Note: For more photos see kwilhelm.smugmug.com.
The bus from Ioannina had nearly reached Kalambaka before I started to see the Meteora of the guidebook photos. Uplift, erosion and earthquake produced tall, rounded columns of rock soaring nearly 1,000 feet above the surrounding plain. Strange enough for a sci-fi movie (and actually used for a Bond flick) on their own, several are home to red-roofed monasteries, most dating to the 14th-16th centuries, although the first hermits arrived in the 11th. As places of refuge, or isolation, they clearly excelled: the monks were winched up or down in nets when necessary. As tourist destinations, however, it seemed that only the energetic could visit, using the modern and more prosaic stairs. My left leg had improved, but had it improved enough?
My Kalambaka hotel, the Famissi, was one of the four I had reserved through Fantasy Travel in Athens, and I trekked past my first choice, the Edelweiss, which had been "unavailable", on my way to the eastern edge of town. While the hotel boasted an impressive lobby and my room came with a balcony with a view of a monastery, the room was dark, the water supply unreliable, the TV only spoke Greek and the hotel was infested with extremely noisy school groups.
Outside the (closed) T.I. I found a thick pile of paper - opening times for the monasteries and information (incorrect) about trains and buses. Over a chilly lunch of oily omelet and Greek salad on the main square I considered my options. I decided that enough exercise would be involved in climbing up and down stairs to actually reach the buildings, and I should splurge on a taxi to travel between them. I suppose I should have bargained, but I accepted the rate quoted by the cheerful, English-speaking young man at the front of the taxi rank as reasonable.
That first afternoon I visited St. Nicholas Anapausas and Megalou Meteoron, skipping Varlaam, closed that day, except for a photo stop - for a flock of sheep, not the monastery. The next morning I added the small nunnery of Rousanou along with Agiou Stefanou and Agias Triadas. I highly recommend splitting the sightseeing here across two days rather than trying to do all those stairs in one day.
Stairs there certainly were, in some cases stairs down before the stairs up. At Agias Traidas, where no stairs are visible from a distance, they are cut into the rock. But stairs are not all bad: the only place with no stairs, Agiou Stefanou, was also the only place with a crowd. Everywhere else, I was able to stand alone in the monastery church, with no noise disturbing an almost palpable sense of peace. Even this early in the season some tour groups were around. In addition to the school kids I spotted a Trafalgar groupie wearing a label queuing at an ATM - but my taxi driver assured me that traffic was light. Everywhere we were able to park right by the steps: in the summer he often parked half a kilometer away, he said. I really can't imagine climbing all those steps under a July sun - I was quite warm enough with an April breeze.
While the views were spectacular and the sense of serenity remarkable, I found myself unhappy with many of the highly-praised frescoes. Gruesome. Bloody. Martyrdoms. I don't care how excellent the artist, I have a very limited interest in paintings of people being flayed alive, or broken on the wheel, or beheaded, no matter the haloes they might garner. Still, Meteora is definitely a "see-once" sight.
In light of the April breezes, I picked dinner places where I could eat indoors - and not just indoors, on a cold night there is little more welcoming than a real fire. Excellent bean soup and overcooked trout one night, tzatziki and fatty lamb kebabs the next, with the first spanokopita of the trip for lunch. With retsina. (I LIKE retsina.)
As a change from the KTEL buses I connected Kalambaka and Athens by train, although the 6:15 departure meant an unpleasantly early start. For most of the trip through empty, rocky country, I sat next to a young man who explained that he was using worry beads to distract himself from a desire for a recently renounced cigarette. He assured me that some women use worry beads, but I have yet to see it.
The early train got me into Athens in good time to start tackling museums, which tended to close early in the afternoon. The two-week tour I would join in Athens would include the Archaeological Museum, but Athens has several other good museums and we would return there during Orthodox Easter, when all sights were likely to be closed.
Saturday afternoon I visited the Goulandris Museum of Cycladic and Ancient Greek Art and the Benaki, Sunday morning the Folk Art and Jewish. For me, the standout was the Cycladic, with its streamlined, minimalist, marble goddesses. This is a "don't miss" place. The Benaki, much bigger, provided a good overview, but is no substitute for more specialized museums. I did enjoy two lavishly decorated reconstructed rooms from the Ottoman period, and the costume collection - even more than the collection in the Folk Art Museum. While interesting, the Jewish Museum, with its reminder of Auschwitz, depressed me.
The guidebooks put down Athens - see the Acropolis and the Archaeological Museum and get out, they say - but I found it pleasant enough in April, decorated with spring flowers and not overfull of tourists. The people watching and the coffee on Syntagma (Constitution) Square were good, and the views of the Acropolis were mesmerizing. I spent Saturday night at the Hotel Cecil and squeezed onto my tiny balcony alongside the air-conditioning unit I had my own view of the Parthenon between the letters H and O of the hotel's sign.
Saturday night I ate well, too. Headed through the old town tourist enclave known as the Plaka, bound for yet-another-taverna I noticed a place called "Eat at Milton's". Not a taverna. Wood and glass tables with no paper tablecloths. A menu that suggested the food would be a step up from chunks of meat on the bone and limp chips. It was. Chicken in mushroom sauce with salad was so good I ordered dessert - lemon souffle with fruit and ice cream. Sunday night I would eat with the tour group. A Rick Steves tour group, true, but still 24 people - the biggest group I'd done in years. I had moved my pack to the Acropolis Select Sunday morning (giving thanks for Athens' easy metro system), but gone straight out again. Sunday afternoon, my assigned roommate had still not appeared, and I headed down for the 18:00 meet the group session alone. And somewhat apprehensive.
Sent from Kos, Greece, 7 May, 2006
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