Note: For more photos of Northern Greece see kwilhelm.smugmug.com.
Although my relatively early arrival at Dulles earned me the exit row on my British Airways flight to Heathrow, nothing could alter the fact that the flight was full and my seat reclined only slightly. But after a barely edible meal and a mini-bottle of wine I did manage some sleep - no crying babies on this flight - and was reasonably alert for our 25-minute early arrival. I had watched my bag X-rayed at Dulles (my new hiking stick did not set off a search), B.A. had managed not to lose it, and as always at U.K. airports lots of free trolleys were available. (It annoys me so much that U.S. airports actually charge for trolleys.) The National Express ticket office was right outside the terminal and I waited only 10 minutes for a coach to Gatwick.
My original plan had been to catch Olympic Airlines' 17:35 flight from Gatwick to Thessaloniki, but a mere two weeks before I left O.A. rescheduled this flight to 9:45 - even before I was due to land at Heathrow. As it turned out, B.A.'s early arrival meant that I could have caught O.A.'s 12:20 Athens flight from Heathrow, but I didn't like the stress of the tight connection, nor the layover in Athens, so I planned an overnight near Gatwick instead. I had time for a traditional English breakfast in the airport before my B&B collected me.
An afternoon nap took care of my jet lag, and an easy stroll through the churchyard led to the Old Six Bells pub and dinner. After char grilled salmon and a good glass of Shiraz I fell for so-so lemon meringue pie and an Irish-style coffee made with Cointreau. Next morning the B&B provided only a cold breakfast before returning me to Gatwick South.
The Chios-bound orchid-hound seated next to me on the plane seemed very annoyed by the schedule change, even though he was getting one more day in Greece, while I was getting one less. Thessaloniki airport appeared small and bare, and the elderly man in the T.I. booth produced a brochure with a map less useful than the one in my Lonely Planet guidebook. He did tell me that taxis used their meters, though not that my driver would pick up another passenger along the route without reducing my charge.
The "C" class hotel I had booked through Fantasy Travel in Athens (the Tourist) compensated for a small room and smaller bathroom with a great central location and friendly staff who took pains to explain the local buses to me. I dropped my pack and headed straight out to investigate the Byzantine churches which are Thessaloniki's main claim to tourist fame. Initially I was amazed by their similarity to the Russian churches I had admired two years ago, until I recalled that Moscow considered itself the third Rome, heir to Byzantium.
I was doing fine until I decided to head up to the old town walls on foot. The higher I climbed, up steep streets, the more my left leg started to complain. Neither the walls, old but plain, nor the view, lost in haze, compensated for the pain and I had no hesitation in flagging down an already-occupied taxi to get back downtown, where I admired an enormous chandelier in Agia Sofia before picking a sea front cafe for a well-earned cappuccino. Here the view was obscured less by haze and more by parked cars, but the people-watching was good. I noted the preponderance of jeans and black leather, although I was finding the temperature quite comfortable - until the sun set.
My first morning in Greece was enlivened by the discovery that I had brought the wrong adapter plug with me. While I could manage without my hairdryer I really needed to be able to use my camera's battery charger. Fortunately the hotel staff pointed me in the right direction, and I bought a universal adapter in the first shop I tried.
Since my leg still hurt, I took a taxi (all of 2.50 euro) out to the Archaeological Museum, where I was stunned by the exquisite gold diadems, and the Byzantine Museum, where I was less impressed by the icons. I limped back into town in search of an ATM and water, before catching a number 12 bus through undistinguished apartments and shops the three kilometers to the main KTEL bus station.
I had naively thought that the bus to Pella, labeled Pella, would finish there, and so missed the stop for the archaeological site I intended to visit, but the bus driver personally escorted me onto the bus going back when we reached the end of the line. Pella, capital of Alexander the Great's father Philip, had somewhat disappointing ruins, aside from the mosaics, but was an evocative site with a backdrop of snowcapped mountains and included a good museum with more mosaics and neat terracotta figurines.
My first meal in Thessaloniki was also a disappointment - fava bean puree and shrimp in garlic were underspiced and overpriced. A quick gyro in the bus station was worse. But tzatziki (yoghurt with cucumber and garlic) with chicken "bites" was good, as was a mushroom and feta crepe. The Greeks, like the Spaniards, eat late - 22:00 could be considered early for dinner, and I was still adjusting.
After two nights in Thessaloniki, a taxi took me back to the KTEL bus station for the long-distance bus to Kastoria. Once we climbed out of the agricultural plains around Thessaloniki, the scenery grew progressively more dramatic. I enjoyed a great view of Edessa, perched on the edge of a sheer drop, its two waterfalls clearly visible. We passed a number of small roadside shrines - I discovered later that these mark the sites of car accidents, regrettably common in Greece. (If the victim dies, the shrine contains her picture, if she lives, that of her patron saint.) After miles of empty hillsides, some still spotted with old snow, we rounded a bend to see the white walls and orange roofs of a a small town nestled into the fold of a hillside. Solar water heaters demonstrated either a degree of local optimism, or a sunnier summer than winter. Finally, we dropped down from the last pass to see Kastoria spread around its lake.
My taxi took a circuitous route through the one-way system before delivering me to Venetula's Mansion, a B&B with a shared balcony, patio and sun-room all with stunning views over the old town to the lake and encircling mountains. My room was small but the bathroom so clean the fittings shone showroom bright, breakfast was delicious, and my landlord let me check my email on his laptop. He also told me that 98% of his guests were Greeks - the foreigners all go to the islands, he said, echoing my taxi-driver. A mistake on their part, I think, as I loved Kastoria, despite continuously losing myself among the winding, and regrettably steep, streets of the old town. (My leg was still unhappy.) Mountains or lake or both were always visible. The lake was home to swans and pelicans, its shore lined with cafes providing good cappuccino.
The hard-to-find Byzantine Museum owned some interesting icons: the ethnographic museum, in a restored mansion, showed strong Ottoman influences, with lots of low divans. Kastoria's many mansions, in varying states of repair, had belonged to Jewish fur traders. The Jewish population was decimated by the Nazis, and the beavers, after which Kastoria is named, by the traders - although the fur trade itself is still flourishing.
While foreigners may give Kastoria a miss, it's very popular with Greeks, and the cafes and tavernas were filled with weekenders. The tour boat ran on Greek time - leaving only when full. No noon departure - not enough customers - the 18:00 departure would be at 18:30, I was told, and finally occurred at 19:00 when the last of a large and noisy group boarded. This was unfortunate, as the sun was setting and taking the heat with it. Still, the mountains were impressive, and I enjoyed talking with a young couple who had driven up from Larisa - and who gave me a welcome lift back to the vicinity of my B&B (I didn't trust my ability to navigate a car all the way up). They were planning a big Greek wedding in the autumn, and the woman had just opened a secondhand car dealership with her brother.
I enjoyed some excellent hot and crisp whitebait in a cafe that shared space with the fish market, and one good meal of lamb at the Dolcis taverna, but otherwise I survived a lot of meals featuring undistinguished meat with limp potatoes. I was developing serious doubts about the palate of the author of this section of Lonely Planet, although both my taxi driver and B&B had also recommended the Dolcis - friendly and in a fine old building, but aside from the lamb the food was not impressive.
The day I traveled from Kastoria to Ioannina started wet and stayed overcast, but nothing could diminish the impact of the scenery. For most of the four hours the road, somewhat battered by winter, wound through high and desolate country. Villages were scarce, and resources to support them seemed scarcer still, but the mountains, strata lines much in evidence, were spectacular. After we crossed the border from Macedonia (the province) to Epiros we followed the course of a snow-melt river almost to Konitsa, snow-covered monster mountains looming first on one side, and then the other. I suspect the big bus normally bypasses the narrow streets of Konitsa, but in one of the villages we had picked up an elderly man in a tweed cap and jacket, carrying an aged umbrella, who wanted to get off there.
The fertile plains and flowering fruit trees between Konitsa and Ioannina came as quite a shock, as did the bustling streets of Ioannina itself, a sizable town with a population over 100,000. I had booked a room at the Hotel Kastro, in the Kastro, the old walled town, and my taxi had a remarkably difficult time finding it, through more narrow, winding streets, although I later discovered that simply following a white marble road would get me "home". The staff were as friendly as those in Kastoria, but the room was much less cozy, and while the hotel was convenient for the lake and a couple of the museums, it was quite a distance from the downtown action - the old town was eerily quiet and empty at night.
Ioannina's lake was distinguished by the presence of an island, Nisi, a short ferry ride from the mainland. While I found it over-provided with souvenir shops I thoroughly enjoyed a perfectly cooked trout at the Pamvotis taverna by the boat dock, where fish and frogs awaited their fate in a tank by the shore. I strolled round the island on a blessedly flat path, enjoying the abundant wildflowers, the reeds, and the view of Ioannina's two mosques, now museums. But I could have passed up the one monastery I visited, covered with frescoes of gruesome martyrdoms.
In Ioannina's museums I principally enjoyed silver and costumes, and also realized that while the Ottoman Empire acknowledged Greek independence in 1829, this did not apply to everywhere we now call Greece. Ioannina was ruled from Constantinople until 1913, and photos from the early 1900s showed men in fezes and women in headscarves. Ioannina is a center for silver filigree production, and after admiring a number of hard-to-transport items I paid all of 15 euro for a pretty silver ring. My favorite Ioannina experience, though, was a visit to the oracle site of Dodomi.
After the hotel's staff established that I could not reach Dodomi by bus, they arranged a taxi for me. The comfortable Mercedes was expensive, but worth every euro. Dodomi was originally dedicated to the earth goddess, and later to Zeus, and claims to be older than Delphi. A small theater and ruined temples and churches were guarded by snowcapped mountains and decorated by wild flowers and flowering trees. While a tribe of chattering school kids took temporary possession of the theater, I had the rest of the site to myself, to soak in the serenity that radiated from the sun-baked stones.
I suffered through my worst Greek meal yet in Ioannina, at yet another L.P. recommendation, but also ate very well at the Olympic Hotel. Oddly, this posh hotel was the only place I found in Northern Greece without an English-language menu. Instead, a young woman helped me decide on meaty wild mushrooms in oil and herbs, and thin beef slices with salad - delicious. Black forest gateau in one of the patisseries also improved my outlook. Here I was amused by a woman occupying one of the three non-smoking tables, who wanted to make quite sure I understood where I was planning to sit. She was an exception to the Greek love of nicotine, but happily the buses and trains are smoke-free, and I left Ioannina for Kalambaka on another KTEL bus confident I would not encounter smoke.
This trip was even more spectacular than the one from Kastoria to Ioannina: the snow on the Katara Pass was still three to four feet deep. The road over the pass was long and steep, which made the bicycle race which seriously delayed the bus even more surprising. I got out to take photos, and was shocked by the impact of the peloton passing a foot from me. It felt like a freight train.
While I had been disappointed by the food in Northern Greece, or at least that recommended by L.P., the mountainous landscapes and the pretty town of Kastoria had impressed me. Proper exploration of the mountains and villages north of Ioannina would require a car - maybe next time. Meanwhile, I was headed for the monasteries of Meteora.
Sent from Athens, Greece, 24 April, 2006
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