This is another new port for us. Argostoli is a city on the island of Cephalonia. It has around 10,000 inhabitants and is fairly compact.
Not far from the ship is the town square. We headed that way and passed many souvenir and jewelry shops along our way. When we got to the square we were surprised at how large it was. We were committed to walking the neighborhoods and up the hill at the back of town. We would come back this way and visit the square then.
We no sooner entered the neighborhood than the way started up. This proved to be a gradual but steady rise all of the way up. We came to a nice looking park with steep stairs to enter. This was also saved for our trip back down.
There were no tourists to speak of here. We did see 2 people pulling suitcases on there way down from one of the hotels above. Cars were very few as well. That made us happy because the streets were very narrow.
As we went on the views became nicer and nicer. Gardens were pretty with flowers. Almost every home had fruit trees of some sort on the yard. We saw people eating in their kitchens or yards but nobody was on the street. We think it was their respect for the heat. The housing was quite nice and the hotels looked comfortable with good sea views. The city spread out before us as we reached the tree line. Here was the road that ran around the island from town to town. We congratulated ourselves, admired the view and started down.
When we got near the park there was a large school yard. Of course the building was closed for the summer and the gates were locked. We made our way around it and found that across the street was an entrance to the park with no stairs. What good fortune.
The park was indeed very nice. The trees offered great shade with a cool breeze making it comfortable. A nice gazebo was the centerpiece. This neighborhood was lucky to have such a special place. As we progressed we came to the steep stairs we had noticed on our walk uphill. They were easy to negotiate going down.
Before we knew it we were at the square. It was a large pedestrian way. Restaurants and government buildings surrounded the square proper with pedestrian streets crossing through it. On the far side we discovered several blocks of shops.
We entered one of the first jewelry stores we saw. We were still window shopping. After the owner got down a necklace mounted high on the wall to price it for us, he took time to tell us about the city. We learned that in 1953 a terrible earthquake destroyed everything except one house. Everything that we were seeing had been built since 1953. He gave us some rather vague directions to the one surviving house.
We stopped shopping and set out for the house. He had told us it was past the ship. We accepted his word, but after passing the ship by several blocks we asked for directions. It was back quite a way. It was almost all the way back to the square. We had actually passed it on the opposite side of the street. At that point we were not expecting it and were not looking for it. When we got there we did not find any signage or identification for it. If it had not been for talking to the locals, we would never have seen it.
Being friendly paid off again. We returned home after 3.7 miles with significant elevation. What a wonderful time we had.
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