Greece

Yasa!

Back in the land of the almighty euro. A bank in town showed the euro at 1.47 to one US dollar. Go Bush! You are successfully sinking the US dollar!

On a brighter note, I got to see one of my top ten 'places I have to visit before I die'-Meteora. And, it was everything I thought it would be and more. I wish I could go back for another visit before leaving for Rome.

The best way to see Meteora is to walk it. A car is handy, but to really appreciate the views and take it all in walk. I stayed in a hotel almost smack-dab against one of the rocks. The road past the hotel ends in a path that takes you up to one of the monasteries. Turns out this one is the monastery in one of the James Bond movies. Excellent!

Aghia Triadas is one of the smallest monasteries in Meteora. After you climb up the steps you pop out onto the top of the rock and look at what looks like a cottage. Except this cottage has a wood 'hut' attached to its side from where supplies and people were once winched up in a net. Nowadays, there's a gondola-like car that brings monks and supplies across from the nearby hill with vehicular access. When I walked into the old winching station I had a vague feeling of recognition from having seen the movie. It's been ages, but I could 'see' the fight scene that occured in the wooden room.

One of the things I liked about Meteora was the fact that you climb and visit at your own risk. There are no fences around the top. There are no docents shooing you away from the edge. If you're stupid you'll go over the edge. Otherwise, exercise prudent caution and you're fine. How refreshing. It seems American jurisprudence hasn't made it over the ocean to Greece.

The weather got really bad as I walked toward the nunnery of Roussanou. Walking across the bridges that connect Roussanou to the 'mainland' I hoped everything was sturdy and the railings would hold. Have to say the ladies run a tight ship. The place was spic 'n span (saw a Mıele vacuum cleaner) and clearly had been restored. Their gift shop must be doing gangbusters.

The wind blew me toward St. Stephen's where the souvenir stalls called it quits before their wares blew away. Have to say this was my favorite. The chapel is lovely with twin domes, which is unusual. There is a grafitti of a bell ringer in one of the courtyards. The views are spectacular. It wasn't too small, and it wasn't too big. It was just right.

The tour buses converge on Grand Meteora, so you've got to be careful walking toward it. They don't give pedestrians a wide berth. They pretty much don't care if they flatten you. Don't say you haven't been warned.

Grand Meteora is cool for the approach. From the opposite side of the rock you can watch the hordes tackle the stairs that have been carved into the face. It's great for giving you perspective on not only the size of the monastery, but the determination of the monks who first climbed to the top without today's fancy climbing gear. I have to wonder how many met their god earlier than planned as they tried to reach the top.

Grand Meteora is grand because early in its life a Serbian emperor left his royal life and joined the monastery. Along with him came his massive fortune. They put it to use building the largest monastery and the most glittering chapel. It was good coming from the smaller monasteries to the largest. I couid really appreciate how large this chapel was sıtting atop its rocky aerie.

Delphi and the Oracle of Apollo is south of Meteora en route to Athens. You stay in new Delphi, which is located 500 meters from old Delphi. It's a small place situated on a hillside overlooking olive groves and the Gulf of Corinth. Three main roads slice across the hillside with steep stairs connecting them all. It's dead as a doornail in November. There were four other guest in my hotel the first night. The second night it was just me.

Sundays are free entry to the archaeological site and the museum. I managed to spend some time in the ruins as the sun set and made the marble glow. The place has the added charm of having heaps of Greece's 'national animal' -the cat- roaming the place looking for handouts. They really do add atmosphere.

The site itself isn't fantastically preserved. There are other places that are more complete. The thing here is the location tucked onto the slopes of Mt. Parnassus. That, and seeing illustrations and models of what the place looked like before it fell into ruin. Unlike the current grey of the marble the buildings used to be painted in bright colors. Some had gold on them. The Sacred Way leading up to the Temple of Apollo used to be lined wıth statues ranging in size from life-size to gargantuan. These, too, were brightly painted and\or gilded. It put me in mind of a circus, really, not something as serious as an Oracle. It's hard to believe people used to make important decisions based on the ravings of a drugged-addled woman.

Athens gets a bad rap for the pollution and the traffic. Have to say the traffic is bad, but the pollution is mitigated in autumn when the rains cleanse the city. It also helps if you don't stay in Plaka the main tourist neighborhood. I stayed in an area by the Larissa train station, and it was like staying in a big village. Their was a church around the corner that was surrounded by cafes. shops and tavernas. Once a week there is a street market that stretches for over five blocks. It has beautiful produce, fresh fish, olives, feta... I miss it just writing about it. Old men sit in cafes nursing coffees and catching up on the neighborhood gossip. Cats roam around your legs in restaurants crying for a tidbit. Everything closes at 9 during the week, but people are in the tavernas only starting around 8:30. It really felt like I was staying in Greece, not tourist Greece.

I ended up staying in Athens for four days. Most people last only two. I don't know how they do it. There is so much to see you're seriously missing huge chunks of Athens. Plus, many of the museums have free days, so it's possible to save some Euros. It didn't hurt that my student ID is good enough for the Greek.

The Parthenon is undergoing extensive renovation\rehabilitation and the only statues on the site are the Karyatids. This seriously takes away from the experience of seeing one of the most recognizable places in the world. Without the statues the Parthenon just looks like another ruin. It also doesn't help that the museum housing the Acropolis finds is closed. The new museum was due to be open now, but it isn't. It looks sleek and modern from the outside, but they're still bringing stuff down from the old museum via cranes. Pity.

Have on good shoes, bring snacks and loads of endurance for the National Archaeological Museum. It is definitely world-class, but it has got the good stuff from all over Greece. That's a lot of history under one roof. The gold Macedonian jewelry is jaw-dropping stuff. There's a statue that's a dead-ringer for Leonidas from the movie '300'. My personal favorite is a gold crown repatriated from a thieving American museum... the Getty in Malibu, California. Now, if the English would stop pretending to own the Elgin Marbles.

From Athens I took the train to Salonika\Thessaloniki. Fortunately, the night train to Istanbul left a few hours later that same evening. It was an uneventful train for the most part. There is now a visa requirement for Americans and the British that didn't exist when I left. Probably due to the loving relationship that exists between us and the Turkish government. There was a delay at the border as the border guards tried tracking down two missing passengers. They found one, but I never found out if they found the other. I'm sure it didn't help that the border crossing occurs at an ungodly 4 o'clock in the morning, AND you have to switch trains. I figure the person fell back asleep after giving the guard his passport and woke up to find himself back in Thessaloniki.

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