Category: Greece

This morning we were out early because in the Rick Steve’s guide book said that parking at Delphi’s archaeological site could be difficult (in hindsight I think he meant during high season).  We drove to the site parked the car and walked about 10 minutes into town for breakfast.  We bought croissants at the bakery and ate them at a coffee shop overlooking the valley.  Then we walked back to the archaeological site.

Before going any further, let me give you some background on Delphi (from pbs.org, https://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/background/7_p1.html)

“Dating back to 1400 BC, the Oracle of Delphi was the most important shrine in all Greece, and in theory all Greeks respected its independence. Built around a sacred spring, Delphi was considered to be the omphalos – the center (literally navel) of the world.

People came from all over Greece and beyond to have their questions about the future answered by the Pythia, the priestess of Apollo. And her answers, usually cryptic, could determine the course of everything from when a farmer planted his seedlings, to when an empire declared war.

Arguments over the correct interpretation of an oracle prophesy were common, but the oracle was always happy to give another prophecy if more gold was provided. A good example is the famous incident before the Battle of Salamis when the Pythia first predicted doom and later predicted that a ‘wooden wall’ (interpreted by the Athenians to mean their ships) would save them.

The lack of a strict religious dogma associated with the worship of Greek gods also encouraged scholars to congregate at Delphi, and it became a focal point for intellectual enquiry, as well as an occasional meeting place where rivals could negotiate.

Delphi became a fantastic showcase of art treasures and all Greek states would send rich gifts to keep the Oracle on their side. It finally came to an end in the 4th century AD when a newly Christian Rome proscribed its prophesying.”

The archaeological site consists of ruins and a museum which can be done in either order but you really need to do both to get a good understanding of what Delphi was and what it looked like. We started with the ruins which are set on a hill.  I used the Rick Steve’s guidebook and the information plaques to get a sense of what it looked like at its peak.  Here are pictures.

Then we went into the museum and saw artifacts that had been recovered from the site.

Here is a picture of what they think it looked like at its prime.

The ruins and museum combined to give us a good sense of Delphi 2,500 years ago.  It was a religious focal point with incredible displays of  tribute and wealth with some corruption thrown in.

After exploring Delphi we went to Galaxidi, a sleepy coastal town which had been building ships until about 100 years ago.  To get there we drove along the coast which was very undeveloped (we later learned it was underdeveloped because there are very few roads along the coast).  We found it to be very quaint.  We walked along the pier, looking at the boats.  We spoke to an Irish gentleman who had sailed from Florida to Ireland in 2012 and just been sailing around Europe ever since.  He and Rick talked sailing for awhile.  We asked him for a lunch restaurant recommendation.  We went to his recommendation and had a great lunch.   Here are pictures of Galaxidi.

Then we drove back to the apartment and relaxed.  All in all a very nice day.

We were up early because we wanted to take pictures of the monasteries and rock formations in Meteora at sunrise.  The sun  sunrises at about 6 and we left the hotel at 6:20.  We drove to the various available parking sites and took pictures.  We got some good ones.

By 7:15 the clouds were covering the sun so we headed back to the hotel.  There we packed up because we are moving again.  We decided we wanted to go to the Museum of Geological Formations of Meteora which didn’t open until 10.   We checked out of the hotel and headed downtown (a 1 minute drive or 3 minute walk, not a very big town) at around 9:30.  To kill a little time we went into a “kinetic art” shop, aka mobile shop and talked to the owner.  His English was great because he lived in Manchester, NH from the time he was 10 until 25.  His home and shop is in his grandmother house. When Rick was a boy he made a mobile out of coat hangers after seeing a Calder exhibit.  He says he’s now inspired to go home and make mobiles.  Here are some pictures from the shop.

We went back to the museum and waited until 10:15 for someone to open it but no one showed up so we gave up.

We drove from Meteora to Arachova, the town next to Delphi.  The ride took about 4 hours (with coffee stops) and mostly we were on the highway.  Interestingly there were very few cars on the highway, I mean we saw one or two in about 50 miles.  We think that maybe the highway was new?

We went up and over mountains to get to Arachova.  There is a ski slope about 20 minutes from Arachova and this town caters to the skiers in the winter.

We arrived around 2 and  lunch was the first item on our agenda.  We went to a little restaurant on the main street.  We didn’t know it at the time but our apartment was right next door.  We had a delicious lunch and started talking to the owners, who spoke very good English. The man had worked in the tourism industry and was very familiar with the Greek islands. He gave us some tips for our Greek sailing adventure.

After lunch we got the keys to the apartment and got settled.  Our apartment has a skier’s rustIc decor and is very nice.  It has a balcony with a lovely view.

The weather wasn’t so nice, it was about 55F and drizzling so we didn’t feel like exploring.  We found a grocery store and came back to the apartment to relax.  That evening the weather started to clear and we had a lovely sunset.

Tomorrow we explore Delphi!  Stay tuned.

 

We said good bye to our great little Thessaloniki apartment this morning.  Meteora is our next stop.

We took the highway to Meteora and with several coffee stops it took about 3 hours.  We also stopped to take pictures of what we thought was Mt. Olympus but now we are not so sure it was Mt. Olympus.

Meteora is famous because it has monasteries perched on immense rock pillars.  We were driving through the mountains and kept waiting to see the pillars but it wasn’t until we were practically in Meteora that we saw the rock formations.  According to Wikipedia they are particularly unique because the pillars are so localized.  The ancients believed these formations to be meteors hurled by an angry god.  If you are interested you can read about their formation on Wikipedia.

We arrived in Meteora around lunch time.  We checked into our hotel (no Airbnb because we are only here one night) and had a lovely lunch overlooking this amazing landscape.

After lunch we drove to the monasteries.  Our first stop wasn’t a monastery but actually a nunnery.  We hiked up the stairs and paid the entrance fee.  Only 16 nuns live there.  Only the church and some of the common spaces were accessible to tourists. We couldn’t see any of their living space so it only took about 15 minutes to walk through.  The chapel was beautiful but we couldn’t take pictures and I couldn’t find any on the internet.

Next we went to the Monastery of the Holy Trinity.  Only two monks live there.  It was featured in the 1981 James Bond move, For Your Eyes Only.  We had to walk down a path, through a tunnel, and then up about 180 steps, it took us about 1/2 hr to get up there.  The monastery was bigger than the nunnery but again we weren’t allowed in the living spaces.  They had a nice garden and the views from the garden were amazing.

We also stopped at several viewing sites, climbed out on the rocks and took pictures.  All in all it really is an amazing location. I highly recommend it to anyone coming to Greece.  Here are pictures from our day.

This evening we returned to the hotel, relaxed and planned our trip to Delphi tomorrow.

We started out the morning by going down to Thessaloniki’s shopping district to a camera store.  We were proud of ourselves because we figured out how to pay to park down there.  We had take our license plate number and our parking location number into a store on the corner and pay them to park.  They logged us into a system used by the meter maids.  No ticket for us!

The battery charger for Rick’s camera wasn’t working.  The camera store had the charger we needed and we were back in business.  We had some breakfast while we were downtown after getting the charger.

Then we went to what is described in our guide book as Alexander the Great country.  We started out by going to Dion, which is the town at the base of Mt Olympus.  We left from downtown and the drive took us about an hour.  We could see the mountain after driving for about a half an hour.  It was the tallest mountain, it was snow capped, and we could see all the Gods just lounging around, eating bonbons (just checking if anyone actually reads this).

Once in Dion we drove around and actually left the center of town to head out towards the grape fields.  There we found a little church at the base of the mountain.  At this point the peak of the mountain was in the clouds.

We went back into Dion and went to the museum which had a lot of artifacts which weren’t really that interesting to us except for this nice floor mosaic.

After the museum we went to lunch in Dion and talked to a nice couple from Belgium.

Next stop was Vergina, the location of the tomb of Phillip II, father of Alexander the Great.  We took back roads there and stopped a couple of times to take pictures of Mt Olympus.  Here are my best pictures.

On arriving in Vergina we stopped to get Rick a coffee.  Then we had trouble finding the actual tombs and almost left Vergina without seeing them.  Luckily we didn’t because it was an excellent exhibit.  Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures.  Here are some images I found on the internet.

By the time we left it was 6:30.  One thing I haven’t mentioned it that it stays light here until 9.  We got back to the apartment around 8.

Here is a map showing Thessaloniki, Dion, and Vergina.

 

Today we walked almost 20,000 steps, 19,723 to be exact, so you guessed it, we walked  all over Thessaloniki today.  All the major sites are very close to our apartment.  There are lots of old churches and monuments, some dating back to 300 AD.

We started the morning by going out for breakfast.  There are coffee/pastry shops on almost every corner here.  Some have very elaborate pastries.  I think the Thessalonikians really like their desserts.

Then we continued down the street and there were a lot of people in traditional Greek costumes milling about a church called Ayia Sofia.  It turns out that May 19 is Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day. The Greek genocide, including the Pontic genocide, was the systematic killing of  Christian Ottoman Greeks, carried out in Turkey during World War I and its aftermath (1914–1922) on the basis of religion and ethnicity. According to various sources, several hundred thousand Ottoman Greeks died during this period. It looked like it would be a while before the remembrance commenced so we didn’t hang around.

Here are some of the places we went (the blue dot is our apartment).

We went into a number of churches and we saw many worshippers circulating the religious icons and venerating them by kissing them.

If you are interested, you can read more about it here.

Here are some pictures from our walk.

By this time we were hungry so we stop for a gyro which was very good.  Then we walked down to the harbor and out on the pier.  Rick had a coffee.

In Thessaloniki there are a lot of people riding scooters.  They have a scooter system, similar to Boston’s bluebikes.  You have an app on your phone and you scan a code on the scooter into your phone and you are charged for the scooter.  Looks like fun!

We returned to the apartment and relaxed for the evening.

Today we was a travel day.  We are leaving Corfu and going to Thessaloniki.  It’s a Saturday and the Corfu airport is a mad house.  The entrance to the rental car return was blocked with buses and the line for international flights was out the door.  And as one lady said, “It’s only May!”. Luckily the area for domestic flights was much less crowded.

While in line we met a man who works for Dream Yacht Charters and he said we might be able to rent a boat for several months and sail it from Sicily to Barcelona and then to Ibiza or Mallorca.  Might be a trip for next summer???

The flights were fine, renting the car in Thessaloniki was easy, and finding the apartment was no problem.  The apartment is in a great location, right in the middle of the city and very close to the primary historical structures. Luckily it comes with a parking spot.  After our host showed us around the apartment, we headed to the shoreline to get some lunch/dinner (we didn’t get a meal on the planes).  Here are pictures of the shoreline.

It was 4:30 so most places were serving drinks, but eventually we found a place serving food.  We had a nice meal and then headed back to the apartment, stopping at a grocery store along the way.

Once back I figured out the rest of our land trip and booked apartments and hotels.  We leave here on Tuesday, spend one night in Meteora, two nights near Delphi, and four nights in Mystras before arriving in Athens, where we spend a couple of nights and then pick up the boat.  It feels good to have that settled.  Here’s a map of our scheduled travels.

 

 

 

 

 

Today we explored the town of Corfu. Corfu was ruled by the Venetians, French, and British, among others.  All those cultures are reflected in the town which is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.  Luckily we had glorious weather for walking around.  Although we don’t have a lot of data, it seems like late May is the perfect time to visit Corfu.  The weather is nice but not too hot and there aren’t a lot of tourists.

We drove into town and parked the car.  We walked towards the old fortress, of course stopped for a coffee along the way.  We walked along the esplanade, a large park just to the west of the fortress.

Built by the Venetians in 1546 on the site of a Byzantine castle, the old fortress housed Corfu’s entire population.  Most of the old Venetian fortifications were replace by the British in the 1800’s.  The British also added structures including Church of St. George that was built to look like an ancient Doric temple.  We wandered around the fortress for awhile and climbed up to top.  The view from the top was spectacular.

We were hungry after exploring the fortress so we went to a restaurant right on the water and had a delicious lunch including a piece of baklava! There were people swimming next to our lunch spot.

After lunch we wandered around the town.  We visited a couple of churches.  The streets were very narrow and winding, the area reminded us of Venice.  You can definitely see the merging of the cultures in the architecture.

We walked back to the car and decided we would go to a beach, in Glyfada on the west side, which is supposed to be the most beautiful one on the island.  It was very pretty and the sun felt great.  We can now say that we have dipped our toes in the Adriatic Sea.

After enjoying the beach we returned to the apartment for a light dinner and packing.  We leave for Thessaloniki tomorrow.

 

Today we planned to explore the southern part of the island.  The weather forecast was the same as yesterday, possible showers and thunderstorms.  We saw dark clouds but didn’t experience any rain.  We headed to the very tip of the island. It is clear that the southern half is less developed than the northern portion.  We had lots of excitement but no cute harbors like yesterday.  While the roads in the north aren’t great they are generally better that those in the south.  Here’s our route for today (the stops are in order, A=Benitses, etc.)

On our way to the southern tip we stopped in a little town called Benitses.  We walked around the town a little after a coffee for Rick and a fresh squeezed OJ for me.

We got to the very end and found a little anchorage with fishing boats.

We continued past the anchorage on this VERY narrow road on the edge of a cliff.  The road forked and the left fork was a dirt road that had clearly been rained out.  It had ruts so big that it was impassable, so we took the right fork.  We continued around the corner about 1/4 mile and then the road just stopped.  There was a significant drop to the beach below.  Going forward was not an option and turning around was not an option so Rick had to back up about a 1/4 of a mile to the fork where he was able to back in a little way and turn around.  YIKES!

After that we drove through an olive forest to Lefkimmi Bay which was pretty but really undeveloped.  Here are pictures of the trees (I don’t know why the trunks look the way they do) and the bay.

By this time we were hungry for lunch so we headed towards Notos.  We found a restaurant there and had a good lunch.

After lunch we went down to the restaurant’s beach area.

Fortified, we drove to a marina that we saw from the restaurant‘s beach.  It was on the next little peninsula.  We talked to a guy who had a 48ft beneteau sailboat (very similar to the one we are renting in Athens).  He spent an hour with us talking about the boat and his experiences.

The next stop was Chlomos which is one of the oldest villages in Corfu (built around the 13th century) and one of the most picturesque in the whole island.  We arrived in Chlomos and were following google maps and not really looking at the signs.  We missed the sign that said we couldn’t drive into Chlomos; Google doesn’t seem to know that you can’t drive there.  The road was getting narrower and narrower until finally it was too narrow for our car.  Again we couldn’t go forward and couldn’t turn around so Rick had to back up the car uphill for about an eighth of a mile.  We had a bunch of tourists and locals watching.  They applauded when he finally made it up the hill.  Rick did a great job and there was no damage to the car, but the clutch will never be the same.

We didn’t stick around so I have just a few pictures that I took while Rick consulted with the local on how to get the car turned around.  Here are the pictures I managed to take.

Our last stop of the day was at The Governor’s Olive Oil Company.  We were hoping to get a tour but they had a seminar starting in an hour. However they explained what makes an olive oil good and how to taste it.  It is the polyphenols that give the olive oil its anti-inflammatory and  anti-oxidant properties and their olive oil has much more than your average olive oil.  That is because they harvest the olives early in the season and because they process them within three hours of picking them.  We learned that when tasting you first warm up oil in your hands.  Then you smell it.  If it’s good oil you should sense an aroma of flowers or fruit.  When tasting it you move it around your mouth for about 5 seconds.  Then you suck air in through your teeth and swallow it.  It’s interesting because at first you taste the flowery, fruity elements on your tongue, then you taste the bitterness in the back of you throat, and finally you taste the spiciness of the oil as you swallow it.  We bought some of their olive oil to take home.  Since we often eat salad with oil and balsamic vinegar, it seems we’ll invest in something better than the $2.00 Market Basket vinegar we have on hand to compliment this better than average olive oil.

From there we came back to the apartment and had a light dinner.

A couple of other things I have noticed about Corfu.

1.  They have a real trash problem.  The British couple we met the other day said that they had a dump that got completely filled up four years ago and have not yet identified a new site.  We certainly aren’t seeing four years of trash, but there are overflowing trash bins along the roads everywhere.  They also seem to have a problem with too many cats.  There are a lot of cats and I’m sure most of them are not fixed so they will continue to have a lot of new cats.
3. It feels like Corfu has an aging population.  We see a lot of older people in the little villages that we pass through.  We are guessing that the only jobs here are associated with tourism and many of the younger generation have gone to the mainland to find work.  Not an isolated issue from our experience traveling,  but one that certainly saps the vibrance and innovative spirit within a society.

We left the apartment around 10.  Here’s the view from our balcony.

The weather forecast said we might have a couple of showers and a thunderstorm, but they decided not to materialize today.

Our goal was to explore the northern part of the island, so off we went.  As we headed out our first impressions were somewhat bleak.  Traveling on the main road we saw dumpsters overflowing with trash and closed storefronts dotting the towns we passed through.  Everything seemed to be in a general state of disrepair and there was no real sense of an underlying Greek culture.  Fortunately we decided to turn off the main road and explore the back roads leading to the coastline.  What we found was just what we were looking for, picturesque villages, quaint harbors and inviting tavernas. And a lot of German and British tourists, but that’s beside the point.  Below is a rough idea of our route.

We stopped at a couple of places to explore and take pictures.  By the time we got to Agios Stefanos we were getting hungry so we found a wonderful terrace restaurant.

We basked in the sun while eating a delicious Greek lunch.  We talked to a British couple sitting next to us who had driven from Cambridge to Corfu and are spending the summer in a rented villa.

We continued our journey and, at the British couple’s suggestion, stopped in Kassiopi which was a very cute town.  Rick had a coffee and I looked in the stores.

Next stop was Sidari which turned out to be very honky tonk.  We didn’t even stop.

We went up and over the mountains in the center of the island to get to Paleokastritsa  which had a very pretty and interesting coastline.   The switchbacks made us feel like we were back in Switzerland.  While we were parking the car a flock of goats were herded through the parking lot.

Also in Paleokastritsa we saw a car with an US presidential emblem on it and a picture of Donald Trump in the window.  Just can’t get away from him.

We had a little rain while driving and several times we saw very dark clouds, but generally it turned out to be a very nice day. It was about 65F, so not quite shorts weather, but a lot better than the weather we saw in Switzerland.

We came back to the apartment and had a very light dinner. Here are pictures from our day.

Today was a travel day.  We left Irene’s house at 8:30.  She dropped us off at the train station and we said good bye and thank you to her.  I wished we lived closer because she is really fun to be around.  We will miss her.

Our flight to Athens was delayed so as soon as we got to the terminal in Athens our flight to Corfu was boarding.  Interestingly, we were sitting next to a girl who attends Bates College in Maine which is where I went.  She was doing a short term in Slovenia and then visiting family in Zurich.  It was fun comparing thoughts about Bates with her.

We arrived in Corfu and picked up the car.  We are renting an Airbnb in Corfu.  Our host is away for work so her parents met us at the grocery store and we followed them to the apartment.  They didn’t speak much English but enough to show us around.

We went to the grocery store and stocked up.  We had a nice dinner at the apartment and called it a night.

I know the last couple of days have been a little boring from a blog perspective, I hope to have some pictures of beautiful Corfu to show you tomorrow.