Saturday, July 9, 2016

Mythical



There's little to add to the previous European Natural Soaking Society entry on Kamena Vourla and the local hot spring of Koniavitis.

That's if one failed to continue onwards from the Koniavitis spring along the same road (north) for another couple of hundred meters. 
There along the road side are another couple of pools, two changing cubicles and beyond the cubicles another


What transpires is that this location houses two separate hot springs, the southern most tubs are the named Kallyntika / Kallintika. Which translates as cosmetic. Cosmetic what?   
While the northern most heart shaped tub is referred to as Aphrodite (source: KamenaVourla.gr).

The greektraveller delves this bit of info:
'The thermal radio-springs [of Kamena Vourla] were known to the ancient Greeks; even a sulfur spring was named after Aphrodite because in Greek mythology the goddess took her cosmetic baths there'.
Hmmm, anyway there are two springs, convenient. There were also two nice ladies enjoying the cement hot pools, apparently the cosmetic named refers to the qualities attributed to the spring: more popular for women apparently.

The heart shaped Aphrodite pool lacked any bathers so I started off testing the soaking here. It was coolish. I read somewhere just 26 degrees which possibly doesn't qualify it as a hot spring.


Much to the delight of my fellow soakers in the cosmetic pool, I joined them. They were much enthused to host a tourist and one who looked like a German even though I insisted to hail from the Netherlands. How weird. They also overemphazied their love for Ms. Merkel, don't know what to think of that.  


Anyway this pool was somewhat warmer, did I read it was 32 , still not very hot. 

Out on internet other than mentioned before there's very little to add. 

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for the info, have been going to this area for some years but did not know about the out of town thermal springs. Will go check them soon. It is a shame that such amazing healing springs are left to decay and nobody cared to look after them and develop them properly even in basic infrastructure. This is the same with most thermal springs in Greece, untapped fountains of health, where healing miracles can happen

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  2. Well, sometimes it is just as well that they are left neglected: very often developers do a poor job and manage to exclude many by asking high entrance fees.

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