{"id":2011,"date":"2010-08-18T14:08:51","date_gmt":"2010-08-18T14:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2011-04-12T16:45:19","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T16:45:19","slug":"hot-august-days-and-nights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/?p=2011","title":{"rendered":"Hot August Days and Nights"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mountain village of Makrinitsa - The Pelion<\/p><\/div>\n

We are told the climate is heating up!\u00a0 Certainly yesterday\u00a0here in Greece, we suffered through\u00a0one of the hottest days this summer and with high levels of humidity, the highest temperature recorded\u00a0– 39 degrees C.\u00a0\u00a0Although it is\u00a0rare for Greece to experience a heatwave in August, way back in 1956, the temperature reached an astonishing 47 degrees C and some 600 people died.\u00a0 Last Saturday 14 August, 41 degrees C was recorded in Athens.\u00a0 The good news is, temperatures are expected to drop later in the week which hopefully will also mean, better sleep.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In light of the above, I am forced to spend the greater part of the day in relaxation, not a bad thing when I can sit out on my balcony at Hotel Achilles and take in all that is happening in the Square below.\u00a0 Early yesterday morning I enjoyed a lovely walk through the cobble stone paths of Makrinitsa, admiring the traditional stone built houses and mansions with their grey coloured roofs made from local slate.\u00a0 The village extends\u00a0from it’s lowest part at an altitude of 350m, to 700m at it’s highest.\u00a0 With more than 50 water fountains in Makrinitsa, there are plenty of opportunities to refill your water bottle.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Facilities and services are limited here and by\u00a0far the greatest majority of the shops sell souvenirs and local products.\u00a0 With over 1,000 species of plants and herbs\u00a0with pharmaceutical and medicinal value to be found in the area, dried herbs and\u00a0herbal teas\u00a0are popular, as well as Pelion spoon sweets and jams, olive oil and herb flavoured vinegars.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today I have walked to the nearest village of Portaria – also beautiful, however, my personal preference would have to be Makrinitsa.\u00a0 On the way back, I took a monopati (old path) next to a stream, up through a tree studded ravine of chestnut, oak, beech and poplar.\u00a0 On reaching the top of the old path, I returned back the same way, passing a group of Greeks just setting out,\u00a0who wanted to know if it was beautiful and how long would it take them?\u00a0 Yes, I said, it was very beautiful, however, without good walking shoes (they were all\u00a0wearing jandals) the path would not be so easy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Looking over now at the village of Portaria bathed in sunshine, it is difficult to imagine how in Winter, it can be covered in snow.\u00a0 With the Ski Centre of Agriolefkes nearby, Portaria is a popular Winter destination.\u00a0 After spending more than 2 weeks away from the islands and coastal mainland, I am feeling the need to get back to turquoise seas and beautiful beaches.\u00a0 Therefore, I have in mind to move on Friday, either to Tsagarada, another beautiful\u00a0mountain village of the Pelion, however, with beaches of the Aegean Sea\u00a0in easy reach, or perhaps to one of those beaches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are told the climate is heating up!\u00a0 Certainly yesterday\u00a0here in Greece, we suffered through\u00a0one of the hottest days this summer and with high levels of humidity, the highest temperature recorded\u00a0– 39 degrees C.\u00a0\u00a0Although it is\u00a0rare for Greece to experience a heatwave in August, way back in 1956, the temperature reached an astonishing 47 degrees […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2011"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9539,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions\/9539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}