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Evzoni - Kavalla
E.Route : Skopje - Kavalla : ETD 0900 : ETA 1600 : Distance 242.
A. Route : Evzoni - Kavalla : ATD 0814 : ATA 1620 : Distance 152.
- Depart Evzoni 0814
- 0930 - 1113 Visit to Salonika
- 1249 - 1313 Crew change and fuel stop
- 1340 - 1349 Bog stop
- Arrive Kavalia 1620
Est.A.spd 34.5mph : Gross A.Spd. 18.70 mph : Nat.A.Spd 26.20 mph.
Stop time 2:16 hrs : Speedo TD 4978.1 : Speedo TA 5130.7.
Comment : a restful day of rather slow travel : one mysterious point is the discrepancy between the speedo reading for the total distance from Zagreb to Kavalla ( 783 m.) and the official estimate (711) - if there was a reading error or mechanical error, this might explain the rather unlikely high average speed of the Zagreb-Evzoni journey - however, the discrepancy is not, proportionately, any greater than many of the differences between the actual and estimated distances.
Jim Lindsay's diary:
Our campside turned out to be an abandoned midden, which discouraged lying in. So did the procession of
farmers going about their early morning business. They obviously found us interesting to stare at and one
was persuaded to sell us melons for breakfast. On the move again, we lingered too long in Thessaloniki
and found other contingents overtaking us in the race to Kavalla. This was the time of the military
dictatorship of the Colonels, and as we headed east along the coast the army was very much in evidence,
particularly next to the more attractive beaches. At Kavalla itself we joined the other contingents
camped by the beach and the tent was no sooner erected than there was a major cloudburst and we had to
dig channels to divert the runoff from going straight through the tent. That evening there was an
impromptu show of Highland dancing and the like at a pavement café, ending with a Theodorakis song
for which we could probably have been arrested by the lurking tourist police.
Odyssey in Greece by Liz Y
We made it! Broke free, sans convoy, twenty hours on the road from Zagreb, a few brief stops, south through
bandit country, over the border, into Greece. Midnight in darkness at the roadside near Evzoni, we threw down
our sleeping bags on uneven, grassy wasteland and slept exhausted under an open sky. Morning came too soon,
but there in the light of day was Greece, a line of cypress trees, a quiet country road, blue skies, now and
then a peasant farmer with horse and cart, one with water melons for sale.
Evzoni, a plural word in Greek, are the elite soldiers of Greek history and the ceremonial guards of today,
with their uniforms of fustanellas (kilts) and pompommed shoes. The small town of Evzoni was given this Greek
name after the Balkan Wars in the early 20th century. We weren't the last to sleep rough in Evzoni, but ours
was a happier time. In 2016, thousands of refugees massed along the Macedonian border and many made makeshift
camp in Evzoni, their way to the north blocked by razor wire fence.
Our journey south took us next to Thessaloniki, complex, cosmopolitan city with so much history, Roman,
Byzantine, Ottoman, Sephardic Jewish, so much to explore. We had little time, but we found the cake shops,
piled high with syrupy baklava, kadaïfi and bougatsa. We found the waterfront and admired the sweep of white
apartment blocks around the curve of the bay. For the first time at last we could gaze at the blue, rippling
waters of the Aegean.
Then the drive east along the coast to Kavala. Picnic lunch on board Cuddles. The discovery of sun-ripened
tomatoes, juicy and sweet to taste. Sliced watermelon, another new treat for our travels. Music over the radio.
We loved the strains of Greek popular music with its mingled flavours of East and West, but musical creativity
was stifled under the Colonels. Apparently you could be arrested just for whistling a Theodorakis tune. Rebetico
blues music was also frowned on and banned.
Comex camped by the beach in Kavala, another city aged in millenia. It rained that first night, quite a torrent
to channel away from our tent, but the location was good, beach of soft yellow sand and sea waters warm even at
night. Little tavernas were very clean. In Greece you could look into the kitchen to make your choice. You could
buy fruit at a market stall, but trading times seemed restricted, an atmosphere of nervous restraint at that
time.
We stayed two nights in Kavala. Some of the group danced at a local cafe, with Brian on pipes, to Greek exuberant
applause. Others of us pottered at the camp, in the cafes or by the beach on the evening warm sands, swimming or
just listening to the soft lapping of the sea. Early morning on the third day we resumed our journey, passing the
relatively modern commercial port city of Alexandroupoli, not a relic of the days of Alexander the Great, but
founded in the 19th Century and later called after a Greek king of the same name who visited there in 1920.
Now, the Turkish border, still in Europe, onward yet to the Bosphorus. But first, so not to leave Greece without
the beautiful music of Mikis Theodorakis, click "Sto perigiali to gryfto"
(On the secret seashore), words of poet laureate Giorgos Seferis, sung by Maria Farantouri. The song came to
symbolise all the joys, hopes and love of life suppressed under the Colonels. It is known and loved throughout
Greece.
