Hello Hive world!
I'm here to share my harvest of pictures and videos from my latest exploration around the mountain of Parnitha, the highest of the region (1413m) a few tens of km North West of Athens.
Having lots to see up there I start early in the morning. I don't know what early means to you but in my case this is before sunrise so I manage to experience a nice one on my way looking like this:
My view changes later as the sun comes up and I come closer to the mountain:
Time to take the winding and scenic road up the mountain:
All in all the whole route so far is rather pleasant and you can watch clips of it in the following video:
As I park my car and take my bike out to continue cycling, I spot a full sized deer with huge horns. I take my phone out but unfortunately don't manage to capture much of it except a rough short video from which you can see 3 frames below:
As it came out of the bushes on the first one it immediately goes into them again out of sight.
The day starts promising with some sky art above my head:
As you can see it's still early and the sun is low hence I am the only human around there.
I pass that bar,
which allows me to enjoy an empty as it gets road which hasn't been used for decades. Well, humans are able to suffer lethal accidents even on empty roads hence the following image:
It's the very beginning of the cycle route I intent to do (10km both ways) and I start wonder how bad it might be if people can die just like that here but I vanish the thoughts in the view this spot offers:
Lots to comment on the above image. The obvious sky art and the not so obvious why the mountain looks bare on the other side. Blame the huge wildfire of 2007 for that.
Meters later I find an intriguing path but I carry a bicycle with me so I resist it - see you next time:
As I move on the mountain shows its teeth or better say the weather cause apart from the fact that going higher brings me closer to the clouds it also gets crazy windy to the point that even on slightly downhill parts I still have to pedal hard to keep going.
Meanwhile the road shows all signs of abandonment possible:
Holes included:
It's more than obvious that I can't enjoy the route on the speeds I'd like to on an empty road considering the fact that the nearest soul is double digit km away and the first to come see you lying there if you can't call somebody might come days later.
Interesting to see how nature tries to fill any gap given:
But of course I can't complain, it's tarmac anyway which is more than an explorer can ask for regardless its crappy condition. That humid and cold wind though really hurts my under dressed body.
The next pictures shows the aftermath of that wildfire plus the fact that I am about to cycle inside a cloud anytime soon:
No sky behind the rock in the next picture as it's all cloudy but no space on my lane either due to the relation between nature and gaps that I commented before:
As it clears up a bit later I stop to enjoy the view and I like it so much that can't choose a favourite camera orientation:
Did I say "clears up"? Look at this literally a minute later:
Now you can imagine how crazy the wind is to be able to change conditions at lightning speed. Though it's getting too windy to keep a steady hand to record this unique scenery and the lack of sunlight doesn't help colour wise, I can't resist the wild beauty of the burnt bare landscape and the sky art above:
With all this wind pointing my nose and a thick cloud ahead to cycle through I imagine this wild rock as one of those guys at cycle race screaming to encourage the athletes:
I continue my way trying to capture bits of this experience though the environment and mostly the weather is like "what the hell are you doing here?":
It's too cloudy to see how close I am to my first target for exploration but there's no secret when you carry a smartphone so the fact that I am getting close is a plus, the exhausting cold wind is not and it's time for the tarmac to end:
Finally I have the wind on my back so I can't complain. I feel sad though as I look to the bodies of the burnt trees:
Have a look at my cycling so far with plenty of wind noise generously offered by mama nature:
After all that I finally have my first target in sight. Ladies and gents, here's my first sight of the abandoned cottage of the Greek dictator built in 1972!:
Semi covered by clouds just above 1000m high this is where the dictator was planning to enjoy some leisure time back in the day but he never managed to as the dictatorship ended a year and a half later. You see when you feel the end is near your new property is not among your priorities...
Before I step into it I first head to a plateau at a lower level where I find a helipad:
I bet no helicopter managed to enjoy this either. Here's how the cottage looks from the helipad:
Here's the view from the helipad - not too bad eh?:
Let's take the last bit of road up to my initial target:
First impressions are the fact that it feels much less luxurious than one could expect and also the intense vandalism this thing has suffered through the years to a point that one can question if this was ever finished and delivered "turn key" to the dictator.
I take the stairway up and as you can see there's not a single tile left in place:
The view from the first floor back in the 70s should have been fantastic. Today after wildfires and especially on a cloudy day like this is much less colourful:
I step into the building where I realise that "vandalism" can be considered as euphemism:
A bit of graffiti can't beautify this terrible mess:
I decide to fight against the wind and climb up to a small building and see what was the purpose of it. Halfway I try to catch the view while the wind tries to catch my phone:
Turns out that this small thing up there used to host the water tank of the cottage:
Funny how things change, once this would be a well guarded one to avoid the dictator's poisoning, today any random guy can have their yolo there.
I go back down and leave the wind behind ripping this summit to cycle down to some secondary buildings at a lower level and less exposed to the elements of nature.
Still not unexposed to vandalism though:
Exposed to nice view nevertheless. I guess this is where the guard of the dictator would be staying at and I'm sure this was the boiler room simply because there's a boiler in, also vandalized (actually looted):
Here's a summary video of the above:
Feeling like I've had enough from ruins and wind I start making my way back down to my starting point. The first meters leaving behind this weird spot are far from attractive. I mean, hard to have such colourless images in the woods but can't control neither the wildfires nor the clouds:
Young trees try to make it up to all of us though:
Still there's views worth capturing:
Here's a video with a clip shot just before I started cycling down from the cottage (gives an idea about the weather) plus a part of cycling down later:
I'll stop this part here cause it's too much to share it all in one post, hope it wasn't too long to you already and wish to see you on my next one.