April 30 - A Walk to Kalamata Castle

We had a lazy day.  Alexis and Mike went to the grocery store in the morning.  The rest of us stayed in.  After a late lunch we walked about a mile to the Kalamata Castle - only to find that it is closed on Tuesdays!  Monday and Wednesday are Holidays here - and Thursday and Friday we have tours.

This is the day of the grand celebration of my 70th birthday.  The Heald's have brought a blow up lobster to celebrate.  Alexis seems to be communing with the Lobster - You must make this birthday special!.

Then off we go on our walk.  Wall art also happens here in Kalamata.

There are these interesting trees - with bottle brush flowers - still don't know what they are called.

A Kalamata church.  The castle is supposed to be somewhere behind it.

So we head up the steps beside the church.

Views of the city from the top.  But this is not where the castle entrance is.

A random empty lot with old broken down cars.

Photos with the fish eye lens.

After many false starts we finally find the entrance only to discover that the castle is closed on Tuesdays!

On our way back down and back to the normal lens.

Searching for an ice cream shop in old town Kalamata.

we found a shop called "Family Donut" that also sold ice cream.  The proprietor trying to sell Lia and Natasha on doughnuts.  Lia was happy to have a donut as long as she could also have ice cream.  But Natasha had seen a premade icey and had her heart set on it.  No amount or persuasion could change her mind.

Here N is with her choice - and very happy. 

This old town is very touristy.

Then we headed back to our apartment.

Past the same paintings we had seen on the wall on the way out.

We were picked up by a smaller van at 6:50 to go to dinner.  I thought we were going to go to a fancy restaurant.  But it turned out to be a regular tourist place.  They were out of half of the menu - maybe because of all the holidays, so our choices were limited.  No wine list - just house wine. They did have a list of about 10 Tsiporou.  The food turned out to be quite good - the wind bad, the Tsiporou great and the birthday cake was delivered!  But with only 6 of us - most of the cake was brought home.  All were tired on return.  We did skype with Lisa and fam in Spain. 

I forgot to mention the wonderful video I got in the morning.  Stef and family sent a video of them singing happy birthday - it was so nice.

So finally my birthday celebrations are finished.