Meteora & Dephi & Athens - Day 24

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The plan is for Magda to take the bus to Athens with all the large pieces of luggage. Steve’s Uncle Papas came by at 6am to take Magda and the 8 pieces of luggage to the bus station in Kozani. The bus left for Athens at 8:10am. Needless to say, Xristos didn’t come by like he said he would and I didn’t wake up until 8am, which is the time we wanted to leave by. Oh well! We finished the last minute packing and got ready as quickly as we could. Oh, surprise, surprise, there is absolutely no water this morning not even outside. Alice cleaned up the house and we finally got in the car around 9am to head toward Grevena, which is as far as the highway goes. We stopped by the bakery by the Grevena bus station for some ham and cheese pitas, sweet cream filled pitas, a slice of pizza and a spanakopita. We went south from Grevena toward Trikala and Kalambaka and immediately missed a turn. Fortunately we only went about 10 minutes out of our way before Steve figured it out. Between Grevena and Meteora it’s mountainous with nice scenery, but slow twisty roads.

We got to Meteora and found the road up to the monasteries with only one false start. The rock formations are truly amazing. Due to our late start and the limited time available, we didn’t plan to go in any of the monasteries. We allotted about an hour to drive around and take pictures of the monasteries and the scenery. We stopped at the first monastery you come to on the road which is St. Nicholas Anapausas Monastery and were greeted at the bottom of the steps by a very friendly tiger kitty. We continued up the road and stopped at the Rousanou Monastery which is on a rock right next to the road; you have to tip your head all the way back to see it! Steve couldn’t resist climbing into the basket they use to haul stuff up the cliff in, I would have laughed my ass off if someone started pulling the basket up with him in it!

The largest monastery at the very top of the road is Great Meteoron Monastery (or Megalo Meteoro). The parking situation at this monastery is crazy; there is just the road with a bus turnaround, but no parking area. The cars and the buses have to park on the edge of the road. Since there are lots of people trying to visit at once, cars and buses are parked on both sides of the narrow road. Oh and did I mention there’s no guardrails in some places! We left our car double parked near the top and were just going to quickly shoots some photos, but the police made us move, so Steve ended up parking the car literally on the edge of a cliff. Thankfully I bought the extra insurance on the car! Anyway the monastery is very beautiful and for me at least, it’s impossible to imagine how they physically built the monasteries hundreds of years ago by hauling materials up in baskets!! There is an awesome view of the Varlaam Monastery from the entry area of the Great Meteoron. Actually there is a fabulous view of the valley in general from the Great Meteoron. We probably spent about an hour and a half in all in Meteora which wasn’t too bad, it’s a shame we had no time to go inside though.

We left Meteora and headed south across the Plain of Thessaly, driving on a nice flat straight surface was certainly a welcome change. In one town, we saw a church with a giant storks nest with 2 or 3 real live storks in it. The church had a sculpture of a stork on the archway at the entrance. The nest was very cool, but we didn’t have the camera out and decided not to turn around to take a photo. The plain eventually ended and from there we climbed back up into the mountains and took the turnoff southwest toward Delphi . This road was only 80km to Delphi , but it was loaded with hairpin turns and switchbacks. Took forever and was super steep! The poor Yaris tried it’s hardest on these steep roads, but really it could only get up to second gear on most of the steep grades before I had to downshift to make the next 180 degree turn. An Audi Avant passed us at one point and then passed the truck in front of us. By the time I passed the truck in the next minute of so, the Audi was long gone. We went up for a long time and then down the other side of the mountains which were covered with silvery olive tree orchards for as far as you could see. We also passed a ghetto or migrant worker housing, it was terrible, actually looked like people were living in shacks and cardboard structures.

We finally arrived in the village of Delphi around 4:30. We stopped to find a phone card and a pay phone to try to contact Magda to check on her progress toward Athens . We called her repeatedly, but got no answer. We then tried to call Xristos, Papadia, and Theo Taki in Athens. Xristos and Papadia had no information, but we reached Theo Taki and he said the bus caught fire but everything was fine and there were no serious problems but the bus was delayed. Theo Taki also told us that he had made arrangements for his friend to meet Magda at the bus station and take her and the luggage to the hotel. So at this point we chose to spend a little more time at Delphi since Magda would be several more hours in reaching Athens on the bus and we thought everything was under control. We had originally thought to spend about an hour at Delphi , but now we would have time to see the museum also. We were parched so we bought slushy’s for 3.50 Euros and walked toward the museum, but were not able to enter until we finished our silly slushies and didn’t we definitely didn't want to throw them out and waste the equivalent of $15.00.

The Archaeological Site of Delphi is set at over 3,000' above sea level, on a terrace overlooking an ocean of olive groves, with cliffs looming above and a view across the Peloponnese in the distance. We decided to tour the archaeological site first since the museum was open until 7:30pm. The site is on a really steep slope and it was blisteringly hot once again. The site was full of really cool artifacts but the signage wasn’t that great, it was hard to know what you were looking at and what was its purpose or significance. We should have bought a guide book before we went into the site, but I thought no big deal I’d take the photos and buy a book after to figure everything out. We walked up the Via Sacra, which is the main street, into the site. Grateful cities made dedications to Apollo, many of which lined the sacred way. We checked out the Monument of Argos , then a Spartan monument for the victory at Aegospotamoi--the battle that ended the Peloponnesian War and nearby an Athenian offering for the victory at Marathon .

The Treasury of Athens which was reconstructed by the French Archeologists was awesome, but since everyone thought so, it was really tough to get a picture of it without a bunch of pesky tourists mugging it up being in the shot also! The reconstruction process was made easier because the Athenians, as usual, carved inscriptions on the stones, thus allowing their accurate placement. We tried to figure out where the Oracle sat at Delphi , but none of the signs mentioned her. It was only after we got home and I did some research did we discover that the Oracle sat at the Temple of Apollo, the large oblong shaped ruin which is situated pretty much in the middle of the site. Duh! Apollo wasn’t the first to provide oracles at Delphi either; perhaps the earliest was an earth goddess whose oracle was associated with the rock below Apollo's temple. Just below the temple is the base for the Naxian sphinx, dedicated around the mid-6th century BCE.

Immediately above the temple lies the theater; it too had a gorgeous view of the sanctuary and the countryside. The ancient theater was fabulous and fairly well preserved; I think I read it could seat 5,000 people. You could walk on the stage area, but couldn’t climb up on any of the rows of seats. Steve was feeling a bit loopy and did a little weird dance on the stage, Alice and I made sure to get some incriminating photos! We climbed all the way up to the huge stadium at the top of the site. The stadium was enormous; at least as long as an American football field but not quite as wide. The stadium was just impressive in its sheer size, but it must have been ridiculously hard to build on the steep slope. On the way down from the stadium we all posed for some photos overlooking the valley and the mountains beyond, the view was just spectacular.

By now we were about to perish from the extreme heat, the temperature was over 40 degrees Celsius! So we headed back toward the museum and its air conditioning. I wanted to buy a guide book at the Museum shop, which is separate from the museum, but it was closed even though the museum was open for another 2 hours. I was really disappointed, that’s totally dumb that the gift shop closes so early! There were a bunch of kitties hanging around outside the museum complex, a tiger, a light brown tiger, a black and white with only half a tail and a baby black and white kitten. They were all really friendly and apparently all the tourists must feed them, especially near the museum snack bar.

We went in the museum and there was a moderate amount of artifacts in the museum, I was surprised that there wasn’t more, but maybe they are in other museums. One of the museum employees told Steve that more than 100,000 artifacts have been stolen from the archaeological site over the centuries. There were a bunch of huge statues, mythological figures and some crazy bronze figures. One of the items was a big silver and bronze bull that was about 8 feet long and 5 feet high. It was remarkably well preserved. Some pieces were missing but it was still amazingly intricate. There were tiny carved figures that were also fabulous and elaborate gold work. We also saw the enormous Kouros Statues and there was a colossal Sphinx of Naxos that was about 10 meters tall all from the sixth century BC. In the last room was another bronze statue of a charioteer, his chariot and horses from about 470 BC. There was almost nothing left of the chariot and the horses, but the museum painted an outline of the missing portions. However the charioteer was just extraordinary. We tried to move kind of quickly thought the museum to get going to Athens, so I pretty much ran around taking pictures of as many of the artifacts as I could including the signs. When we left the museum we stopped to take a quick peek at the Gymnasium and the Tholos on the south side of the main road.

We continued on the road to Athens , making a quick stop to get a status from Magda in Arachova which is an alpine village near the ski center of Parnassas that reminded me a lot of a German or Swiss ski town. The first phone was broken, the second phone was occupied by a big smelly dog and the third phone, which was at a gas station, was also broken. We finally found a working phone and there was still no answer on Magda’s phone and we decide that the battery must have died on her phone. We finally got through to Theo Taki in Athens again and he told us that Magda went to the hotel, but they had no reservation for us. Huh, that’s not possible and now we are really puzzled. Well since we can’t actually talk to Magda herself since she went out shopping with Thea Lena, we have no idea if she even went to the correct hotel. We next called the Holiday Inn Attica, where we have reservations, and they tell us no one has tried to check in yet. Okay, now I for one am convinced that Magda must have gone to the wrong hotel. We tell Theo Taki we’ll stop and call again in about 30 minutes

Geez, we have wasted so much time searching for a phone and making phone calls, we probably would have been at least 30 minutes closer to Athens ! We get back in the car and go on toward Athens . We check the map and see that it’s about 180km from Delphi to Athens , if the roads were straight and flat, we could probably be there in less than an hour and a half. We stop again at a payphone, which fortuitously is right in front of a bakery, so Alice and I run in and grab some pastry snacks, while Steve calls Theo Taki again. At this point he learns that Magda for some unknown reason went to the Hotel Attalos where Steve, Alice and I stayed when we first got to Greece . Good grief of course they had no reservation! And then Magda took all 8 pieces of luggage back to Theo Taki’s house and they had to bring them one by one up the elevator to their third floor apartment as the elevator is teeny. We get back into the car again and try to drive as quickly as possible toward Athens as it is now really getting late, it must have been at least 8pm by this time.

As we approach Athens , but are still about 100kms away, we see this giant white fluffy cloud that kind of looks like a poodle. The sun is setting and is shining on the top of the cloud (the poodles head) making it look very white. We made some jokes about the cloud and Alice said it looked like a reverse poop! Huh? I said something jokingly about Athens being on fire. We drove on and got closer to Athens when we see 3 low flying planes and Alice says they look like fire fighting planes. We all kind of say ‘No it can’t be’. But as we approached Athens on the E-75 we came up to the cloudy area and I rolled down the window and we could definitely smell smoke. We went a little bit farther and the air became thick with smoke and so dark we had to put the headlights on. Then we saw fire burning on both sides of the highway literally right up to the edge of the pavement! It cleared up some and as we got to about 30kms outside of Athens, we see another fire way up on a mountain overlooking Athens . Mount Parnitha is or was a national park that was known as the ‘lungs of Athens’ We can see fire right up to some power stations on the mountain. When we got down into Athens about 12kms from the airport we noticed that it was raining ash from the fire. Crazy!

Okay, so we weren’t exactly sure where the hotel was, but since it was only 6kms from the airport it shouldn’t be too hard to find right? Ha ha! We drove straight into the airport no problem only to learn that we drove right past the hotel exactly 6kms back on the highway! Oops!! So we finally find the hotel, after stopping at a gas station to ask directions one more time, and get checked in, woo hoo! The hotel is really, really nice for a Holiday Inn, very modern and luxurious. The rooms have remote control curtains and even a bidet!

We finally talked directly to Magda and found out that the bus was only stuck in 10kms of traffic from the fire and the bus wasn’t actually what was on fire. Whew! We had originally planned to head into Athens and meet up with Theo Taki and Thea Lena to go out for dinner, but it's now so late that we decide that we’ll just eat at the Goody’s next door to the hotel. Magda is going to get the taxi to bring her and the luggage over to the hotel. Steve and I shower and get Alice and go to Goody’s while we wait for Magda and the luggage. It’s really raining ash at this point as we walk over to Goody’s. News of the fire is all over the television, it’s terrible. After we finished eating at Goody’s we realized that we still had to return the damn rental car to Europcar at the Airport! When we got to the hotel the valet took the car keys and parked the car, so when we went back I asked for the car to be brought around while Steve ran upstairs to get something. The desk agent handed me the keys and said to take the elevator down to the garage and he would open the garage door to let me out. Well at least I thought that’s what he said. I went down and found the car, the garage was immaculate but was kind of creepy to be down there alone, and drove up to the door and waited and waited. Finally I beeped the horn and magically the door opened.

When we picked up the car in Salonika the agent at the rental car desk told us that the lot in Athens would be unattended but we failed to ask him what to do with the keys!! When we got to the lot and finally found a parking space (the place was jammed), we spent about 10 minutes wandering around the lot trying to figure out what to do with the keys. Steve suggested just leaving the keys in the car, but since there was no gate or attendant at the lot, I thought that would be a bad idea. Finally we saw a guy returning a car at the Hertz section of the lot. Steve literally ran over to him and asked him how the return worked. The guy said to bring the keys into the airport and find the Europcar desk and give the agent the keys. Duh! Okay, it seems perfectly reasonable, but we were so exhausted I think our brains had gone into shut down mode. We found the desk no problem and handed over the keys. It was now about 1:30am (Eek!), so we grabbed a Coke Light and head for the number 95 bus to go back to the hotel. It cost us 6.40 Euro apparently because we were on the late night bus and we had to wait about 15 minutes on the bus for it to pull out of the airport. Finally we got back to the hotel and now there is a thick layer of ash on everything!

We finally hit the pillows about 2am. They were awesome pillows by the way and the mattress was nice and firm too! We had a 4am wake up call, which sucked big time.

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