So as you probably gathered from
the title of the e-mail I am now in Greece, it has been nice to take things a
bit easier. Athens was quite nice, generally just another big city choked with
pollution but there are also some nice bits such as the acropolis and other
cultural aspects.
To start with I met up with some
Australians, and we went to the National Archaeological Museum which is rather
good. There are also some rather amusing statues and so forth and some of it is
actually very informative. From there we accidentally stumbled across the tomb
of the unknown soldier guarded by a couple of Greek soldiers in ceremonial dress
which is pretty comical in itself (it involves tights, shoes with pom-poms on, a
skirt and a kind of blue Santa hat). However when it came to the changing of the
guard we weren't sure whether or not we were on candid camera as the marching
seemed to be taken straight from Monty Python's ministry of silly walks. I must
give full credit to these soldiers who managed to keep a straight face during
this charade that included waving their feet at the gathered public. After that
we walked around the Plaka which is the old bit of town and although a bit
touristy, was not too bad. Afterwards we just went got something to eat, and
drunk until the early hours.
The following day I decided to
do the standard sights starting with the Agora (old market area) which had some
nice ruins, but nothing too phenomenal and then onto the Acropolis. The
Acropolis was nice despite having a fair amount of scaffolding holding it up and
the quantity of tourists. Some of the temples and bits around were seemed much
better actually and the museum was also not bad. I then went back to the hostel
chilled and met some more folk, went drinking and got back some time in the
morning.
Which was basically what
happened in Athens.
From there I went onto Delphi,
home of the Delphic Oracle. Met up with a guy called Sven, which brought down
accommodation costs etc. We went for a walk and a beer and saw a funeral
procession which was interesting, it was a young guy (open casket) and there was
a band leading the procession, it seemed like it could have been taken from the
Godfather or something similar. Then we got several beers in for a change and
chilled out. The following morning we went up to see the sight which I really
liked, in part because of the setting. At the top of the mountain is a cool
stadium, only problem being how narrow it is, must be a real bugger to turn a
chariot in, especially at speed (have to use the handbrake I think), some of the
other temples and treasuries were nice and the museum was interesting. Bonus was
I got free entry for everything with my bogus student card. We then went onto
Kalambaka after several buses. The reason for this being the Meteoras, in other
words, monasteries perched on top of vertical fingers of rock. The reasons for
them building these here are a little unclear, but probably due to a (drug
induced) hallucination on the part of the original monks. Until recently the
only practical way up or down was to be raised or lowered in a net whilst the
monks winched you up several hundred metres. The monasteries were generally best
viewed from a distance as when one gets closer some of the mystique could be
removed. By the way for the bond fans Agia Triados was used in the bond film
"For Your Eyes Only". We then went to Trikala hired a car which we
will use to see a couple of the outer lying places around the North of Greece
for the next five days and also as a kind of rolling hostel.
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Still in Greece, but not for long now, seen a fair amount of this country (from
Athens north anyway), and after doing the sights here in Thessaloniki, will be
going back to Turkey. The tour of the north that Sven and I have done has been
fun and full on. We have seen pretty much any sight worth seeing North of Athens
(+ Athens), according to our assortment of guidebooks and tourist office
literature.
Ioannina, where I last e-mailed
from turned out to be a nice town, relaxed kind of place on a small peninsula in
a lake. There is a nice Byzantine citadel there and a nice old town, with
winding narrow roads etc. good fun driving in. From there we went on to Dodona
site of a pre-Delphic oracle. A really nice place in the middle of nowhere, with
a really nice huge, old theatre. From there we went to the Perama caves, just
grottos, but good fun some of the stalagmites/stalactites have great names from
Santa, the Turkey to no. 20 the Exit, which is coincidentally also the exit.
We decided it would be nice to
see some of the Greek wildlife if possible, as the north west of the country is
still home to some wolves and bears. To which end we headed to the Zagoria
region. First stop being Monodendri at the start of the Vikos gorge. As Sven
doesn't really like driving and I don't mind I was doing all the driving which
gave me the opportunity to have some fun on the drive from Monodendri up to Oxya,
where there is a great view of the gorge. The road is just loose grit and snakes
about through the mountains a fair amount. My driving style was based on that
necessary in "Colin McRae Rally" on the Playstation. I was having a
ball, something you would not think possible in a Fiat Punto. The car kept
together reasonably well considering some of the sideways manoeuvres I was
putting it through. After playing around there a bit, we headed up to Papingo,
at the other end of the gorge, when we asked some locals about finding bears and
wolves (accompanied by appropriate sign language and noises) they merely laughed
in our faces and told us where there were some nice walks but no bears or
wolves. On the way down the mountain we met up with some Texans we had
previously met in Ioannina who showed us some nice rock pools and added greater
strength to my theory on Americans.
Not daunted by the lack of
wildlife thus far (apart from a couple of foxes on the road), we decided to got
to Konitsa, a town just on the edge of the reserve area for information and
hopefully the Greek Grizzly Adams (probably called Hrizzly Hristos). As there
did not appear to be much in the way of tourist infrastructure we decided that a
hotel might know how we might be able to track down the elusive fauna. They were
a little perplexed as to why we were looking for these things and just about to
co-operate when Sven in a moment of sublime stupidity asked about lions as well.
From that moment forth all they would recommend was a zoo, whilst giving us
quizzical looks. This was our last chance and Sven cocked it by confusing the
locals with a lion. Oh well, we gave up on it and decided to see other things.
First thing we decided to do was
find Albania. This may sound easy but trust me it is not as easy as you think.
We drove down to the border where a couple of Greek soldiers were enforcing
their side of the border, but there wasn't even an Albanian in sight. After
passing the village which constitutes this part of the border we found that the
road conditions deteriorated pretty immediately and I was back in Rally mode. I
tell you the both the best and worst thing about that bit of Albania was the
roads. Once again I was having a blast and Colin McRae himself would have been
proud of what I put that Punto through (several hedges and almost a couple of
decrepit tractors being included in the mix). The roads didn't seem to lead
anywhere proper so we headed back to Greece, when I noticed the signs that said
we shouldn't be in that Restricted Area. After all that it seems I'd been doing
my rally thing around what is most likely a minefield. Oh well, back to Greece
and past the army boys (one of whom appeared to be sodomising the other behind
their little sentry box). We didn't however feel our Albanian experience was
really complete as we hadn't even seen a native. As we were heading vaguely in
that direction we headed up to another border point near Kastoria. This was a
proper crossing point, on both sides of the border. Well sort of. The Greek side
was a standard border crossing, the Albanian side involved many toothless men
who slap themselves and each other on the chest a lot. It seems at times that
they may be using some kind of body percussion as opposed to talking,
considering the amount of slapping going on (either that or they are the biggest
fans of Bobby McFerrin known to man). The passport control Albanian side was
great as opposed to having disabled access, it was more like disabling access.
One had to jump at a wall that had a one inch ledge on it to be able to see and
talk to the immigration folk sat behind windows about eight feet off the ground.
Conversation with these people was rather limited. We got across the message
that we were going for a walk in their fine country and then went off and did
so. We then went back to Greece having only really seen more trucks than people,
and fewer teeth than there were. Giving rise to the theory that perhaps they
trade their teeth for trucks (you never know). We headed back to Kastoria, which
was a bit pointless as although there are many Byzantine churches you can't get
in unless you find Hristos the keymaster - kind of needle in a haystack going
around a Greek town asking for Hristos. We did get in to a couple of places and
although some of the frescoes were rather good, someone had taken it upon
themselves to gouge out the faces (and eyes in particular) of the folk
portrayed.
Having been a bit disappointed
with this place we decided to go to F.Y.R.O.M. (Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia). This place was a much better set up than Albania, and the guys spoke
better English than the Greeks which made things easier. The problem with all
these places is dual fold. Firstly, they wouldn't let us take the car over so we
had to walk about. Secondly, they have duty free shops that sell cigs at a
ridiculously low price but the Greeks won't let you bring them in to the
country. Anyway we went for a walk in Macedonia through some places with
Cyrillic names, so I won't be writing them here. The local folk just looked at
us a little curiously but basically non-plussed as we wandered through their
smelly little village.
We decided that FYROM was a
nicer place than Albania despite smelling worse and for some strange reason as
one crosses the border the insect population seems to increase dramatically.
These are however not very well rounded investigations into the two countries as
you probably gathered, just a bit of fun deviation.
Next stop on the tour was Edessa,
where there are some supposedly very nice waterfalls and some old ruins. The
waterfalls were okay, but over run with local kids and over developed. The
archaeological site was nothing much to look at either. So we headed off to
Pella which was a really nice site with some great old floors. This was the
capital of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. There was also a good museum there.
All in all not a bad place.
Vergina, the next place was
according to our assorted guidebooks not a great site as there isn't much to see
there. It is where they found Phillip II of Macedonia's tumulus tomb. I actually
thought it was possibly the best site I've seen in Greece. As the tomb was
buried until very recently and preserved as a result, one can see how colourful
the Greek buildings were (not just plain marble as many believe), quite gaudily
painted with frescoes and the like. The museum around the tombs is excellent,
displaying the tombs and their contents very well and with sombre lighting that
really added to the ambience. Some of the treasures from the tomb are stunningly
beautiful, particularly the gold chests that contained the deceased's bones.
Phillip II was for those of you who don't know the king of Macedonia who managed
to unite Greece. It is unlikely his son Alexander, would have been known as
"the Great" if it were not for what his Dad managed to do. As you may
have gathered I really liked Vergina.
From there we went onto Dion the
site at the foot of Mt. Olympus (supposed home of the Greek pantheon). The site
is set out like a park and takes some exploring and is quite fun, but really
needs more work on its restoration.
Having seen most of what we set out to see and more besides we headed down to
Platamonis to see the Frankish crusader castle built there. After driving up to
the castle we decided it would be a good place to spend the night (in the car)
so we went to the supermarket and filled the back up with beer and went back up
to the castle and drank the night away. At night when the castle was lit up we
decided to entertain the villages facing the castle with a shadow show on the
main wall of the castle. It went from standard fare of hand birds and deer to
shadow Karate and sword fights, using the lights to alter our shadows sizes so
one of us would look like a giant. It may sound stupid but trust me it was
stupid. It is a small wonder neither the police decided to visit nor the men in
white. My only excuse is that 'I was rather drunk at the time'.
So today we took the car back a
little early to Staros at the rental place and managed to squeeze some money out
of him, despite not being entitled to it. When we arrived in Trikala after
having used and abused this little Fiat worse than a two dollar whore during
happy hour we expected the thing to just disintegrate around us in similar vain
to the Blues Brothers Bluesmobile at the end of the film. Somehow the car saw us
through, but it does now need a new gearbox, brakes and four new tyres. Still,
that is what hire cars are for.
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Just got back in a few hours ago after my Greek odyssey. The last couple of days
in Greece were quite relaxed, most of the time not doing too much in and around
Thessaloniki. Went and looked around the archaeological museum which was quite
good but as much of the excellent stuff from Vergina has now been put in the
museum there it lacks some of its former glory, but still not bad. Also went to
the Agios Dimitriou Basilica, allegedly the largest church in Greece. This
however is not such a feat as most of the churches are tiny shoe box affairs.
This one was about the same size as many old parish churches in the UK or
anywhere else. Unfortunately, there was a lot of damage done to the place in
earthquakes so somewhere else that has lost a lot of its former grandeur,
frescoes, mosaics etc.
Other than these sights, looked around at the other old stuff including the
white tower (which isn't white), the Rotunda (old round church), old town
fortifications and waterfront etc. There also seemed to be some political
activity going on with protests and demonstrations going on all over the place.
One interesting one was some kind of Macedonian thing involving a choir
(allegedly no animals were harmed in the production of their "music",
but I'm sure there was a whole menagerie howling in pain, at least that's what
it sounded like.), guys dressed up in some old military uniform with black
sheets tied around their heads and belts for bullets that appeared to be loaded
with cigars. Although some of the subtleties may have escaped me, it was
interesting to watch for a short while.
Last night I went to Lagadas to
see some fire walking. Now here is the background to the thing:- Many years ago,
a church caught fire and whilst it was burning down some of the congregants ran
in through the flames etc. to rescue the religious icons contained within. These
folk came out without any burns or damage and saw it as a holy sign of some
sort. These folk then ran away with the icons to Bulgaria to escape the Nazis
and persecution. Whilst there appear to have picked up some pagan attachments to
their Greek Orthodoxy and now celebrate the anniversary of saving these icons by
having two days of dancing and music making, live animal sacrifices, culminating
in a bit where they run and dance around in hot coals whilst grasping the icons.
The church sees the whole thing as too pagan and frowns on the affair trying to
discourage it, and now the thing has split into rival factions as their was some
falling out between some members of the community so the thing actually happens
in two places (almost next door to each other) simultaneously. It was
interesting to see, although a bit nutty, and unfortunately it has become to
well known, and now many Greeks go along to watch the nutters do their thing.
From there I went back to
Thessaloniki, got on a bus at 2.30 this morning and arrived this afternoon at
about 4.30, now just had a wander and chilling.
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