April 26, 2025 - Greece
Drive to Olympia
After sightseeing in Delphia, we drove down the hill to the Gulf of Corinth.  Although the water shown below is more of a little gulf off the Gulf of Corinth; maybe the Gulf of Itea.
   
Looking back at Mount Parnassos and Ancient Delphi in the distance.
   
Looking back at the town of Itea, with Mount Parnassos on the left.
   
Now we're driving on the northern shore of the big Gulf of Corinth.  The Peloponnese is on the other side.
   
We make our first stop for gas in Greece!  I honestly don't know how much gas cost, or what kind of mileage our mini-SUV got.  It cost about $35 USD to top it off but we never let it get below half so that's not really that good.  It doesn't really matter.  Just being able to get the gas is the important thing.  The cost is what it is.  Renting the car itself from Avis was actually very reasonable.
   
Our first glimpse of the Rio–Antirrio Bridge.  We need to cross over it to get to the Peloponnese, which of course, is a big island.
   

The Rio–Antirrio Bridge (Greek: Γ?φυρα Ρ?ου–Αντιρρ?ου), officially the Charilaos Trikoupis Bridge, is one of the world's longest multi-span cable-stayed bridges and longest of the fully suspended type.

It opened one day before the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics, on 12 August 2004, and was used to transport the Olympic flame.

Prior to this bridge, the Peloponnese could only be reached by ferry or via the isthmus of Corinth in the east.

This bridge is widely considered to be an engineering masterpiece, owing to several solutions applied to span the difficult site. The water depth reaches 213 feet, the seabed is mostly of loose sediment, the seismic activity and possibility of tectonic movement is significant, and the Gulf of Corinth is expanding at a rate of 32-49 feet a year.  In addition, the hills on either side create a wind tunnel where 70 miles per hour winds are common.  [But not today, thankfull]
   
Nice photo of the bridge by Annatsach, downloaded from Wikipedia.  The bridge does look very modern.
   

.We crossed over the bridge to Rio, passed on the outskirts of the relatively big town of Patra, and then drove to the Olympia area.  We followed Google steering so I'm not exactly sure how we got there -- I remember driving two-lane country roads, maybe through the Erymanthos Mountains, although it is possible we were on E-55 -- but we did get there.

We had a little trouble finding our AirBnB because the instructions didn't have an address.  Actually, the instructions did have the name of the house -- Charo Host -- but I didn't realize that.  Fortunately, the community was small and we found "Charo Host" fairly quickly.  The place itself was very nice.  I liked the parking, inside the gate, on the grass.
   
Dave enjoying the balcony at Chara Host.
   
It was a short walk from Charo Host to this restaurant -- Bacchus Tavern  -- where we had a very nice dinner.
   

Enjoying a round of drinks and appetizer while waiting for the main course at the Bacchus Tavern.  It was early so we had the restaurant mostly to ourselves.
   
 
   
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