I didn’t actually expect olive groves to be literally everywhere, but they were. Almost every hillside was covered in huge twiste hunks of trees, the slope cut up into steps with crooked stone wall reinforcements, and black netting rolled up in lines ready and waiting for shaking time. The trees themselves are fascinating – they look as if the trunks are wound together by many smaller trunks that merge over time, leaving a lattice of holes. Like crochet in wood if you could effect such a thing.
There were no olives on them, which is why I didn’t first realise what they were. But after we wandered about some and dicovered a few wizened leftovers hiding in the foliage, we were in no doubt.
We stumbled about looking for a shrine to which the only marker was a single brown arrow until we decided to give up and return to our bikes. At that point we met the owner of the land we were treading all over. He was from Athens and visiting his land to effect some maintenance and have a holiday.
Overall, it was a wonderful five days – five days that I spent equally missing my daughters as enjoying the time away from them!
The point of this post is of course to mention that I am back, and will return emails and calls!