2022 - Late April/Early May - Exploring Greece - Delphi, Kalabaka, Litochoro

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Meteora/Kalabaka

It’s been a while since I posted any trips.  We have been busy doing things around the house, taking little trips around the area, and planning, scheduling and putting the pieces together for a five-week trip to Greece.  This trip was originally scheduled for Sept/Oct of 2021 but with Covid getting worse, hot weather conditions and wildfires going through Greece we postponed it to April/May, just before the Greek tourist season starts.

I worked many hours, with Nicida’s input, on our route, places to see and things to do at each location.  It takes many hours but at the end of the trip we walked away happy with what we saw and did.  We did however learn that we have to rachet back a bit more on our touring or add more time to the schedule.  We are still recovering from the trip two weeks after getting back home.

I have included a map this time, something I have not included in any postings to this point.  It shows our main stops which you will be reading about.  I thought that some of you may not be familiar with Greece and a map may help with your plans for future trips, if you are so inclined.

The trip will be split into several postings, probably 5 – 6, I’m still writing and assembling images.  We started our trip picking up a rental car in Athens within an hour of landing at the airport.  From there we traveled north visiting several places before arriving at Thessaloniki for several days.  From there we turn south towards the Peloponnese visiting several locations before heading back to Athens to fly to Crete.  We tour Crete several days then travel by ferries to Santorini, Mykonos finally to Athens.  We stay in Athens for a few days touring sites in the city before returning to the States.  I’m intentionally leaving out details, so you return.

We have been watching Rick Steve’s videos on travel, Greece in particular.  I picked up his book and searched his blog for any additional details.  We try to follow his advice; packing light, only take a carry-on and small day pack.  For the most part we were able to do it, our only problem was the carry-ons were so full we ended up having a hard time fitting whatever items we bought for ourselves and others.  Going ‘lighter’ is certainly the way to go when traveling.  We will see if we do a better job on our next trip.

On the road

We are up at 230 AM for the drive to the airport.  The advantage of such an early drive is the lack of traffic.  We make the drive in 50 minutes instead of the 60+ during the day.  With the mask mandate recently removed we notice about 80% of the people are maskless.  The flight portion of the trip starts with a bit of stress.  Once we are all on the plane the captain informs us there is a problem with computer.  No computer, no flight.  ‘We’ll get back with you in 10 minutes”.  20 minutes later we still have a problem, a computer reboot is in order….  No luck.  During this time, we notice one of the passengers goes towards the cockpit and is let in.  Several more minutes go by, I start my Delta app to see other options to get to our next destination to make the flight to Athens.  The captain announces we should start collecting our belongings to deplane.  ‘Wait, the computer is coming to life’.  'We’ll get back to you…'  Several minutes later the captain announces the computer is working.  He also announces that one of the passengers is a Delta maintenance technician, the one that went to the cockpit, his experience got the computer up and running.  A huge cheer goes up from the passengers for the Delta technician.  We are on our way 60 minutes late, but we are leaving, so we are breathing easier now.  There is still time to make our Athens flight.  I booked us with Comfort+ seating.  I need the leg room.  The space is nice, seats quite comfortable but after a four-hour combination of waiting and flying we are glad to get up and walk.

The Athens flight starts with different stress.  As we board an announcement comes up, ‘We are looking for medical personnel’.  One of the passengers a row away from us responds and doesn’t return for several minutes.  We see EMTs enter the plane, then taking a passenger off the plane on a stretcher.  The passenger that responded earlier says that an older person either had a seizure or a stroke.

Our flight to Athens continues without any problems, other than our sore butts from a 9+ hour flight, and little sleep, maybe 2 – 3 hours.  The food was quite good, so we are ready for the customs, immigration and car rental challenges.

Greece

Our stops for this posting

Making it through customs we search for an ATM machine and rental car booth.  Both are easily found; a credit card, passport and driver’s license later we are on our way.  While at home, as a backup, I printed out maps for each day’s drive.  Highlighters and notes fill in information so we can find our way in case our GPS receiver doesn’t work.  At the start we rely on the paper maps until we make a stop and I make the time to dig into the Garmin menu to find the ‘reset’ button.  Once reset we had few problems with the Garmin guiding us.

Delphi restaurant

The fortunate thing going through Athens is we are on highways passing from the airport to Delphi, our first destination.  Everything is metric, while 100 km/hr. sounds fast is works out to less than 65 mph.  On the major highways there is double signage, Greek with Greek lettering followed by a sign in English.  We notice over our entire trip the signage varies.  Smaller roads may have English signage.

Speed limits seem to be suggestions, especially with motorcycles.  More than once I looked in the mirror seeing an empty road only to have a motorcycle scream by a few seconds later.  Solid divider lines noting a no passing zone are also suggestions.  More than once we were passed by vehicles over the solid line, with oncoming traffic and occasionally going around a blind curve.  The main highways do have wide shoulders but then the passing cars expect slower ones to move on to the shoulder so they can be passed.  This type of driving seems to be the norm for the mainland.  Driving is slightly better in Crete.

Traffic lets up as we leave Athens.  It is very green, trees, bushes, and farmland.  We pass by several wind farms and hillsides of solar panels.  Exiting the toll road, the highway narrows to two lanes, traffic builds behind us wanting to pass.  Mountains appear in the distance slowly moving closer as we head west.  Mount Parnassus has snow, a surprise to us.  It is just over 8,000’ high.  Approaching, we see several ski shops renting downhill skis.  There is not much, if any, business at this time of year.

Delphi

View from our room

Delphi is today’s destination.  There is a lot of history here.  By the end of the day our heads are swimming trying to understand how myths, gods and history fit together.  As the story goes, Zeus, king of the Greek gods, released two eagles from opposite ends of the earth.  They flew around the world meeting in the mountains over Delphi, so this became the ‘navel’ of the world.  Here there is a chasm in the ground where ‘vapors’ rise.  A temple was constructed at this site for the goddess Gaia.  An oracle, Pythia, was believed to give accurate prophecies and guidance after breathing the ‘vapors’.  People from all over the world came for that guidance.  And paid for the guidance.  This was the place of the gods.  Eventually Apollo, son of Zeus, became the god associated with Delphi.  The first organized settlement is from 1500 BC.  Over time temples were built, destroyed then rebuilt.  Finally in 348 AD Roman Emperor Theodosius I prohibited all ancient worship causing the site to become abandoned.  Earthquakes, floods and landslides caused the site to disappear, it wasn’t excavated until the late 1800’s.

Treasury of Athens

Many temples, treasuries and other structures are within the archeological site at Delphi.  We pass by the Temple of Apollo.  We hike up to a 5,000-seat theater with a commanding view of the valley.  From there we continue on to a 6,500-seat sports stadium.  The games are believed to have started in the 6^th century BC.  In addition to sports, music contests were held every four years, the Pythian Games.

Sports stadium

Theater

We went through these sites along with others, ending at the Delphi Museum.  The bronze and stonework date back to the 8^th century BC.  The workmanship is astounding.

Temple of Apollo

Returning to the hotel we are brought back to this century seeing a number of trucks with workers deploying stands to keep the road clear for the ‘International Tour of Hellas’ bike race.  Tomorrow it will start at the edge of town.  It is a multi-day race, through different parts of Greece.  We come across it again a few days later.

Tholos at Athena Pronaia
Sanctuary - (Temple of Apollo
in the background)

Some of the scultpures in the Delphi Archeological Museum

This is the start of our Greek diet for the next 30+ days: Greek salad, moussaka, pastitsio, feta cheese, olives, red snapper, calamari, octopus, goat, chicken, lamb, sardines, anchovies and wonderful desserts.  The first dessert we are introduced to Greek yogurt and honey.  It is unlike any ‘Greek’ yogurt we have had in the States.

Kalabaka

Our drive to Kalabaka is an adventure.  The Garmin does a great job of getting us there but sometimes we wonder why it chooses the route it does.  In Delphi we start out on the one highway out of town.  We have great views of the spring flowers, mountains, valleys and gulf of Corinth as we descend from 2,000’ to sea level.  Once we get to the next town, we are directed off the highway to roads???, alleys???  They are slightly wider than the car we are renting, and we have a small car…  The town is set on the foothills, with steep inclines.  Part way into town we climb up a steep incline, then see sky…  We can’t see anything beyond our hood pointing towards the clouds.  ‘Uh, I hope there’s a road down there’, I mutter.  Creeping over the crest we find one.  We pray no one will be coming the other way, there is no room for vehicles to pass each other.  Emerging on the other side of town we get back on the highway we drove coming into town.  Was that Garmin’s version of a shortcut???

Along the way we pass through lush green valleys with small towns perched on foothills of the mountains.  The tops of some of the 7,000-8,000’ high mountains still have snow.  We pass countless groves of gray-green leafed trees, olive trees.  Red spring poppies line the road we are driving.  I have visited Greece before only seeing the islands.  I never pictured Greece like this.

Emerging from the mountains we pass through a town only to find the highway comes to an end; construction, the road beyond doesn’t exist yet.  We are directed off the road but no further – no detour signs either in Greek or English.  Pulling off the road we study our trusty paper maps.  We think we have found a way, the only way, but if we are wrong, it’s a long way back.  A gas station appears further down the road, so we pull over, hoping someone speaks enough English to direct us.  The woman behind the computer brings up Google, looking over her shoulder I study the screen, with her broken English we determine the route to take.  The same one we had planned to take after studying our maps. The Garmin suggests the same route but after this morning’s shortcut we feel better asking a local for directions.  This road is narrower, 1 ½ lanes wide.  We get behind a water truck thinking if the truck can make it through, we can too.  We drive through a valley going up a pass dropping into the next valley and another village.  We finally come back to a highway, the one we are looking for.  Looking over our shoulders we notice the highway ends going in the opposite direction.  We found the 'back route' bypassing the non-existent highway.

Out of the mountains, the land is flat, lots of agriculture and the familiar watering system which pivots in the center forming green circles of watered crops. 

I have seen multiple spellings of today’s destination; Kalabaka, Kalambaka, Kalampaka; don’t worry, Google recognizes them all.  Kalabaka is the city near Meteora.  Meteora is described as a forest of stone.  The literal definition of Meteora is ‘suspended in the air’ which is what the tops of the stone pillars look like when low clouds cover the valley floor.  Geologically it is a conglomeration of rock when this area was the bottom of a lakebed.  An uplift of the ground occurred about 60,000 years ago pushing the stone up 1,000’.  A river in the area washed away softer stone leaving only the ‘stone forest’.  I was inadvertently introduced to the area seeing the James Bond movie ‘For Your Eyes Only’ the monasteries on top of a few of the stone outcroppings were the scenery to the story.

Monastery kitchen

The area is breathtaking.  Large rock pillars support monasteries, smaller ones point to the sky.  A road weaves in and around the pillars.   These pillars attracted monks beginning in the 11^th century, wanting to isolate themselves from the rest of the world.  In the 14^th century monasteries were constructed on the peaks allowing more monks to practice the Orthodox religion.  At its peak 30 monasteries existed.  The area went into decline during the 17^th century, now there are only 6 open monasteries.

Sunset

Our first day we take a Meteora sunset tour.  We ride past each monastery learning its history.  We also visit Kimisseoss Tis Theotokou one of the Byzantine churches in town.  The interior walls are covered with paintings of saints and biblical scenes.

We witness sunset from one of the peaks.  We are not alone; the road is crowded with vehicles full of people with the same idea.  The sun briefly peaks through heavy clouds before disappearing behind the horizon.  It was a good day.

Back of the pack

The bike tour mentioned in the Delphi portion of this post has moved to Kalabaka.  The street and adjoining square is packed with boisterous fans being whipped up by the race announcer.  20+ teams of cyclists from around the world make their way to the trailer to sign in, have their photo taken then head back out to warm up before the official start.  All these guys are small, short and slender, looking serious.   We make our way along the street where the cyclists are warming up.  Just past the start line we position ourselves for a photo op of the start.  Hundreds of cyclists are poised, anticipating the start.  The gun fires: a flurry of motion ensues, they slowly spread out from the solid mass behind the line, filling the street.  As the last few pass by we marvel that there were no incidents, no cyclists splayed out on the ground from one getting in the way of another.

Mad dash

After breakfast we stop to do laundry.  There is one associated with another hotel, but we can’t find it.  We break out one of our heavy shopping bags, pour in the Tide, add some water, clothing and agitate.  The shower works well holding in any water that splashes and the shower curtain mounts provide tie points for the rope I brought to hang the clothing.  Within a day the clothing is dry, ready for packing for our next destination.

Inside one of the
monasteries

During our time at Meteora we visit three monasteries.  Each one is different; one is actually for nuns.  The Monastery of the Holy Trinity is within hiking distance of our hotel room.  The final assent consists of 150 uneven, hand placed stone steps.  The view from the monastery is astounding.  We see the area; other monasteries and the city of Kalabaka, from a different viewpoint.  We also see the ‘elevator’ used to take large objects from the ground several hundred feet below, to the monastery.  It consists of a rope net attached to a long rope going through a pulley to a vertical 8” x 8” timber which is rotated by monks pushing on poles sticking out of the sides of the timber.  As the rope wraps around the timber the ‘elevator car’ is lifted.  Our guide informs us the elevator ride could take up to 30 minutes to get to the top.

We take a hiking tour of Meteora the next day.  We see other, smaller, abandoned monasteries not along the road.  The area is beautiful, the landscape beyond Meteora is lush green with open fields.  The entire area is open to the public, a natural park.  That evening we head back up into Meteora hoping for a great sunset.  We see lots of great views gleaned from our sunset tour, but no sunset.

Waking early the next morning to head off to our next destination we see bright clear skies.  We haven’t seen clear skies any of previous days.  We make our way to one of the local bakeries picking up two pieces of spanakopita, spinach pie.  We delay our trip by an hour or so to see Meteora with bright sunshine.  It is beautiful, the small clouds passing overhead make great shadows across the landscape.  From here we are on our way to Litochoro and Mount Olympus National Park, (MONP)

Litochoro

A canyon leading into Mount
Olympus National Park

We have only a 90-mile drive today.  We follow along the Aegean Sea to the east.  The area is still flat with more agriculture.  This section of Greece is known for growing lots of produce, exporting it to the rest of the country.  Continuing north mountains reappear.  The toll road has us pass through a series of tunnels, the longest being 3 miles.

Arriving in Litochoro we find our hotel, definitely upscale from the smaller places we have been staying in.  Being on the edge of the central square we look for something for lunch.  We find a fast-food gyro shop.  Taking it back to our room we sit on our balcony listening to the water rushing below us.  Asking around we find the way to MONP.  There is a lot of hiking and backpacking that goes on here.  The ultimate is to hike to the top of Mount Olympus itself, 9,570’.  It is the site of the throne of Zeus.  Hikers make the hike over multiple days.  There are several ‘refuges’, (shelters) in the park providing places for the hikers to stay.  We do not have such a lofty goal.  Once in the park we find a trail paralleling the river.  We follow the lower trail which is actually a covered aqueduct channeling water from the river to the town of Litochoro.  We follow the trail ¾ of a mile to a small man-made pond where we see the water diverted into the aqueduct.  It is very clear, and probably cold seeing snow on parts of the mountains above us.  Returning, we hike the upper trail for a mile stopping at the valley overlooks.  Heavy clouds obscure the mountain tops.  We stop to shoot more spring wildflowers along the trail instead.

Spring in the mountains

Trailhead restaurant

The next morning, we decide to drive higher into the mountain to a trail head that would take us to Mount Olympus.  A several mile trek one-way.  We stop at Priona, the end of the road to start our hike.  There are very few people when we arrive, so we have the trail to ourselves.  Tree leaves are just coming out, glowing green against the brown of last year’s leaves.  As we ascend, we see more and more snow on the shadow side of the mountains.  Just short of two miles into our hike we come across a shelter with a picnic table.  We stop to rest a bit then decide to head back.  Returning to the trailhead we stop in the shop/restaurant for lunch.  We dine on a blended cheese fondue, roasted red peppers stuffed with cheese and goat soup.  All were delicious.  Clouds come and go the entire time we are in the park.  We believe we spotted Mount Olympus for a brief second before it was shrouded in clouds again.

On to our next destination.  Stay tuned…

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark