Unexpected Adventures on the Peloponnese – Vanlife Greece

Unexpected Adventures on the Peloponnese – Vanlife Greece

Greece, a land of whitewashed houses, blue 
seas, and endless sunshine. But so far, most of what we’ve seen is gray. Despite 
the rain, we keep heading south onto the Peloponnese, home to some of the most important 
archaeological sites in Greece. Along the way, there’s a chaotic ferry crossing, a major camper 
van issue we have to fix, and a night in a quiet town where we get an unexpected visitor. Then 
we reach Olympia where the ancient Olympic games began nearly 3,000 years ago. And this 
is where Greece starts to really surprise us. Pretty wet outside today. Yeah. Not that we 
can really see it. Oh my god. So Oh my god. We can’t even talk to each other. That was 
one of the heaviest downpours we’ve ever experienced. Look at the water coming down there. 
And 5 minutes later, we’ve got blue sky and the sun. This is Kato Vasiliki where we have chosen 
to hopefully park up for the night tonight. Right on the water. And from here we can see the new 
bridge. a brand new bridge that goes over to Patras. And just for something really different, 
rain and thunder and lightning in the night. So, we got water out this side and let’s 
have a quick look on state of affairs on this side. I think we might move to high ground 
there, Susie. It’s starting to lap up a bit. Gosh, we really are in a lake here. The 
lake’s almost joined to the sea. So, we found the tap. So, we’re literally here 
on the end of this village where um people have said they’ve used this water tap to fill up 
their tanks. Sea is quite rough. The big question, will he get splashed? I’m staying safely 
in the van. I’m not going out in that crap. We drove to higher ground. 
With more rain forecast, we planned to stay in the 
van and get some work done. When there was a break in the weather, we explored 
the local area. And we love these little shrines. We see these all over Greece. Even though it was 
still raining, our work was done. So, we headed off for some more sightseeing. This bridge crosses 
the straight between mainland Greece and the Peloponnese. It was opened in 2004. Back in our 
Contiki days, we had to take the ferry. So, we’ve decided to do that again today. And also because 
the bridge costs about €25 for a camper van. We’re so close. There’s no way I can 
get out my door. But that’s okay. He’s so close. Oh my god, I’m so 
nervous we’re not go inganywhere. Yeah, that’s right. I can’t get out this 
side. If I turn myself into a cat, can you get out that side? No, not really. 
Um, so if we did decide to have to evacuate, we’d go through the hatch boat. Yeah. Cat like 
through the through the hatch. Through the hatch. This is Nigel trying to get out. He’s gone 
out the side door. It’s okay. Je suis acrobat. Check out this bridge, man. It’s just a wonder of 
engineering, isn’t it? Well, look out. Sue’s going to get acrobatic. You’re going to get a wet what’s 
her name? I know. Look how the Poss is wedged. Okay, friends. I’m going to take one of the 
team and show you how bad the toilets are, cuz that is all I remember about this ferry. 
This is the upstairs deck. There’s a little thing there, but it’s clearly not happening. 
I don’t even know where the toilet is. Well, it’s not that bad. Not that good 
either. All these cars are going first. There’s no way I’m getting out there. 
This guy’s going to have to have to move. Sure. I’m not going anywhere. Tonight’s 
parkup is in a truck stop in Patras. Oh, there’s a van over there. Looks like a 
toilet block. Looks over there. Luxury. Two vans. Yeah. Okay. Excitement here. So, 
the chili oil mixture has been um brewing in the potato cavity for a week and now we’re just 
decantering it into a nice bottle. Look at the um how rich that um Look at the color of it. Yeah, 
it’s quite red, isn’t it? Listen to that rain. Oh, look at that. That’s pretty cool. So, I’ve 
just topped up the the jar just a a little bit more. And we’re going to get a full 
bottle out of that. And have a wee taste. Oh, yeah. That you need some bread. You need it 
on some bread. N we’ll do that. Yeah. That hits the back of the throat. That’s That’s going to 
be wicked. Look at all those chilies still in the thing. I reckon you could use those chilies over 
and over. Yeah. We don’t have any water, right? He could put. So, um I’m going to have to rip the 
beard out to um assess whether the pump is getting power. And if it is, then we’ve got a new pump 
we can replace it with. So, that’s my job this morning. Thank goodness. So, yes, currently our 
bedding is all there. We’re just hoping it doesn’t rain cuz I mean we don’t wanna sound like whingers
but. [ __ ] hell. We’ve had some rain. Jesus. Go to Greece they said uh it’ll be fine. 
They said y stop freaking raining. We’re actually parked up in this truck 
stop. So there’s mainly all trucks, but it is also for campers. There’s a 
toilet and a cold shower. I think the shower is solar looking at the top of the 
roof of that building. Yeah, it was cold. So, yeah. At least if we get the water going, 
we’re going to have a hot shower in the van. This is what the sky has looked like for the last 
week. Actually, I tell a lie, it’s looked like this for two weeks. It does rain, then we can 
quickly shut the doors and keep everything wet. Yeah, I’ve just got everything folded up there. 
Down here is where I need to get into. So that Let me just show you quickly. Um, so there there’s 
the power to the to the pump and it runs down inside one of those submersibles. Of course, 
the water tank’s like completely full. So yeah, she’s chockers. But I can I can, you know, 
drain it out. I might actually do that. I’m just showing a torch down there. Look 
at all that dirt and crud. All right. So, just sucked on the end of the hose and then 
gravity feeding out. I’m just going around the um hose clamp. That’s just off the um hose 
clamp. So, without without getting into the pump um that’ll be why the pump’s stuffed. Yeah. 
It just it just be um yeah trying to suck that sort of clay through is not going to do it 
any good at all. Right. My job this morning is going to be to find a store where we can 
get an inline water filter for the hose. I just put the multimeter on uh the connectors 
down there and Sue turned the um the tap on. We’re getting we’re getting uh power. Um and 
also you can hear a faint through the pumps. So my my theory is I’ll take the as we did last 
time, remove the pump, clean it, um do a dry run or wet run. Um and um chances are that might fix 
the problem. Alternatively, we’ve got this new pump that we picked up uh in Bulgaria in Sofia. 
So, like an hour later and I’m still finding this brown scum. It’s kind of gross. Yeah, I’ll work 
my way up to this end. There is another uh access point. But yeah, look at all this [ __ ] that 
I’m picking up. Bad news. All right, so before I commit, I’ll just put a little bit of water in 
there. It’s gurgling, but it’s not doing anything. Um, I think she’s buggered. We’ll try that new 
pump and see what happens. Right. Disconnected the old one and connected the new one which is down in 
the tank. Jimmy rigged. Let’s see if we got water. Aha, success. So, yeah, it was a bugged a 
buggered water pump. With that job done, we hit the road and head further south. This 
afternoon, we’re in the town of Katakolo. Looks quite chilly, and it is. And we’ve come here 
on a recommendation from some of our patreons, Leslie and Charlie. So, thanks for the tip. 
It’s really cute here. Little harbor town. Gets very busy in the summer. It’s a cruise ship 
port. So all these little cafes and tiveras would be full. And from here the people from the 
cruise ships go to the ancient site of Olympia. And we are going to Olympia tomorrow. 
But we’ve just come here because Leslie and Charlie said it was a good spot for a 
free camp at the harbor. Cute little boat. Giannis, what have you got here? Oh, we got some uh lemons is for my garden. 
Okay, thank you. Awesome. You tasted my Nice. First time here. First time. Yeah. Yeah. 
First time. Thank you. Long way New Zealand to come here. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Well, that’s why we 
bought the van. Yeah. Well, that was just another one of those cool interactions with the locals and 
we got a tap on the door about an hour ago and um yeah, they follow Jiannis um telling us in German, 
you can sleep here tonight um all that stuff. So, talking to Sue who could understand um kind of 
sort of looking blankly. Uh but then he he said, “Uh, do you want some uh do you want something? 
You you need some oranges?” No, you need some He didn’t have oranges. Sadly, they’re not 
sweet. Olives uh olive oil, which we’re pretty good good with. Anyway, um we got to wine and he 
said, “Oh, you know, white wine, red wine.” So, €3 for one and a half litres. It’s actually not 
too bad, but it’s what we call a tourist tax. So, it’s nice when you um you can, you know, uh pay 
back and a massive bag of fruit for €2. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. We’ve got like there’s a good few 
kilos in there. Yeah. It’s meant to be 2 kilos. It’s a lot more than that. So, €5 to stay here 
overnight. Some wine and and some and some fruit. Yeah. It’s awesome. Happy days. Oh, wow. So, we go 
with the freshly brewed chili oil. Look at that. The sun is just coming up here at Katakolo. This 
is where we spent the night in the middle of this car park by the harbor. Today is going to be a 
good day. We’re hoping for a nice sunny day as we head to one of the main archaeological sites 
here on the Peloponnese. Some police here. Where do you want to go? Uh well, we’re going to 
Olympia. Olympia to the archaeological site. Uh you should go only uh through Flokas.. This 
is the next cross. Uhhuh. Through Flokas. Okay, cute. Well, we don’t know what’s going on. Um, 
and now we’re just heading down this tiny little road to a place called Flokas. That’s the road 
surface. God. Well, we found out why the road was closed. There seems to be some sort of 
a marathon or running race going on today, which is kind of cool when you’re in 
ancient Olympia. Olympia marathon. Cool. First we had the marathon in Skopje and 
now here in Olympia. Okay. So as the next marathoner goes past um you stop and get 
your ticket here. 20 Euros per person which covers the archaeological site and two 
museums. The archaeological museum and the museum of the ancient Olympics. 
There is a reduced ticket for €10, but you have to be a European citizen over 55. 
And we come to the entrance with our tickets. Well, here we are in ancient Olympia. 
3,000 odd years of history right here. Pretty cool to be here, eh? Olympia is 
the birthplace of the Olympic Games where athletes once competed not for medals but 
for honor, glory, and the favor of the gods. That’s a wicked looking mosaic right there. This 
is really quite awe inspiring. Like there’s so much here. Just crazy like how how many of 
these just pieces of old rock are just lying around everywhere in here. These ruins here 
are from the temple of Zeus. And that’s one of the most important historical buildings ancient 
of ancient Greece and it was built between 470 and 456 AD. All these columns have just tumbled 
down and they’ve just left them standing there. And just so you can see how big those pieces are, 
you know, with Nigel in the film and one of them there being reconstructed to show us what it 
was like. And this was the largest temple on the whole Peloponnese and it was excavated 
by the French in the 19th century. So they started in 1829 and finally the temple of Zeus was 
destroyed by earthquakes in the 6th century AD. So I guess that’s what caused those columns to 
tumble over. So it stood for over a thousand years. So this is the base of the statue of Nike 
or Victory. And I believe we’re actually going to see the statue in the archaeological museum. 
This is the stadium from the ancient Olympics. So these ancient Olympic games started in 776 
BC and they were held every four years right here in Olympia. And all of the wars would stop at 
that time and people would come together under a general truce to meet here in Olympia. Um, and in 
the ancient Olympic games, they had running races, wrestling. What other sports did they have, 
Nigel? Oh, that’s right. The javelin throwing discus. Discus. And this stadium could seat 
45,000 spectators. Apparently, they did not have stone benches except for that little section 
over there, which is where the judges sat. So, I guess everybody else just sat on the hill. Maybe 
they bought a picnic blanket and a bottle of wine. Right, we’re about to walk now up to the temple of 
Hera. She was, of course, Zeus’s wife. And this is where the disc of the sacred truce was kept. 
So, if this view here looks familiar, you’ve probably seen it many times on the news. This is 
where they light the flame for the Olympic torch every four years. Actually, maybe it’s every two 
years if they do it for the winter Olympics, too. We were just googling and found out that they 
actually lit the Olympic flame 4 days ago. So today, Sunday the 30th of November. And 
they lit it on Wednesday the 26th for the Winter Olympics which are being held in Italy 
around Milan and Cortina. I got to negotiate a puddle here. And because the weather was so bad 
here, they actually did it in the museum. Wow, that was awesome. It was walking in the 
footsteps of the Greek gods Heracles or known to us as Hercules. It’s quite a inspiring, 
isn’t it? M like it’s a huge vast site. We spent a good hour walking around here 
and to think that the the more recent well you know what we ended with uh is something 
like 2 and 1 half thousand years old. So now we’re going to go to the museums. Oh my 
god, look at all these little figurines. Votive figurines. Inlaid bone eyes. a female 
griffin suckling her young one. That is cool. And it says here that this is the only preserved 
complete massive bronze relief in ancient Greek art. Dates from the 7th century BC. So this is 
the Nike of Ponios and we saw the triangular column out in the archaeological park. This 
is the victory statue that stood at the top of that column. This large room contains all the 
sculptures that remain from the temple of Zeus. It was so impressive. On the walls in this room, 
we’ve got the 12, they’re called Metopes. I think that’s how you say it. And they were like sculpted 
pictures. And there’s 12 of them that were in the temple of Zeus. and they depict the 12 labors 
of Heracles. And on this side is from the east pediment which this one is the chariot race of 
Pelops and Owen oinos. Oh, so this is from the west side, the pediment from the west side of the 
temple. And this is the battle of Lapis and the Centaurs. And that’s the god Apollo in the center. 
Now we go and see the recreation of the statue of Zeus. So it’s actually just a picture of what 
it would have looked like. And it’s called the Chriselephantine statue of Zeus. I don’t know 
what Chris Elephantine means, but it’s one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. And the 
sculptor was very famous, and I’m going to try and pronounce this too. His name was Phidius. And he 
also did the sculpture on the like on the pediment of the Acropolis in Athens, except they’re not 
in Athens anymore. They’re in the British Museum. So, we’ve just stopped for lunch at a 
traditional Greek taverna. We’re having gyros, however you say it. And I asked, do they 
have a vegetarian one? And they said, “We can do it without meat.” So, they probably 
charge the same price. I hope they put extra chips in it. Without the gyros. Yeah. Look 
at that. Perfect. Nigel got his Tabasco. Let’s have a look at yours so you can see 
what it’s supposed to look like with meat and the vegetarian gyros. It’s like 
a chip booty with tzatziki, onions, and tomato. I’m like so excited right now. Yum. So good. Well, that lunch got the big 
thumbs up from the two of us, especially me because my gyros without 
meat was only €2. That’s a bargain. Um, we’re now making our way to the final destination 
for Olympia, which is the ancient Olympics museum. Many hours later, and people are just 
finishing their marathon now. Good to see. We’ve come to the museum. The Olympic Games 
were held without a break from 776 BC to 393 AD. And I find it really interesting that 
they were held for 1169 years. And one of the most important parts of those Olympics 
was the sacred truce. the suspension of all hostilities between belligerents for a brief 
period before, during, and after the games to enable them to be conducted properly. We haven’t 
learned much, have we? Because we get boycotts and countries not allowed to go and all that sort 
of stuff. We’re a little bit museumed out. So, we are walking through here quite quickly. 
And the interesting thing is women were not only not allowed to compete, they were also not 
allowed to spectate. If they were caught in there, they got thrown off a mountain. This museum is 
included in the combination ticket we got before. And I don’t believe you can just buy a ticket for 
this museum. The other important thing to note is that the tickets are only available for use on the 
day they’re purchased. So you got to do all three things in the one day. And by the end, you’ll 
probably feel a bit bit museumed out like we are to be honest. Yeah. Um but very good. Yeah. Yeah. 
100% really enjoyed it, especially walking around the archaeological site. It it made me look up 
um the origins of the marathon when watching all these runners coming in. Um it’s based on legend. 
I actually thought it was based on fact, but it’s based on legend some um 2 and a half thousand 
years ago when uh uh whose name I can’t remember, wasn’t it? Phidipedes or something like that.. 
Yes. um who was tasked to to uh run from Marathon to Athens to advise of the battle that they had 
won. Um Nike to you know victory and he promptly collapsed and died. Um yeah I would too if I 
ran a marathon with armor on was also the legend join us next time as we check out 
one of the most beautiful beaches we’ve ever seen. I tackle a challenging 
section of a hike on my own and we check out not one but two amazing ruined castles. 
Is the rain over or will we get more storms?

Despite some rainy weather, our Van Life Greece Road Trip continues south to the Peloponnese, where we encounter a chaotic ferry crossing and need to fix a campervan issue.

We enjoy a night in a quiet town after an unexpected visitor, then make our way to Olympia, a site rich in ancient history.

This journey is part of our ongoing van life exploration of Greece’s best places to visit.

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WHO ARE WE?
We are Nigel and Sue, a couple of outdoor adventurers. After living in a van travelling around Australia for 3.5 years on our big lap, we’ve moved to Europe, bought a new van and we’re now exploring the highlights and hidden gems of this continent. Join us for all the history and culture of Europe along with the day to day realities of living in a van.

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