Next is the Agios Georgios area which is nearby, just a few minute away. Here the parking lot is crazy busy with lots of cars coming and going. We are surprised at how popular the archaeological site is but then when we try to enter there is no one at the ticket office. And it seems deserted. The attendant finally returns and sells us tickets and as we enter we understand that we were wrong. There is no one in the archaeological site, all people were going at the nearby church.
The site itself is quite impressive given how deserted and cheap to enter it was. There are multiple old basilicas that were excavated here and the floors of a couple of them are decorated with some beautiful mosaics.
There are some interesting details, like the columns that look like they were just produced even though supposedly they were ancient and the mosaic bears, which look like the representation of a bear by someone who never saw one.
Another interesting location on the site are the old thermal baths, you can follow the canals under the rooms as they brought hot water throughout the baths and ended at a well.
We then exit the archaeological site and move to the location of the still standing church. As we already deduced all people are visiting the church, it is the nameday of the saint after which the church is dedicated, St George. There are lots of people entering and exiting the church so we just look at it from the outside.
At this point we are also looking for some food for lunch but there is nothing available, we find only religious icons and toys for sale in the neighborhood. There is also a small chapel nearby which seems to be even older than the main church, but we are not sure, and it is also quite popular with the churchgoers.
Next we drive just below the church to Cape Drepanum. It is a promontory famous as a birding spot and we want to explore a bit the shoreline and fields and see if we find anything interesting. We also eat from the sweets we bought at the bakery early in the day and decide to search something more filling in the evening.
We walk a bit through the fields on the paths and we really enjoy the walk. There are lots of birds that we have already seen like wood-pigeons, but where are all the southern birds that we haven’t seen?!
Crested Larks are plentiful throughout, we really enjoy watching them search for bugs on the fields. And then we finally see a new bird, a Sardinian Warbler, we stalk it a bit until we get some good views of it. This is great but we were hoping for a Cyprus Warbler and none are forthcoming unfortunately. So we return back to the car and are ready for the next and last stop of the day, Baths of Aphrodite.
