These people here speak a Doric dialect.  they are very cut off from the rest of Greece by high mountains.  They grow cherry, apples, pears, vegetables and garlic.  There used to be 120,000 people in the region at the beginning of the 20th C, but now only 45,000. Many people left because of German bombing of the towns. 

On this journey the shrines at the side of the road were mentioned.  They are placed there because of road accidents.  In them are placed photos of the person killed, along with some of their belongings and often a bottle of water.  Mourning in Greece is three years.  The women wear black when mourning.  Back in the 1940's many women vowed always to wear black.  This must explain why there are so many old women dressed in black.

The capital is Tripoli.  This was founded in the 13C.  The name means three towns.  Earlier three towns had been destroyed.  The residents came to the area and founded the new town.  Very few buildings survive from the middle ages.  The Turks, and then the WW II destroyed them all.

Down on to Megalopoli.  Five thousand people live here.  The plain is not cultivated because of the pollution from the lignite fired power stations.  This plain looked very science fiction with the tall stacks from the power stations and the haze.  At 10.20 we stopped at a road side cafe and had a cup of coffee, Lipton Ice Tea and a Balaclava..  After the stop we continued on.  We were told more about the area.

There are two types of olives grown in Greece.  The Kalamatra olive, and the ordinary olive.  The Kalamatra olive is a big brown olive.  The ordinary olive is green when picked unripe, and black when picked ripe.  The Kalamatra grove has 700,000 trees and is the second largest olive grove in Greece.  The largest grove is near Delphi.

Harvest starts in November-December and goes on for 3 months.  There are 110 Kilos per tree, and 4 kilo goes to make a litre of oil.  The harvest has not changed in thousands of years.  The trees are beaten to dislodge  the olives, and then caught in nets.  Gypsies and foreign workers do most of the work.  The refineries and canneries work three months a year.  The Gypsies live in large camps through out Greece.  At this time of the year the camps were empty because the harvest was in progress.

Kalamatra Olive Grove

The Go Tours coach