Inter Rail 1987 Day 14

Decided to have a lie-in so for once I didn't have to set the alarm. We were actually up and functional by about 10.00am. Had a great breakfast including a lot of filtered coffee. The first decent coffee since we've been away.

Spent a good hour or so clearing the car of our belongings and re-packing rucksacks plus sorting out money affairs.

When Dinos got back from work he drove us to the local wine factory. It was an absolutely amazing tour. They have the oldest wine in Greece stored there, in barrel no 42, which dates to 1873.

This Mavro Daphne,(named after the founders blackeyed fiancee) plus all the other vintages are kept in oak barrels. Every year 1904 is topped up to compensate for evaporation by 1905 and 1905 by 1906 etc.

Other barrels are used to commemorate special occasions e.g. the visit of the Princess of Wales, Alexandra, who almost got in to the barrel to check it was full.

The vineyard is the second largest capacity wine storage place in Europe. They have 65 million litres of wine stored, some of it in massive great tanks made of concrete and coated inside and out with polyester.

A lot of the giant barrels are highly ornately carved. One specially bottled vintage MavroDaphne was bought in Patras for 1,800 drachmas ie £9 and sold at auction in New York for $2,500!

The factory has lovely views out over Patras which we enjoyed with our included glass of Mavro Daphne, which is a very nice fortified port type of wine. We were given a 6 year old which was really tasty. Dinos and Kati bought each of us a bottle as a present. We bought a couple of bottles of wine for them as a thank you and a bottle for us to enjoy ourselves.

They then took us to Dion beach (we were already wearing our costumes). The water was very clear and quite cold but with quite a strong current flowing. After a nice dip, we got out and sat in a bar in our cossies to have a nice cold beer to wash down a portion of meat, chips and salad.

Our route home took us through Patras University. It was only set up in 1967 and Dinos's Biology department is still under construction.

Back at the house we had lunch consisting of porkchops, beans and greek salad. We got into quite a heated political discussion which got me very angry. Had to have a couiple of hours siesta to calm myself down and I felt a lot better for it.

At 7.00pm it was still very hot and at 8.45pm we were sat out the back of the house in the shade in shorts and t-shirt, it still being nice and warm. We watched Greece playing Yugoslavia in the semifinals of the European basketball championships until about 11.15pm and then we had dinner. Kati had spent a lot of time and effort making it. It was stuffed vegetables i.e. aubergines, tomatoes, onions, courgettes plus dalmades. Absolutely gorgeous

We eventually got to bed about 1.00am.