Blogs from Thessaly, Greece, Europe - page 7

The bus ride to the famous Meteora monastery region was relatively uneventful except for the sighting of cotton fields, which for us was a first. Fully aware that cotton grew on a shrub-like plant, picked and collected; it was still quite exciting to see it with our own eyes. Our arrival to the city of Trikala (the city we stayed overnight) was greeted with dark clouds and rain. Fortunately, our optimism would not be discouraged- we heard that the area of Meteora was a must-see from a fellow traveler we met in Florence, Italy and we were not leaving until we experienced the ‘cliff top’ monasteries. The six Orthodox monasteries are built on natural sandstone rock pillars so high that we were enthralled in learning that they had been built by baskets and rope, which together ... read more

Tomatoes are amazing here not picked too early salads are Greek: tomatoes cukes purple onion green peppers olives(which i detested until i ate them here) feta olive oil it's dangerous eating it this country so much oil something is bound to get stained fish is expensive due to overfishing by the spaniards as they come in the straits off of spain and morrocco according to our captian so they have fish farms which can be seen from high up on the islands big rings of nets in the ocean octopus is big/popular hanging over wires above the fire being squished about/slapped on the concrete to tenderize and get the ink out gyros are scrumptious and called pitas with what ever meat and the pitas are fried OIL tzatiki is garlicy and eaten plain or with bread ... read more

Meteora from the root word Meteoros "to be suspended in air" we came in the night Lights were trained on the rocks and it looked like fog to our tired eyes we logged an 18 hour day and 400 some km and as we approached we realized the scale of the rocks watching over these towns seeing pictures of this place before we came here made it look like cliffs by the sea but we are not so near the shore and the masses of rock are parts of an ancient inland sea thrust up between more docile hills and mountains millions of years ago metamorphic rock pebbles fist sized stones are clearly seen naturally cemented into the rocks at eye level but i cannot acurately describe to you how towering they are pock marks and ... read more

ATHENS Breakfast of Greek proportions- of boiled eggs, cereal, yogurt, honey, cheeses, hams, good coffee and teas, great bread rolls sufficient for the girls to collect for a snack on the way. The car was delivered - a Volvo S4 series, which was just big enough for us to squeeze in. We left all the large bags at the hotel and packed our subset of “stuff” into small bags into the boot. Rodger kindly offered to drive but had to get used to the gears again and to an English girl giving instructions. Carmen, the English speaking Garmin GPS, sat on the windscreen. Carmen, aptly named by Charmaine on a New Zealand trip, had received a transplant with the roads of Europe in fine detail, other than Greece and Croatia, in which only the main roads ... read more

Made it to Meteora in time! After being on the train from 11am to 4pm my time, I set foot in Meteora thinking that I had no chance of seeing the monasteries here today as most close around 5pm and it was a minimum 45 mins walk just to my hotel from the station, let alone the walk up to the monasteries from there. However! A taxi driver offered to take me up to the highest monastery (which is closed tomorrow) and let me visit it while he waited outside, and then to drive me around to the remaining monasteries for pictures. For 23euro, it seemed like a deal at the time an I'm still glad I did it because otherwise I would not have seen the largest monastery since it closes on Tuesday :) The ... read more