30-Mar-2002 -- We were on a short holiday in Greece and we were planning to make a tour of the Peloponnese. We had done our homework and seen that all three confluences at the Peloponnese and one very close to the Peloponnese had not been visited yet. On our way from Athens to Korinthos we made a small detour to make an attempt to visit the north 38, east 23 confluence near Loutraki. We found a dirt road leading west from Loutraki that does not lead to any place in particular, but circles around the confluence. We parked our rental car about 1.5 kilometres from the confluence and had to continue on foot. It was a cloudy day and it even rained a little, not quite what we had in mind when we decided to go to Greece, but at least it wasn’t really cold.

As the confluence was at a higher altitude than the road, we had parked the car next to a dry gorge that seemed the easiest way to ascend. This was the most difficult part of our hike, as it was rather slippery and there were some steep parts with loose rocks and dead wood that didn’t give much balance-keeping support. We followed the gorge for about 500 metres and arrived on a relatively flat area with trees and clear spots. We had to climb over some rock formations, but these were not steep so the confluence could be reached quite easily. The confluence spot was between fir trees with mistletoe growing on them at an altitude of 1021 metres.

All in all, it took us about an hour to get there. We didn’t see anyone on our way to and from the confluence, but there were some signs of human activity in the area, particularly trash and containers for tapping resin (probably for brewing retsina; wine mixed with resin). We also found a path that might give easier access to the confluence, but as we didn’t know where it would bring us, we followed the same way back to the car. When we arrived there, we were a bit bruised and our clothes were wet and dirty, but despite that our mission had been successful so we were looking forward to our next attempt, which would be North 37, East 23.