on some.

The (round) Baptistry is also quite interesting - it took so long to finish that the bottom half is romanesque and the top half is southern gothic with baroque detail. Both the Duomo and the Baptistry took about 300 years to finish - a good sign that Pisa didn't quite have the resources it thought it had. In fact it wasn't long after they were finally finished that (the presumably bankrupt) Pisa fell to Florence (Firenze).
The unique (for the time) marble finish probably helps explain why the buildings are all separate, unlike most contemporary cathedral complexes (especially in the north): it would have been a shame to cover up any of the detail. Those northern jobs were like el-cheapo Sanyo minisystems, whereas Pisa had just invented the concept of HiFi separates.

And lastly, of course, there's the belltower - famously leaning: sufficiently famous that the city-side of the square and several streets back are lined with souvenir shops and stalls. And, of course, even though it's a little overcast and a weekday, the place is mobbed. Everyone's manoeuvering to get the picture and angle where it seems they're holding up the tower: I'd been contemplating the same, I admit, but couldn't think of an original-enough twist to do it.
They seem to have made the tower safe now, and are in the process of cleaning it, but aren't letting people in. Also some of the bits and pieces used as temporary safeguards are still littering the area.
What can I say about the Leaning Tower of Pisa that hasn't been said before - nothing, I suspect, so two things only. Firstly, from TV and photos, you don't realise how deep it's sunk into the ground (obviously one side deeper than the other). And secondly, in the flesh (as it were), the damn thing looks as if it's about to topple: every so often you glance at it and think why the fuck isn't it falling over? That sense of imminent calamity is also missing from the second-hand experience.

In the rest of Pisa, the old main square (Piazza del Carolieri) is quite interesting, but little else is (except that you keep seeing echoes of the detail of the Cathedral in churches all around the town). Knackered after lugging my rucksack about, I stop for a gelato (strawberry and cream: fragola and crema) and do some internet stuff. Then back to the station (evil, bad station with its disappointing luggage non-facilities) for a back-tracking job up to Genoa. Except that I am overcome by a fit of incompetence instead and accidentally catch the train to Lucca (of War and Peace, and Snoopy fame): oh well, I think, and catch the next train back to Pisa. That little unexpected diversion means I now don't have enough time to double-back (there are no useful trains): I'll take the earlier (00.50) train and get into Naples at 05.30 instead. Bit of a pain, and not much sleeping time.
There are a number of interesting people hanging around Pisa station in the 3 hours that I have to spend there:

• Two boys, about 18-20, who are fascinated as I write up my journal: they stare from nearby seats and, when I look up, enthuse "Buono, Buono".
• An Asian gentleman in turban, with cropped beard and helter-skelter eyes. Just before midnight he takes to reading from a pocket book (the Koran, I assume): his lips move as he reads, and from time to time he places his hand on his heart. This is precisely the kind of traveller that probably makes Italian railways glad their lockers are closed.
• A strange old shabby man, who shuffles around talking to himself, and blows rhythmically if tunelessly into a mouthorgan. He also scribbles with great vigour (and with a cheap ballpoint pen) onto pieces of scrap cardboard - some of his pictures (he is carrying a stash) are quite good in a sort of eerie way, and he occasionally gathers an audience.

By the time the train reaches Naples (06.45), it's an hour and a quarter late: it drops me at an outlying station, but there's a regular metro service. At the Centrale station, Tourist Information doesn't open until 09.00 (the sign says 08.00, but it lies) and the lockers are all shut (yes, for security reasons). I abandon the idea of wandering about looking for a cheap Pension/Hostel, and make my way out to the Youth Hostel instead (at the back of Mergellina station), where I know I can leave my rucksack. Then back to Tourist Information to pick up maps (city and area) and then off on foot into Napoli.

Directly outside the station, the piazza Garibaldi is packed with dodgy shops, stalls, hawkers and small operators: within 5 minutes I am offered hash, mobile phones and a video camera. Through the porta Capuana, the via Tribunali cuts west through the city - narrow enough for one car only, it is packed with people and lined with tiny shops selling pretty much everything (sellotape seems to be quite a beig seller, and there's an entire street selling nothing but little figurines and landscape - kind of Blue Peter make-your-own-Nativity-Scene, though I'm not sure where some of the Saints, Political Figures or Trolls fit in). The streets in this part of town are straight, but narrow, and lined with high-sided buildings: there are pretty large churches tucked away in unexpected corners. This is the "storico" district, the old town, where the streets pretty much follow the Roman layout. Walking is definitely the way to do this place: the tourist map has zoom-in minimaps for detailed pottering, and dotted all around the area are "You Are Here" plans with area walking routes marked out.

Down towards the harbour, passing a host of posters for Hallowe'en parties (this would be good place to do it): there seems to be a pretty active nightclub scene. The temperature is up past 30 degrees by 11.30 in the morning, and I make my way down to the port (dominated by a curiously Norman castle), weaving through the very Italian traffic (most people are on bikes or scooters, and most cars have at least one broken headlight or indicator).

I don't find any open ground or place to sit around the centre, but there's plenty along the shore: further along, as I recall that the Angevin Normans were quite active in this area (so the Norman castle shouldn't really have surprised me), is the Castel dell'Ovo. It's a sprawling Italianate structure on a rocky spur out from the shore: it saw several periods of use, mainly as a prison and as a monastery (much the same thing) - half-way down (it's quite vertical) you can glimpse marble Roman columns which, I suspect, are still pretty much holding the whole thing up. It's a great place to spend the early afternoon (pretty cool in both senses), and seems to be off the tourist trail (there was hardly anyone in the place when I was there). It overlooks a little marina (Naples has dozens), lined with little cafés, bars and restaurants.

Naples sprawls around the whole bay (there's no real gap between Naples and the outlying towns), horribly ugly in most places but around every second or third corner there's a really beautiful building hidden away. The whole city is full of superb takeaway pizza, pasta and pastry places. Unfortunately the bay's too gradual to get a good picture of it from anywhere (except possibly from an approaching boat, but even then it's probably too wide), and behind it all is Vesuvius wrapped in mist (or sulphurous steam - who knows), looming dangerously but being of absolutely no apparent concern to the locals.

Naples also climbs quite steeply away from the water, at times in vertical cliffs. In addition to the various metro lines, there are four funicular railways within the city. Local transport tickets work in zones: your basic ticket is valid for Napoli proper, costs L1500 (50p) and entitles you to use the rail, bus, regional Circumvesuvio line and funicular railways within the city: the ticket is valid for 90 minutes. Zone 1, 2 and 3 tickets are more expensive but let you travel further out and give you more minutes: minutes are worked out from when the ticket is validated (there are validation machines everywhere, and your ticket is not valid if it's not stamped). A walk along the shore - there are nice gardens stretching all along a jogger-filled promenade - takes me back to the Youth Hostel.

What banal generalities can I come up with about Naples? People fish, and some swim, along the shore. It's very green after Andalucia, so the soil is probably much better - certainly it has a high sulphur content: there are drinking fountains around the city, and they're often caked in yellow - the water has quite a definite zing to it. Like Florence in the sun, it's full of Latin Lovers with their hands all over each other - they all seem about to disappear for a quick shag. I'm reminded of something Bea said in Madrid, that in Spain and Italy they spend all their time talking about sex but not doing it, and I wonder how many of these couples get past the foreplay stage. The traffic - well, "congested" is the wrong word, but I can't think of a better one: it's sort of long periods of virtual immobility, punctuated by short, furious bursts of seemingly random movement.

At the Youth Hostel I'm in a 6-bunk dorm with its own shower/WC: the only other guy there is Gary, from Dulwich, who is motorbiking around. He recommends hitting Pompei when it opens (at 09.00) to avoid the guided tours. I have a quick lie down on the bed and when I wake (yeah, well) it's over two hours later. Gary has turned into Russell (I think), an Australian, who's got here overland through Asia along pretty much the same route I'd like to take. The main variation was that he did China-Pakistan-Iran, whereas China-Nepal-India-fly is more in my thinking. It's taken him about a year and cost him less than $10,000, and he has plenty of useful tips. We go out for a pizza (here it's sampling the local cuisine, not junk food), talk about the locals (Naples is the land of beautiful people - largely because the 60% who aren't think that they are), and get back to the hostel about 23.00. Our full complement is made up by one Japanese and two Germans from Munich.
I spend a good half-hour in the shower before retiring - I reckon tomorrow I can manage two of Naples' outlying attractions: Pompei will certainly be one, since it's the main reason I'm here, but which other? Capri beckons, because that would be stylish (as would Amalfi). Climbing Vesuvius also appeals, though that would depend when I get through Pompei - I don't fancy climbing a volcano in the full midday heat. And there's Herculaneum as well, though I might be excavationed-out after Pompei.
We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Up at 07.00 for breakfast, though "breakfast" is a bit of an overstatement - your cup of warm coffee is accompanied by one roll, a little square of butter and a little tub of jam. It slots straight into worst-breakfast place, easily overtaking Cordoba. After packing, checking out and putting my stuff into the hostel's left luggage area, I set out via the metro to the piazza Garibaldi accompanied by Russell, who is also touring Pompei today. The Circumvesuvio line leaves from the piazza Garibaldi, and a Zone 2 ticket costs L3,900 (interrail isn't valid, since it's a private railway): the journey takes about half and hour to the Pompey Excavation stop (Scavi di Pompei) and we get there about 09.40. Entry costs L16,000 (å5.50) and there's a free toilet and Tourist Information (with free maps) at the entrance - there are also various stalls, with inflated prices, between the station and the entrance (200m).

We enter through the old Porta Marina, guarded by a tower in the city walls: the town was originally much closer to the sea (it's the shore that's moved, not the town). It's as you climb up past that gate that you begin to get an idea of the sheer scale of Pompei: stretching away to the left are broken Roman houses - with walls standing at about 2m high, and some original 2000 year old coloured plasterwork: they're not signed, or protected, or even accessible - they've just been left to . . . well to fall apart, I suppose. But anywhere outside Italy, that little cluster of houses would have been enough to become a major tourist attraction in its own right. Normally excavated sites comprise one or two (normally major, because they've lasted better) buildings - a theatre, or a villa, or an aqueduct: in the north of Europe, normally a fort. And there's normally less remaining than there is of these discarded, uninteresting bits. Pompei was a town of 20,000 people, and most of it survives - the scale is hard to imagine.
The free map, by the way, is excellent - it's in minute and totally accurate 3D details, even down to individual trees in the gardens.

Pompei is a compact but irregularly-shaped walled town. Apart from the gate to the port (SW), there's one to Herculaneum (NW), one (N) towards Vesuvius, one NE, one E and two leading SSE. The street plan is (naturally) pretty much a grid with a few wobbles and a few triangles to compensate for the hilly terrain. There are two main streets running WDW-ENE and one crossing them at right angles, running NNW-SSE: these three main roads pretty much link most of the gates.

The major public buildings are along the south side of the town, presumably to get the best sun and also to be close to the sea. On the way in, you're flanked by the Temples of Cenere and Apollo, and then there's the forum on the left and Civil Service administrative buildings on the right. The forum is lined with white columns and various government buildings. In Pompei all the walls pretty much survive up to the first floor (and many have upstairs walls as well), but there are none of the actual floors or roofs. With most ruined classical sites, the walls are gone/fallen down/eroded (except for the marble bits), so you have pretty much transparent vistas: here you can only see as far as the locals would have been able to see, which gives a much better sense of place and requires much less effort of the imagination.

Continuing along the main road takes us parallel with the south side of the town, and leads to the large and smaller theatres, adjacent to each other and to a large colonnaded quad - there are a couple of small temples in the same block: presumably the smaller theatre was for art-house productions (eg. Sophocles), whereas the bigger one was for the popular blockbusters (eg. Rocky I). They are hemispherical, and the entrances for both audience (top and bottom) and actors still survive, so they give an excellent idea of what going to the theatre was like.

Further along the south side, stopping to have a look in a couple of houses and a cloth-merchants (the series of pits inside are very similar to the leather factory I saw in Morocco), we eventually reach the south-east corner of Pompei. This area was zoned for agriculture (yes, they had city planning), and a large percentage of the city blocks are effectively walled farms: the site management here are growing vines, Roman-style, in most of these and seem to be having good success. They've replanted a lot of the quads and gardens as well, with species which they've found evidence of: for example, one house seems to have housed a herb and perfume business, and the gardens there are full of appropriate and authentic plants (some of which they're not having a lot of success with).

Finally, in the very south-east corner are the colonnaded palestra and the amphitheatre, both designed to fill exactly 6 city blocks and hence not disrupt the road pattern too much. The palestra is just a flat, colonnaded rectangle of grass, but the amphitheatre is effectively completely intact. The magnificent Roman people-management systems are all complete - the regular entrances and stairs; the wide tunnels; the internal corridors and toilets; the small exclusive boxes around the top - it's just like being at Hampden Park. At a guess, you could have fitted perhaps 15,000 people in here - with a local population of only 20,000 there must have been a lot of empty seats (again, like Hampden), unless the visiting team brought a lot of travelling support ("Gimme an L, gimme an I, gimme an O-N-S"). Or maybe people travelled in from outside the town for the games.

There's a mystery with the amphitheatre which worries me: in common with most I've seen, a lot of the seats are missing and now are just grassy slopes. Normally I've attributed this to locals nicking the regular slabs for their houses/city walls over the centuries (rather than, say, angry visiting fans nicking the seats). But in Pompei they shouldn't have had the chance, since it was covered by ash and there's tons of other good stone and marble still just lying around. So where did the seats go?
I have a theory (with no idea how to confirm it), that the amphitheatres started off with (eg.) wooden seats and, as the city could afford it (or as sponsors came along) they gradually replaced those with marble.

From there we wander up to the north-west (more touristy) part of town. There are plenty of open houses here, as well as the (only) site toilets, a café and restaurants (the tables are laid out amid the ruins - very stylish, but overpriced): one city block (insula) has been modified for this purpose - it used to house the old Forum Baths.

The streets here are not exactly paved, but are blocks of roughly-level stone, and on either side are raised pavements: presumably the streets themselves would have functioned as a drainage system. So as to avoid walking in the streets, there are regular pedestrian crossings - sets of three flat-topped oval slabs which work as stepping stones. Narrow ruts have been worns in the street where carts have negotiated these (all the axles presumably being higher than the pavement level.
The insulae mostly have small dwellings around the outside, looking onto the street, and between one and three larger houses which also look onto the street but open out at the back into complexes of cloisters, gardens and rooms. Some have two entrances, opening onto different streets. Most of these larger houses also have street-facing shops attached, and some of the smaller houses are effectively only shops (there are a number of taverns as well). The little shops are brilliant - they all have marble counters, inset with pottery storage jars from which the produce (whatever it was) would have been ladled, scooped or picked.

In the northwest quarter you get a better idea of just how many tour groups and individual tourists visit Pompei, but even there the site is so big that you end up exploring houses or whole insulae on your own. A fairly finite list of buildings are on the main tourist routes (about 60!), and many of the others are slowly being claimed by vegetation or simply falling into disrepair (ie. more disrepair than having a volcano erupt on them and aided, no doubt, by clambering tourists). In fact, for me, the most memorable thing will be the fact that you find yourself leaning on frescos and walking on mosaics - 2,000 year old frescos and mosaics, which would be priceless anywhere else. And here they're just left to fade and crumble in the sun, and under the feet of tourists (some of the murals appear to have been treated with something, presumably a clear fixative). It makes you wonder, if this is the stuff they left here then how good is whatever ended up in the various museums? The thought makes me consider staying another day, just to spend in museums.

On the subject of mosaic floors, they're mostly geometric patterns but at the entrance to some of their houses the Romans made dogs - sleeping, or standing, or growling dogs: sometimes with the words "cave canem" underneath. I thought it was a nice touch, somehow poignant because the only residents of Pompei now seem to be the dogs - they're wandering the streets, lying in the re-landscaped gardens, or just hanging out watching the tourists.

Another feature of Pompei is that you can see genuine Roman plumbing: pottery pipes running through the inside of walls, outflows from the houses and, in the gardens of the houses, the original lead pipes which used to work the fountains and other water features.
After about 6 or 7 hours we end up leaving as Pompei begins to close - I reckon we did about as much as anyone could in a day, and we still missed out a whole area (the necropolis complex and the Villa dei Misteri, both just outside the Herculaneum Gate). The thing is, since they're still excavating (some of the older maps on display have less showing), it would be worth coming back in a few years anyway. There are still corners in some of the currently open areas where the walls and floors just turn into unexcavated rock.
We sit outside the entrance and have a quick snack and liquid refreshment (the visit took a lot longer than either of us expected) and witness the surreal spectacle of all Pompei's dogs leaving as a group (about 12 of them) as the site closes. It's as if they're part of a tour group, or are working there. And then, finally, the train back into Naples where I get a schedule and time (23.30 with one change) for my overnight to Brindisi. We go for something proper to eat, and out search leadsd us along Napoli's main modern street - the corso Umberto I - a wide boulevard which is almost entirely lined with stylish (and quite reasonably priced) clothes shops. At the end of the street we find a little restaurant, have a couple of beers and a couple of really excellent pizzas, and then head back to the Youth Hostel.

Since we're miles from the nearest metro station, we end up taking one of the funicular railways (through the inside of the rocky hills on which Naples is built). This actually turns out to be a mistake, since our tourist maps mislead us as to the location of the nearest metro station and we end up having to make our way all the way back down again.
When we finally get there, just down the hill from the Youth Hostel there's a club of some sort and we have to weave our way through crowds of young, well-dressed Italians presumably waiting to go to a Hallowe'en do: it's enough to make you feel old and shabby - or at least, older and shabbier. On a side note, Naples and the south so far is noticeable in that the women do a much better job of retaining their fashion sense and figure after having children. I collect my rucksack and return to the station with twenty minutes to spare before my first leg to Caserta.
Pompei gets 4/10, even though it's just a ruin: Napoli gets 6/10 because it's pretty cool, the people are pretty cool, and the food is fantastic.

At Brindisi, of course, the lockers are unavailable for security reasons (do they really think Islamic terrorists are sitting around, planning their next target after the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, and deciding on Brindisi train station?), and there's no-one at Left Luggage. I walk down to the port, along with twenty or thirty similar tourists (about a quarter of the shops here are travel agents offering to sell tickets to Albania, Turkey and Greece - most of them are closed). You can't help but notice that nothing has opened yet - it turns out that it's some kind of holiday here. It also turns out, as I had suspected, that the carrier who does the free transit for interrail is not running - in fact there's only one sailing today that I get a discount on, and that leaves at 19.00 and will cost me a tenner for a deck place , more for a seat. I go for the deck option and then return to the station (all the public toilets in Brindisi are also closed), where Left Luggage is magically open. Trusting that it will be open again when I want to collect my rucksack, I leave it there for a somewhat hefty L7,500.

A wander around Brindisi reveals a few churchs, a fairly neat-looking castle (it's still a military installation so I can't get in), a small Duomo (without a dome), and the odd bit of Roman wreckage. It also reveals no open places for internet access or to develop films, both of which I'd figured I could do while waiting all day for the ferry. Apparently not. Even better, come early afternoon the 10% of shops that were open (mostly cafés and newsagents) close and the town empties - it becomes reminiscent of Pompei. There are no people, no sounds of vehicles: even the water in the main fountain is turned off. There's a café near the station which is still open, so I have some pizza, pastry and a Heineken while I wait - I have no idea what happened to the other tourists.
Somewhat surreally, there are also uniformed sailors wandering around in groups looking for something to do - they are presumably off-duty from the military base (there are four naval ships docked).
Trying to imagine what it would be like if it was open bumps Brindisi up to 2/10.

Eventually I collect my rucksack (yes, Left Luggage was manned - by a sleeping spherical Italian) and go down to the main port. There are free minibuses laid on by the port to transfer people around the terminals, which is just as well because our ferry leaves from miles away. We pass the cemetary on our little trip round town, and it is packed and lined with stalls selling flowers. This is clearly where everyone went to, and the holiday is revealed as a Day of the Dead thing, which seems a bit pagan to someone with my protestant upbringing. A Swedish woman I met in town tells me all about it: apparently they have it in Sweden as well, but it still seems an odd thing to happen in a modern European country.
And then we get our boarding passes and . . . well, board. It's a pretty big boat, the first I've ever seen with escalators up from the car deck, but is mostly empty. I chat to a couple of Aussies from Melbourne for a while, and we explore the ship.
Even though I only have a deck ticket, all the reclining seats are unoccupied (there's a little area of 110 seats, like a slice of an aircraft). The crew only seem to distinguish between cabin and non-cabin tickets, so they seem surprised that we would even consider not using the seats. I'm asleep long before the ferry leaves, trying to catch up on my non-sleep of the previous night.

I wake for a couple of hours at midnight and watch the coast go by - presumably northern Greece or Albania, but otherwise I sleep for longer than I have since Morocco (where they use it as a method of passing time) until 07.45 when I have a shower (yes, the boat has hot showers). We pull into Patra at about 08.45, long before the published 10.00, after the calmest sea crossing I've yet taken. The sea itself varies from rich yellow-green to the deepest blue. OUr early arrival leaves me plenty of time to find the station and an internet place to fill the hour before my 10.50 train south. Today I will try to reach Sparta, but I have no idea how - it's not on the train "network".
The train takes me across a flat strip of shore, from which white and rocky mountains are visible inland - abrupt masses which seem more like a collection of individuals than a proper range. The soil is grey-brown (presumably original volcanic rather than sedimentary) and seems pretty fertile - a wide variety of crops are being grown, with some livestock. The economy must still be largely subsistence/agrarian since the towns we pass have very small nuclei but spread quite far, each outlying house having a small area of worked land attached. The stations en route also allow me to practice my Greek alphabet for the first time since Numerical Analysis at University - a curious language, where "ney" means yes and "okay" means no.

The train takes me as far as Kiparissia, a seaside/fishing town largely clustered around a central square of cafés and largely closed (possibly they have a Day After the Day of the Dead holiday). I'm there for almost 3 hours (I make one coffee last over an hour), and nothing opens in that time: then I catch the bus to Kalamata - halfway between Kiparissia and Sparta.
I'm always uncomfortable in a country until I get a basic grasp of the grammar and a few words of vocabulary - I'm nowhere near that stage in Greece yet, even though I'm in a country where they smoke Silk Cut (stronger by 40% than regular Silk Cut at home - I'll try the milder Blue ones next): I spend the bus journey browsing through my phrase book. It doesn't include the Greek for "black, billowing clouds", which are what we're driving into (so black that they look like an enormous forest fire): it soon turns to very impressive torrential rain with lightning. In fact it's enough to make you believe in Zeus. I consider the mountain terrain, the twisting slippery road, the lack of crash barriers and the likely bald tyres on the bus, and offer up a quick prayer.

It's dark by the time we pull into Kalamata, and I elect to ignore the first four or five in-town stops on the basis that the last stop will be at the bus station. My reasoning is sound, but unfortunately the bus station seems to be right on the outskirts: my quandary - lack of local knowledge and lack of a hotel - is shared by the other two backpackers on the bus. I'd identified them as "unknown foreign", since I couldn't pick out their language while they were talking: in fact they turn out to be Guillaume and Melissa, Quebeccers whose accent is so strong that I failed to recognise it as French (they have a saying that the French speak French as if through a chicken's arse - hey ho). We walk forever, or so it seems (fully laden): after three-quarters of an hour we find a map of Kalamata and, shortly after, the station. A man there directs us to a travel agents (we'd asked for tourist information), and a girl on the street nearby directs us to an expensive hotel. Reception in the hotel directs us to a cheaper (still quite steep) hotel. The man in the cheaper hotel suggests that there are cheap Pensions down at the port.
En route to the port, we stop at a supermarket and buy enough for an evening meal (in a park): it is now after 21.00 and occasionally spitting with rain, and we are all knackered. We trek down to the port (Kalamata is a long strip of a town - one end is the port, and the other end is the bus station), and by luck stumble on the Hotel Nevada. A tiny bustling tumbly sort of woman talks at us strangely, but gives us rooms (å7 for a single, å10 for a double) and, after a walk along the shore and a chat (they're taking time out before University and, a couple of days ago, decided that they're like to go to Thailand next - despite having no money), we retire.

A bit of a wasted and miserable day started at about 06.00 with a deafening 5-6 second thunderclap, which must have woken everyone in Kalamata, followed by the noise of torrential rain. It's still downpouring just after 08.00 when I get up, wash, sling my rucksack on my back and head into town. The plan is to get to Sparta as quickly as possible, find somewhere to stay, and see Sparta and Mystras over the next two days. On the way north to the bus station I also keep my eyes peeled for internet cafés (saw one yesterday by the station) and photo developing places (bizarrely there's a Jessops, but it's closed). I find a place which will develop a film and do me an index print for only 1200 drachmas (£2.40), and then find a bus-stop much closer than the bus station. It has a big timetable which includes two daily buses to Sparta - one was at 9.15, which I've just missed by 10 minutes, and the other is at 14.30.

I return to the photo place, book my films in, and then trudge through the pouring rain (with rucksack) to the internet place by the station. En route I meet a strange and shaggy Scotsman called Dave, from Hawick: he's ages with me, but left Scotland 12 years ago. After extensive travel in Europe and Africa he's now settled on Crete and makes his living by playing a small guitar and picking fruit. We compare lives for a while, under the shelter of a shop awning. The internet café is a funny place, with arcade machines and huge TVs showing English football, and two bars, and café-type seats and tables. I put in a couple of hours there (much cheaper than Patra), then collect my photos and return to the bus-stop. All this time, by the way, it's raining and the wind is getting ferocious: the kind of wind that brings tears to your eyes if you looks into it; the kind of wind that has birds flying backwards (seriously!). I arrive in plenty time, have a hot pastry from the café place there, and wait. Naturally, a couple of buses come at 14.30 but neither of them is going to Sparta: I'm not overly concerned, since there's a bunch of other people there who're clearly milling about waiting for a bus which is late - that'll be the Sparta bus, I reason. Unforunately their bus arrives twenty minutes later, and suddenly I'm the person who's been waiting longest. "Sparti?" I ask, generally, but the responses are only shrugs and shakes of the head. It seems that, somehow, I have missed the bus (literally, this time). I consider my options but, since it's now late in the afternoon, I'm unlikely to manage a connection to Sparta (eg. via Tripoli): my only real options are to skip out Sparta/Mystras completely and push on to Corinth and Athens, or to try for Sparta again tomorrow. I opt for the latter option, which will mean that this day's been a total write-off as far as travelling goes. I get some more money out a hole-in-the-wall (Greece is turning out to be quite expensive), install myself in the internet café and spend most of the rest of the day in there, firing off emails and updating the website. I make a brief trek back down to the Hotel Nevada - the bizarre woman puts me in the same room as before, and tries to get me sit and chat (we have no common language) with her daughter in their Reception room. I decline, and instead wrap up the evening back at the internet place (which is now definitely more nightclub than anything else - there's a banal DJ).
On the way back to the hotel/pension, disaster strikes. A particularly sudden and violent gust of wind blows my hat off - not that much of a problem in itself (my foot intercepts it immediately), but it takes my glasses with it, flipping them out into the middle of the road. So there I am, crawling about blind in the middle of a busy road intersection in the middle of a stormy night in Kalamata - super: this is what travelling's all about. Two local lads join in the search, and retrieve a couple of fragments - damn. Fairly new pair of specs as well, which is a pisser. Looking through one of the larger shards of glass/plastic, I manage to navigate my way back to the hotel (I have my old work pair with me as a backup, for just this sort of eventuality).
Thoroughly depressed, yes - that's the best way to describe it - and dreaming of laser surgery (I must get it done), I go to bed.

It rained throughout the night and into he following day and, worst of all, I slept through my alarm clock. A mad pack and trek through the storm-damage that used to be Kalamata (toppled trees, etc.) gets me back to the bus-stop approximately on time. A number of 09.15 buses come and go but, again and depressinlgly, nothing for Sparta. I wait, in case it's late, but fear the worst: there is something in this whole situation that is defeating me. As I wait, I witness a couple of buses just go whizzing past, even though they're on the timetable. And then, suddenly, I figure it out - the timetable at the bus-stop doesn't actually relate to that bus-stop: it's all the departures from all of Kalamata. These buses are expresses and don't stop here, and the Sparta buses go in the opposite direction.
Duh.

Right - with only two buses a day from Kalamata to Sparta, I'm not gonna hang around here for another day. I go to the train station, where there's a late morning train to Tripoli: hopefully there'll be better bus times from there. Gosh, it's good to be travelling again, even through the rain, and even to somewhere which isn't on my list of places I want to visit. The train climbs up through the mountains to Tripoli, which is pretty much in the middle of the Pelopennese, and has grown up effectively around a crossroads. The station yard is pretty extensive and includes long strings of goods wagons as well as aged, dead and dying passenger carriages. But it's the scenery which is best. The journey up from Kalamata was spectacular, all clinging to the sides of deep, forested gorges and passing totally abandoned stations (the one at Issari). The leg up to Chranoi is best of all (Chranoi is a little white town perched (you have to say precariously) on the side of a mountain with superb views in all directions). After Chranoi the land flattens out a bit and there's even a dual carriageway which we glimpse from time to time. The ground is mostly hard white rock (words like gneiss and feldspar and marble spring to mind, but my mind's pretty much a lottery when it comes to rocks, so that means nothing). There's consequently virtually no agriculture here, but there does seem to be a fair amount of mining activity.

At Tripoli I ask if there are any buses to Sparti (the bus station is over the road from the train station): of course there are buses to Sparti, they tell me - the next one's in about an hour. A quick wander reveals nothing to do in Tripoli (it's Sunday and wet, though beginning to clear), so I return to the bus station/café (most seem to be both) and get into a conversation with an old guy who's just retired back to Greece after his divorce and 35 years in the US. He's depressed because he finds the locals narrow-minded, envious of his apparent wealth; his daughter and her family don't talk to him; and he drove his car off the road this morning in the treacherous conditions. He's returning to Sparti, where he lives, because he can't get any work done on the car until tomorrow.

After a scenic and worrying (considering this last information) drive to Sparti (the mountains are capped with snow), I wander Sparti for over an hour before concluding that there's no such thing as a hostel or pension in town. I check into the £14 a night Hotel Cecil (seriously: incidentally, I'd like to say that the room was Spartan, but it was okay) and, after nipping out for a kebab (they call it a Gyros here, presumably because "kebab" is a Turkish word), spend the rest of the evening reading, writing, sorting my clothes and washing my hair.