I’ve spent the weekend in Krinides in northern Greece (south of Drama, to explain the particularly tenuous post title), next to the site of ancient Philippi and the plains on which the Roman Republic was finally euthanased. Actually staying here, rather than being bussed in for a couple of hours like 97%+ of the other people touring the ancient remains, has been wonderful, and not just for the magnificent breakfast (shout-out to the Hotel Philippeio); a chance for some close observation of local horticultural practice, fascinating wild flowers and a lot of wildlife – a surprising shortage of bats, given the numbers I detected in the streets of Thessaloniki last week, but lots of strange nocturnal noises (Scops owls among them, I think), and fireflies, and today a hoopoe as well as stork, swallows, Western Rock nuthatch, calandra larks and a lot of things I haven’t firmly identified yet.
The plains of Philippi. The camp of Cassius was supposedly on that hill.
Sphinx 