Florina Monastery & Edessa Waterfalls - Day 16

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Today we plan to go to Florina to visit Steve’s cousin who’s a nun at the monastery of St. Marcos. This cousin is another of Christos’ sisters. We actually managed to get up and get ready to leave around 9-10am, shocking! It was about an hour and a half drive to the monastery with me, Steve and Alice in the Yaris and Magda, her sister, her mother and another nun from Mikrokastro in the Vitara. The monastery is in Florina which is only about 18 kilometers from Albania and it is set way up on a mountain overlooking the entire valley with beautiful views. The monastery is fairly new and they are adding on a dining hall and kitchen wing for when they have visitors come to see the church (usually a tour bus full). It was nice and cool up at the monastery compared with the lower elevations. There was a huge concrete and wire fence around the back of the property and the nuns told us that the fence was to keep the bears out, eek!

The church is a separate building from the monastery and as is traditional it has no electricity. The main monastery building is where the five nuns live and it has all the modern amenities including electricity and absolutely gorgeous woodwork. While we were there a tour bus pulled up full of tourists from the Salonika area. The nuns had a small mass for the tourists in the church and we attended also. The head sister spoke about St. Markos and they also sang. The monastery possesses a fragment of bone said to be from the wrist of St. Markos who was Greek, but is buried in Italy . After the mass everyone goes to the monastery gift shop to buy icons and other religious items that are mostly hand made by the nuns. Steve and I spent around 90 Euros in there. When we were getting ready to leave the nuns gave us all some handmade olive oil soap, some wines, and other items. The nuns served us several sweets (no eggs or milk as it was their lent period) and then a lunch of octopus, orzo, onion pita and a village salad. The octopus was actually not bad, and kind of reminded me of shrimp in taste and consistency, but I have to admit the suckers on the tentacles weirded me out a little.

Right before we ate lunch at 1:30pm Steve’s grandfather from the States called and said that he, Steve B.(Steve and Alice’s cousin from the States), his mom were flying into Salonika from Athens (where they had just landed coming from Boston) and needed to be picked up at 6pm today in Salonika, yikes! We finished eating as fast as politeness allowed, and then we took some photos and left around 3pm. Alice and I were still wearing knee length skirts from our visit to the monastery and since we hadn’t planned on being out all day, we didn’t bring a change of clothes. Steve did however and changed into shorts as soon as we pulled out of the driveway! The plan is for Magda to take her sister, mother and the other nun back to Mikrokastro before heading to Salonika with the Vitara. We had already decided while we were driving to Florina to go by Edessa on the way home to see the waterfalls since it was relatively near Florina. This event kind of threw a monkey wrench into the works, but we decided that we should still have time to stop by Edessa on the way to Salonika if we didn’t spend too much time there. Plus the most direct route from Florina to Salonika took us right through Edessa anyway. It was going to take both cars to pick up Steve's grandfather from the States, Steve B. and his mom and all their pieces of luggage since Steve's grandfather alone brought 5 pieces of luggage.

It felt like it took forever, but we arrived in Edessa in about 45 minutes. The waterfalls were pretty cool and are not in the middle of the woods like I had pictured, but are right on the edge of the city. Actually the edge of the city is a huge cliff. As the waterfalls are a big tourist attraction now, the city has made a walkway and carved stairs into the cliff so people can walk down the waterfall. The main waterfall is called Karanos and there is a small cave behind it. We paid 50 Euro cents each to go in the cave, it’s not very deep and people have broken off all of the stalactites and there is a bunch of graffiti as well, but it was still cool (literally) to go into. We went most of the way down the stairs and over a metal bridge (catwalk really) to the other twin waterfalls. It was a bit moist from all the spray and I didn’t take many pictures as I was trying to keep the camera dry. It sucked climbing back up the stairs however as once again it was broiling hot!

We thought if we left Edessa by 5pm, we would make it to the airport by 6pm no problem. It took forever to drive on the back road to Salonika and we ended up getting there around 6:30, but we still beat Magda! Steve drove from Edessa to Salonika and it was nice to sit in the passenger seat for a while, although I was starting to feel a bit carsick from Steve’s less than smooth gear changes. I managed to get some photos while we were driving of people passing trucks with cars coming the other way. Greek drivers routinely pass slower cars even if it’s not a designated passing zone. They pass on curves and when cars are coming the other way, they pass in the city, it’s like a sport! One BMW even passed us while we were passing a truck on a 2 lane road; I guess the Yaris wasn’t making the pass fast enough for him. When we got to the airport in Salonika Steve B., his mom and grandfather were just coming out of the terminal building with their luggage. So the timing ended up being perfect. Magda pulled in about 15 minutes after we did. We piled most of the luggage in the Vitara so Steve B. could ride with us, unfortunately we were in the lead and were talking and missed the turn on to the ring road (highway) that would have taken us around Salonika city center. The traffic was terrible in the city and it ended up taking us an extra hour I think to get to Megaro.

Steve's grandfather from the States is originally from the village of Megaro which is near the city of Grevena and that is where they are staying. Steve B. and his mom are staying for 3 weeks and Pappous stays every year for 3 or 4 months. Kozani and Grevena are only about 20 to 30 minutes away from each other, but it takes another 30 to 45 minutes to drive up the mountain to Megaro from Grevena. When we finally got to Megaro after about 2 and a half hour drive from Salonika , we met a whole slew of relatives. We were starving so we went to the plateia near Thea Kula’s and went to a restaurant for some souvlaki. While it was cooking we went around the corner to a bar for a couple of beers. I decided that I was just going to drink water as I was exhausted and was going to be driving down unfamiliar mountain roads shortly.

My border police saga - As it turns out, the water was a really good idea, as we got pulled over by the border police when were driving down the mountain. I knew there was a car behind us for a while, but I thought he wanted to pass since he flew right up behind us and stayed on my bumper for kilometers. The road from Megaro to Grevena is a typical Greek mountain road, all windy, narrow and dark. Every time I would get to a straight part of the road, I would stay to the right as I had been doing all along in Greece and had seen all the other Greek drivers doing as a regular thing. The 3 border cops that got out wanted to see my identification, so I handed them my international drivers permit and my Massachusetts license since I had left my passport in my luggage in Mikrokastro that morning. The cop also kept asking me how much alcohol I had drunk, which fortunately I could honestly say none at all. Apparently the international drivers permit was sufficient to prove my right to drive on Greek roads but my Massachusetts license was insufficient as identification and the cop got irate. He demanded that I hand over my identification immediately, I was trying to explain in English that I didn’t have my passport on me and Steve was yelling at him in Greek that in the States our license is our government issued identification.

Oh boy - by now I thought we were all going to end up detained or in Turkish prison or worse! So now the cop demands that we turn the light on in the car, and give him everyone in the cars identification and the papers for the car. I dutifully turned on the light and dug out the rental agreement and any other papers I found in the glove box and handed them over. Steve had his international drivers permit and Massachusetts license but no passport either, Alice had her passport (Thank God) and Magda had nothing. When the cop looked at their identification he asked how they knew ‘George’(who had the same last name as Steve, Alice and Magda) in Greek, Steve looked confused, but Alice yelled out that he was their cousin. The border cops immediately got all smiley and friendly and handed us back all our papers and said we were all set. Huh! Evidently George (who really is their distant cousin) is another border cop who these cops know. Whew!! Thank God. I was really starting to feel panicky. Moral of this story is to always carry your passport no matter what you read on the official tourism websites or in the guidebooks. The cop told me he pulled me over because I was driving like I was drunk, and cautioned me not to drive close to the edge of the road even if someone wants to pass, he said if they want to pass then they will just go around.

Footnote for the day - By this time we have already put 1600 kilometers on the rental Yaris in just 4 days (Really only 3.3 days since we picked the car up on Sunday at 3:30pm). We are truly exhausted from all the driving today, but it is again swelteringly hot in the house and it’s hard to sleep. Also there is no water in the village once again.

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