Category: 2019 Europe Spring

This morning we consulted with Stephie, our hotel friend, about where to go today.  We decided to explore the Mani Peninsula.  There are three peninsulas at the bottom tip of the Peloponnese and the Mani is the peninsula in the middle.  Until recent years many Mani villages could be reached only by sea.

Our day started with an hours drive to the Caves of Diros (A on map below). We took a boat ride through the underground river Vlychada.  The cave water system is believed to be at least 43 miles long, with more than 2,800 waterways.  The cave was beautiful.  we really enjoyed seeing it.

 

After the boat ride we enjoyed a coffee with a Dutch couple that we met. They are touring Greece in a camper, which seems very popular based on the number of campers  we’ve seen.

We continued along and started to notice tower houses.  They are fortified  stone houses, the oldest of which date back to the 15th century.  The Mani Peninsula is very desolate, based on our guidebook it seems that historically the people were extremely fierce and fought for every inch of “the precious land in this barren landscape.” The book also describes Mani as “a land of bandits and blood feuds.” “The object in battle [feud] was to annihilate the enemy’s tower house as well as its entire male population.” So I guess tower houses were essentially a necessity — to protect yourself from your neighbors.

We stopped briefly to take pictures in Gerolimenas (B on the map below), a little village on the water with lots of tower houses.

We continued our drive to Vathia (C on the map below) which is virtually a ghost town of tower houses. All the houses had very small windows and openings over doors through which they poured boiling oil on unwelcome guests.  We explored the town and there were a few homes that looked like someone was living in them, but most were deserted.  As we traveled around the peninsula we saw a lot of homes that were clearly deserted, not just in Vathia.  We wondered how these shrinking towns survived (I guess they didn’t).

We continued our drive along the coast.  It’s a very mountainous region and all the roads are  a series of continuous switchbacks.  We stopped to take a picture and looked over a cliff to see a beautiful harbor with a little town.  A perfect spot for lunch (D on the map below).  We enjoyed a nice lunch right on the edge of the water.

Here are some other pictures from our Mani tour.

We took the scenic route back to the hotel and spent the evening blogging and making plans for tomorrow.

Here’s a map of our travels today.

 

We started out our day with breakfast.  The hotel offers a free buffet breakfast which was lovely.  Here are a couple of pictures of the hotel.

After breakfast we talked to a hotel employee, Stephie, who we had spoken with on the phone and who had helped us book our reservation.  She gave us some suggestions on how to spend our day.

After our conversation with her we decided to go to Monemvasia which was about an hour and half drive. The town is located on a small island off the east coast of the Peloponnese peninsula and is linked to the mainland by a short causeway.  Monemvasia is the site of a medieval fortress and it has a rich history of repeatedly being conquered by the Byzantines, Venetians, and Ottomans. The town walls and many Byzantine churches remain from the medieval period. It has a really charming town.  There is a lower town where people still live (no cars allowed) and an upper town/fortress that is just ruins.  Here are some pictures.

Then based on Stephie’s recommendation we went to Plitra for a very late lunch.  Plitra had a beautiful beach but not much of a town.  We had a good lunch at a restaurant overlooking the sea.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way back to the hotel and got back around 6:30 and had a quiet evening.

Here is a map of our adventures today.

 

 

We left Arachova today and drove down to the Peloponnese peninsula, the next stop on our Greek adventure.  We took the long route because we wanted to avoid the Athens traffic and since we plan to travel a portion of the shorter route when we head to Athens next week.

We drove along the coast for most of our journey.  As noted the other day most of it is undeveloped.

We stopped only once for coffee at a fantastic little bakery.

We crossed the Gulf of Corinth via a very impressive bridge.

Before going to our apartment in Sparta we stopped in Mystras for lunch.  According to Rick Steves Mystras is the most important Byzantine site in Greece.  It was a cute town but we didn’t explore, we just ate lunch and headed out.  Here are a couple of pictures.

We arrived at the apartment and were very confused.  The pictures of the apartment’s living room turned out to be a common area shared by guests residing in the associated “town houses.” The apartment itself was very bland and a far cry from impressions we had gotten from the website photos.  Rick really didn’t like it and couldn’t imagine living there for four days, so we got online and found an alternate place on booking.com.  We called our host and told her that her listing was very misleading. She agreed to give us a full refund (hopefully she does that without a fight).  We drove to our new place, a mountain retreat about 850m up on a mountain side.  It’s just beautiful.  Swimming pools, onsite restaurant serving until 10:30 nightly, breakfast included in a nice dinning room, a 10% discount and a room upgrade to the luxury suite, all for approx. $150 less than the less than desirable accommodations we’d just left. We really lucked out!

Tonight we’ll do a little planning for the next few days and hopefully get a well deserved good nights sleep.

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.