Days 13 and 14 (8 and 9 June)

You can't move in Patras without running into something Roman. Of course, it was a settlement long before the Romans came (in the excellent Archaeological Museum of Patras, you can see artefacts dating from as long ago as the 17th century BC). But the city's "third and most important period of prosperity occurred during the Roman empire when, after the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC, its port became the gateway to the West and in 14 BC Emperor Augustus established a Roman colony". It was a very cosmopolitan city, drawing in influences from far and wide. It hosted Cicero, even Anthony and Cleopatra...

It's interesting to see how much of our current journey will cover land once under Roman rule...

In fact, scholarship allows us to calculate that our progress so far, from London to Patras, would back then have taken 43.3 days, and our route would have hugged the coast -- none of this cross-country nonsense. (That's in the summer and by the cheapest means, as per our own preferences. The cheapest journey in winter would take 87.4 days, and does forge inland, presumably to avoid the storms of the Bay of Biscay and the east Atlantic.)

Quite close to our accommodation is a nymphaeum. We had no idea what one of those was, but good old Britannica defines it thus: "[an] ancient Greek and Roman sanctuary consecrated to water nymphs. The name -- though originally denoting a natural grotto with springs and streams, traditionally considered the habitat of nymphs -- later referred to an artificial grotto or a building filled with plants and flowers, sculpture, fountains, and paintings."

Which all helps to imagine how it used to be...


The Odeon (a Roman performance venue) is pretty easy to conjure up, and it's still used for arts events now.







There are many other Roman remains scattered around the city, and the museum displays some really amazing finds:















Patras Castle was built in the latter part of the 6th century AD, recycling much earlier building material in the process. It's had a dramatic career -- more than once besieged, damaged by revolution, accident, and earthquake, and subject to the fortunes of the rest of the city which was variously occupied by the Franks, granted to the Venetians, and conquered and reconquered by the Ottomans.

It's also really beautiful... Which brings me to "sensescapes", which Lotus Lykke Skov describes as "a landscape inhabited and experienced through a multisensory mode of being with and in the world". Sensescapes can be seen "as a multisensorial connection between the self, other selves and the surrounding land, and as a method of inhabiting and experiencing oneself and ones surroundings in the same movement".

Patras is a great place for sensescapes. Sight is well catered for, of course. The views from the Castle, out to the mountains and the sea, are wonderful. And the wild flowers in the grass -- yellow and purple and white and red -- complement the flowering bushes, with their striking pinks and purples.








But I will also remember the scent of pine and chamomile.

I will remember sitting in the shade in the old courtyard, listening to the squeak of the constantly swirling swifts, who came so close we could hear the soft flutter of their little wings. Somewhere in the bay there's the low thrub-thrub of a boat. At 11, the church clocks of the city chime the strokes (they are not synchronized, so you hear one version after another). It's magical.

And the whole of Patras is like this somehow.

It's not artificially sweet by any means. The soundscape also includes noisy evening cafes and hollering kids. (As I write, some really loud musical thing has fired up in the street outside.) The graffiti artists -- just as active as they were in Milan -- are constantly contributing to the sensescape around them.

Not to forget taste in this sensory extravaganza: I've already enthused about tomatoes and feta. Then there were the strawberries. Two huge punnets for EUR 1.50 -- this has to be the bargain of the trip -- and they were like the strawberries you remember from childhood, all warm and sweet and perfumed.

(Best eaten, of course, with Fage Greek yoghurt -- and as of this year we're all clear that "Greek yoghurt" must be produced in Greece.)

We can go on...




We leave tomorrow. We've both been a bit tired, and slow, and migraine-prone over these last couple of days. Maybe because we're still catching up with sleep after THAT boat ride, or maybe because it's suddenly much hotter. Despite all that, Patras has been a great entry-point to Greece.

Some random shots to close: