We stayed at the previous beach until Saturday morning. We spent the week working and cooking, cleaning, exercising a bit, and also figuring out what to do next. As I wrote in the previous article, we've decided (unless something goes really wrong) to wait out the isolation here in Greece, but we don't want to rush into places where there's a higher risk of infection, so we'll stay out of the way and mostly alone.

On Friday evening, as a farewell to the Peloponnese, I went for a swim in the sea. It was more like cold water swimming, but it felt so good! And I had to laugh when Leo told me that the old man from next door was filming me! :D

Long drive

For Saturday we planned to drive as far as possible from the Peloponnese – the first town with infection here is Patras, a port just in the north of the peninsula, and we're driving near it today. That's because one of the world's longest cable-stayed bridges leads there back to the mainland. You have to pay for it (it's 20 Euros for a van), but it's the fastest and safest, so when we calculated how much we'd save and that the only person we'd meet is the toll collector, we were willing to pay it.

A long journey north awaited us – that day we spent about 3-4 hours in the car and drove all the way past the town of Preveza to a beach. It was full of strolling people. Just those who want to enjoy a nice day outside. We didn't really like staying in this crowd, so we just got water from the tap and went to move elsewhere.

A few kilometers further north we found a long beach with just a few fishermen, where we stayed. It looked like they were trying to build a more attractive place for tourists – they were making better sewage, redoing roads, widening the path by the beach so you could park along it. And they had several refreshment stands, unfortunately all closed for us.

Better place? Maybe!

On Sunday morning we went for a walk along the beach. We only met a few people at a nearby small harbor. We were thinking about where to anchor for a week and maybe longer. It wasn't bad here, but too many cars were driving past us – we were standing a bit away from the road. We chose one beautiful beach where they also promised a tap. It took about 20 minutes to get there. The beach itself was beautiful, hidden under a cliff densely covered with pine trees. But otherwise not suitable for us for a longer stay. Lots of people were driving there, internet connection wasn't great, and that tap was down on the beach, so we'd have to walk down for water if needed.

So we moved to the adjacent beach, where a man from the neighboring caravan immediately came to greet us. A French senior who with his wife travels around Europe. They'd just arrived in Greece a week ago and everything closed behind them. So they were looking for a quiet place to wait it out like us.

And our neighbors from Britain have a similar situation. They've been traveling for quite a while and have been in Greece since December like us. They're also enjoying retirement and said they definitely don't want to return to England now. So we greeted each other and we're spending the whole week near each other, though mostly locked in our vehicles. The weather isn't the best, so who would rush outside? We're supposed to stay home anyway.

Stocking up

On Tuesday, the only day it was nice, I quickly pulled out the washing machine and did the dirty laundry and tidied up a bit at home. We've been adopted by a pack of dogs again here, fortunately we recently bought dog food for cases like this, so at least we have something to feed them. We take it as rent for being able to stay here for a while. And they protect us. They bark at every motorcyclist who wanders here! :D

The government here issued a regulation that we must stay in isolation and whoever wants to go out must have a certificate – SMS, printed, or handwritten, stating name, address, date and time, and also signature. If we meet a checkpoint, we must have it with us along with ID.

We tested it for the first time on Thursday on our way shopping. We were running out of supplies so we did perhaps our biggest shopping trip on the road and hope it will last at least 2 weeks. At the store entrance we got a number and off we went shopping! We were among the few wearing masks, we only saw them on seniors, pregnant women, and store employees. But we know it's important to wear them to slow the spread of infection, so we try to be responsible.

Nobody checked our certificate about the reason for leaving home and we got back to the beach without problems, along with a refilled gas bottle. So now we're fully equipped to stay here for a while and not move anywhere!