This was a fairly relaxing day. We travelled to a lookout at Annitsa for a panorama, and found a war memorial to those locals killed in the campaigns against the Italians, 1940-41. The view wasn't quite good enough for Annie's books, but I got the clearest view of Smolikas that I've had (still with snow in a couple of crevases), and could see quite easily to the border with Albania. I have to admit, I am tempted to climb Smolikas; it looks remarkably easy for the second highest mountain in Greece (2635m, compared with Mytikus at 2917m) and there's a road that makes it a significant way up. Not that I'd ever cheat like that, of course.
After a brief stop collected huge (~40kg) flysch samples for a museum exhibition, we visited some exciting climbing rocks just round the corner. Still made of flysch, but heavily cleaved and gently folded it made the perfect site for a small amount of sillyness before moving on. Annie wanted to go to see the Dotsikos Strip Ophiolite pyroxenites, but unfortunately the road had a large stop sign across it, next to a huge baza piles of serpentine (used for grading the road). So instead we took one last site, collecting fossils from red and grey Jurassic carbonates, before returning back to Grevena (Annie felt a little woozy, and a woozy driver in a high 4x4 like the Chevy Blazer is a bad idea.
In the evening, Mike took me out of one of the Cafes for a couple (3) beers. Another great thing about Greece - the longer you stay in a cafe, the more and better food they give you. It's a clever idea really; you can carry on drinking for longer without a) getting hungry b) getting drunk c) getting rowdy. They should definitely do the same in Britain. We only stayed for three, and so only got two lots of crisps and two tosts each. I'd be interested to find out what we'd get if we stayed for longer!
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