Athens and then on to Meteora
Sunday 6th May
Wake up call, bags out, good breakfast, don’t flush toilet paper down the loo but place in lidded bin beside toilet (Greek plumbing does like toilet paper). Onto the bus and our guide for the morning is Lucy – who is Greek. Really well informed. As the trip goes on we learn why all the guides are first rate. We drive immediately up to the Acropolis – the second bus to arrive.
An easy walk up the hill brings us to the entrance to the hilltop temple area. I was expecting to find this all very touristy, crowded and ho-hum. But it was quite the opposite and deeply impressing. Essentially, all this Acropolis area as we now see it was built in a golden age of about 100 years in the 5th century BC. We see the temple erected jointly to Athene and Poseidon – who battled one another to be patron of Athens. We see the rock where Paul preached of “The Unknown God” to the Athenians. That must have been different after such a pantheon of known gods. We see examples of Dorian, Ionian and Corinthian columns. We see Dionysus reclining in the pediment. We learn that the word tragedy means “goat skin” – the costumes first worn by actors in the first plays because goat skins were handy. We look down to see the Theatre of Dionysus. We see the shine to Asklepios (god of medicine) – apparently one of the few gods with some concern for others. I learn that when the Romans arrived, they took on the Greek gods but gave them Roman names. Thus Zeus became Jupiter. In a place like this I am so affected but the human capacity for investing so much life force in the creation of scared spaces of such immense beauty.
I learn that Zeus (Jupiter to the Romans) developed a giant headache and so was struck on the head with an axe by another god in an attempted cure. From Zeus’s split open head emerged a fully formed Athene – Goddess of wisdom after whom Athens was named. I didn’t learn what happened about Zeus’s headache.
Back on our bus we tour around the city. We hear a little history – how the Ottoman Turks occupied Greece for 400 years but were finally ousted in (late 19th century??).
We visit the theatre of Dionysus where many of the great Greek tragedies and comedies were first performed, generally under the patronage of a wealthy sponsor.
We head out of town, north, towards Meteora – site of numerous monasteries built atop giant rock pillars and towers. It is a 3 and ½ hour trip. The land is simple, flat and unremarkable for a start…later it becomes hilly and more interesting.
We see Gypsy camps where the rubbish looks unpleasant but we are told that Gypsy life is not associated with crime in Greece.
We stop to see a monument dedicated to ??? ,who, with 300 Spartans, held back an army of 100000 Persians for a week at a pass in the ??? Mountains so that Athens could prepare itself for the attack, and get woman and children to safety. Or so we are told.
We climb to 800 metres over hills and down to plains again. Much of the country seems poor, life centred on simple farming. The average adult income in Greece is E1000 / month = E12000 per year. But the cost of living in Greece is not cheap. As we travel north we see that more than half the houses are unfinished, generally with iron rods poking from roofs. In Greece you do not pay tax on a house until it is finished. To save money - don't finish the house - ever.
After a long haul we arrive at Kalabaka. Our hotel, “The Edelweiss’ is much more pleasant than we had been led to expect. A bit silly that only 2 days ago we were in an ‘Edelweiss’ type hotel in north Italy. There are remarkable cliffs to the east of town, 100’s of metres high and mostly vertical. One the top of one of these is a very distant church and monastery. We will visit monatries in these hills tomorrow.
Back on our bus we tour around the city. We hear a little history – how the Ottoman Turks occupied Greece for 400 years but were finally ousted in (late 19th century??).
We visit the theatre of Dionysus where many of the great Greek tragedies and comedies were first performed, generally under the patronage of a wealthy sponsor.
We head out of town, north, towards Meteora – site of numerous monasteries built atop giant rock pillars and towers. It is a 3 and ½ hour trip. The land is simple, flat and unremarkable for a start…later it becomes hilly and more interesting.
We see Gypsy camps where the rubbish looks unpleasant but we are told that Gypsy life is not associated with crime in Greece.
We stop to see a monument dedicated to ??? ,who, with 300 Spartans, held back an army of 100000 Persians for a week at a pass in the ??? Mountains so that Athens could prepare itself for the attack, and get woman and children to safety. Or so we are told.
We climb to 800 metres over hills and down to plains again. Much of the country seems poor, life centred on simple farming. The average adult income in Greece is E1000 / month = E12000 per year. But the cost of living in Greece is not cheap. As we travel north we see that more than half the houses are unfinished, generally with iron rods poking from roofs. In Greece you do not pay tax on a house until it is finished. To save money - don't finish the house - ever.
After a long haul we arrive at Kalabaka. Our hotel, “The Edelweiss’ is much more pleasant than we had been led to expect. A bit silly that only 2 days ago we were in an ‘Edelweiss’ type hotel in north Italy. There are remarkable cliffs to the east of town, 100’s of metres high and mostly vertical. One the top of one of these is a very distant church and monastery. We will visit monatries in these hills tomorrow.
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