Day 179 – EU – Greece [Skala to Kosmas]

19/08/20

36.5km

  From Skala (Greece) to Kosmas (Greece)

Europe

Up up up… all the way up the mountain!

With 1360m+ uphill today, this is the most ascent I’ve tackled in a single day – and quite logically the slowest day of the world run so far. It went a lot better than I had anticipated, mostly because the sun was not hitting as strongly as in the past few days.

Going up the mountain with all the time in the world so to speak, was beautiful. There was nearly no traffic. It was mostly silent, with the occasional herd of goats ringing their bells in the mountain. It smelt of lavender by the roadside, but as I picked up some of the plant to crush it in my hands, though they were very fragrant, they were not the lavender blue shade. They were greenish yellow. If it was not lavender, it did smell astonishingly like it.

As I went higher and higher the vegetation changed. When I reached the village of Kosmas, there were pine and fir trees all around. The village is located within the Parnonas mountain range, with Mount Parnonas standing 1940m tall. A lovely village with a central place marked by two immense plane trees.

I received a very warm welcome from my host today. He incidentally passed me on the way in his car this morning and was quite surprised to see me arrive on my two feet “with the baby in the stroller”! They offered to take care of my washing, so that’s one less chore to do this afternoon.

Tomorrow is a much longer day of running, but mostly downhill – I will reach the Argolikos Gulf, and most importantly: the Aegean Sea at last!

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: