A Little Car Trip Through Hills and Valleys

it has been a while since we have been on a road trip with Eleftheria's parents, so a quiet trip through calm villages and empty hill tops seemed like the perfect opportunity to stay away from the fray of the world and have some tranquil time as a family. Simos didn't make it, but Georgia was around to hang out.

we make the trip into a few days, two long travel days with lots of stops and sites, with a day in Vlasti (the village where Aristidis and Evangelia spent a large chunk of their childhood) sandwiched in between.

Normally bustling villages and busy parks were pretty empty this year. Greece is experiencing about 20 new cases a day in the whole country, but that does not change the fact that people are concerned and tourism from the outside is at an all time low. It made for a wonderful trip of us, but there is no doubt that the country that is run on tourism is going to have quite the reckoning come winter.

we started by driving to a rather large park with beautiful trees and gorgeous weather.

we stopped alongside Lake Vegoritida for a coffee.

Along the way we stopped at a roadside picnic area to have some lunch.

Emily spent much of the time in her hammock.

the village of Vlasti is an old one and has seen its share of hardship, but it is beautiful and these mini roses were in many of the yards.

this is an uninteresting picture, but we were at the top of a hill outside of the village. We took up some coffee and some fruits, it was followed by a sleep, some frisbee and exploration.

we drove slow on some backroads on the way home and the girls got to ride in the bed of the truck for a little while. 

i posted this one just because it is a hilarious design feature. This guard rail, presumably guarding cars from falling off the side of a steep, windy hillside, surprisingly turn into a series of benches, still on the side of the same steep hillside.

Among the stops of the way back to Silata, we stopped at the waterfalls in Edessa. My first time in the area. They are pretty impressive.

this is that super cool bug that I found in the woods.

it was a wonderful trip. i posted about the last trip that we took together to Vlasti, you can see the post here

i found loads of undocumented pictures (i don't know if that makes sense, i simply have never posted them). i will attempt to put up another post of random photos soon.