Another chapter in an ongoing travel blog. Might want to read them before you dive in here. Already been through Paris, Rome, Venice, Florence and Verona. If not check out a day in Kalambaka and Holy Meteora
Our morning was the same as every other one. Awake early, even though it was a late bed. Actually, I think they gave us an extra hour of sleep, but it didn't make a difference; we're still up early and down for breakfast. This was another large hotel, and it must have had a few tours staying, as we filled the breakfast area, another bus load or two were also down there filling plates. Breakfast was the same as always, meats, cheese, fruit, breads. Again, all good. I thought Athens might mix it up, but it was the same stuff. Then onto the bus. The ride from Athens to Kalabaka is about 4 hours. Of course, that means a 45-minute stop at one of these super gas stations. No one was really into eating there anymore; the attraction of gas station food vanishes after a day, I assume, if you are not a trucker. I wore the garbage bag jacket I picked up for Florence, as it was overcast and drizzly out. I don't remember a ton from the bus ride, but I know my back was getting sore again. From that stupid elevator in Paris, who puts an elevator between floors for fuck sakes? It wasn't too bad in Italy, but maybe it was the shitty European beds, the flight, or just the days of walking, but for sure, I could feel it again. We were in the Thessaly region. For some reason, does that ring in your head? It did in mine. It is the home of Achelilles. You may remember him as portrayed by Brad Pitt. I believe it was this drive, while people were trying to nod off and catch up on sleep, one of the good ole boys from Alberta woke the bus up. It was the 2024 NHL playoffs. The Oilers were in OT, and most of us were trying to sleep. Someone hammered a goal home for the Oilers, and the good ole boy watching the game on his phone hollered like he was in a pub. Let's say we all knew the Oilers won the game.
Kalabaka is a pretty town. Or the couple of blocks we managed to see was. It was overcast and grey. The drizzle was cold, and the bus dropped us off directly in front of a restaurant. Across the road was a fountain that on a nice day would likely have been a great place for pictures. On a cold, grey day, not so much. Now Scott said we had a couple of hours, we could eat or wander the town. No one really wanted to wander. He also recommended his friend's restaurant, which we had conveniently stopped in front of. After he had said in Venice, we were in for a feast, I was not sure about his recommendations, but might as well try one more time. If you ever find yourself in Kalabaka, stop in at the Meteora Gkertsou family. I am not trying to make this a food blog, but damn, this may have been one of the best meals in my life. Without a doubt, it was the best on this trip and not just because we were cold and hungry. The front has a patio with a pergola full of vines. On a nice day, sitting out here with the fountain in view is probably amazing. I don't know if it's nautical-themed inside, but it feels like it should be. Dark wooden walls, I know some of the décor shouted sailing. I can't remember if there is a fireplace or if it's just in my imagination, but it feels like a place that should have a massive wood-burning fireplace. The cold just vanishes from you when you walk in. This may have been the ONLY place that every single person on the tour ate at. Optional, I mean. Usually, we all broke up and wandered, but I think everyone went in here and took up half the place. As a rule, I dislike lamb. Most times when I have eaten it, it has a lamby taste to it, like wild game. However, I decided to try it in Greece; it is kind of their thing. I was not exaggerating when I said it was one of the best meals I have ever eaten. The lamb was so tender, juicy, and not gamey tasting. I would put it up there with some of the best steaks I have ever eaten. On the side were lemon potatoes and Greek salad. I love lemon potatoes in general, but in Greece, they just do them slightly better, and the fresh salad is just amazing. My wife had chicken souvlaki and rice; she also said this was the best meal of the trip. Only a few bites in telling me how good it was. It wasn't just us; everyone was amazed. The wine was decent, then came the bill. It blew my mind. Half, half the price of the shitty meal by the Eiffel Tower in Paris. More food, much better food, wine, and half the price! It isn't a joke, wine is cheaper than water here. So we left full and content back into the grey drizzle. Next door was a bakery where most people stopped in to grab dessert; we did not. So I can't speak to how good it was, but I can tell you everyone's feedback was that it was great.
Off to holy Meteora. You don't know what that is? That's okay, honestly, neither did I. However, you have likely seen it on someone's random office calendar. Eastern Orthodox monasteries, built on cliffs. I believe the bus drove us farther than it was supposed to. We were supposed to get a long walk to get there, but because of the weather, we went farther up. Don't get me wrong, where they let us out, we still went up a lot of steps to get there.
I should talk about J for a minute now. Not sure how much I have mentioned him and his mother, M, but they were my favorite travel companions. They were the ones who, when the tour started, hung back from people, and I was judgey. I was exceptionally wrong about them and still feel bad. They were some of the people who ate the good dinner with us in Rome, not the shitty pizza but the good pasta. That broke the ice. Jake is 20 years younger than me, maybe more. Early 20s and I am in my early 40s. He was traveling with his mother. In my early 20s, I could not see myself doing that. I guess if I were given a free trip like this for finishing school, I likely would have, but I was much more into seeing exactly how much whiskey I could put in myself before I fell down. We did not have that in common; the few times he did have more than a glass or two of wine, you could tell it was hitting him. Clearly, he did not try to drink Jack Daniel's like water, like I did at 21. There were a few people closer in age to him than my wife and I were, and I thought he might gravitate toward them, but he didn't. They all played some online thing in the AM before we headed out for the day, but that was all. I think the fact that he was just a very nice kid is what I liked about him. I hate that line, nice. It is so bland, but I find that with both J and M, it is so very true. Everywhere they went, they tipped for everything. It isn't expected in Europe, but it is still nice. After so many years in the service industry, a tipper instantly gets my respect. On top of that, they never seemed frustrated. Everyone, at some point during the trip, got cranky. I don't think there is a way around it, but they seemed to be able to do it. Also, soft-spoken and respectful to everyone, I literally can't think of a better or more accurate word for them than just 'nice people'. On top of that, I give J credit for being smart. Book smart, he moved from medicine at university to neuroscience or something. All way over my head. Also smart enough to have a decent conversation with. Not like some people who are very book-smart, and you can't hold a conversation with them. I believe we felt the same about a lot of things. Walking into St. Peter's, basically, I said something like, "Holy shit." He chuckled. I know we both felt the same way about the place.
So it wasn't a shock to me that J also hated heights. When you get to the actual holy site, or the one we saw in Meteora, you have to cross a bridge. Easy enough, right? Well, this bridge spans from one cliff to another. It was an incredibly grey day, so we couldn't even actually see all the way down, but J and I both stopped still. It was the lady from Grande Prairie who walked by us both and said, "Look straight forward. Don't look to the sides and do not look down!" I, Batman, in my own mind, had my wife walk in front of me, and I held her hand, staring into her back across a bridge. I saw Jake doing the same. It's not a rickety bridge; it is thick and strong, but I will admit I didn't like crossing it. Then it is up a few more stairs and into what I assume is the main monastery, or at least the main building that tourists are allowed in. There is a ticket taker and a hall up to the main area. It looks like it has been carved into rock. The first thing is that all ladies must wear a dress. Really, it is more like a sarong you can tie around yourself, but it is respectful. Off the main room is the gift shop. This is actually fairly interesting. It is run by nuns in full habit, but they have iPhones. Like I said earlier, I am not sure I had ever seen an actual nun until this trip, and now, on some cliff in Greece, I see them playing on iPhones. There are actually some very beautiful paintings and pictures to purchase, all with religious themes, but I didn't buy anything. After a minute, the tour guide enters the main room and begins speaking about Meteora. Now it is all open air. So it is still gray and chilly; I imagine it would be sweaty and sticky on a hot day. I will give it one thing: it is fresh. In the spring and the fall, I really enjoy taking my dogs out in the AM. The air is fresh and crisp; this was very close to that. There was a bell there, I don't remember exactly what it was for, so in my mind, it is a dinner bell. I regret not paying closer attention to many of the guides. I loved looking around, taking it all in, but looking back, I don't remember a lot of what they said. Next time, I might jot down a little more.
We got a brief walk-through of the building. It is a throwback. Everything is old, and you feel like you're on a movie set, maybe The Lord of the Rings. Then we were led into a small, what I call a chapel. The artwork in here is crazy. Wall-to-wall and ceiling paintings. It is beautiful, but tiny. Everything seems very tight. Now, maybe on a nicer day outside, it is brighter inside. I am not sure, but it seemed very dark. The icons all reminded me of the other Catholic places we had been so far, but they made sure to let us know they are Greek Orthodox. The pope wouldn't come here. I really pondered religion because of this.
Recently, I told my wife that Karl Marx had one smart idea: religion is bad. She corrected me, religion isn't bad, zealots are. I wonder what Jesus would have to say to the hardcore right-wing lawmakers in the states. A loving god would support the nut cases saying they understand him, and rape victims should be forced to carry a baby from that to term? I am not getting into it, but I really wonder what he might have to say if he were alive. I have both a good and a terrible handle on religion. There are three major ones, right? The Christians, the Muslims, and the Jewish faith? I don't really get how the Jewish faith is considered a major one with only 16 million followers. I say that with no malice towards them, to be clear. Still, at 15 million, when there are roughly 2 billion Muslims and 2.3 billion Christians, the numbers don't seem to match up. Either way, those are the three main religions. Also, Jesus was the king of the Jews, wasn't he, so Christians are an offshoot of the Jews? It's all a tangled mess. From there, I started thinking about divisions among Christians. You can be Christian but not Catholic, although the Catholics are the biggest branch of the religion. There are also the Protestants, Baptists, Lutherans, and on and on. I truthfully don't know all the facts about Islam, but it seems they have splinters as well. I guess my point is that the whole thing seems messy. Like most things in humanity, it starts out as something good, and we end up using it for something awful. So I guess Marx was wrong about everything. (not surprised) Religion isn't terrible, just some people are.
There are some pictures on the walls and sketches of how this place was built. It would have been a nightmare for me. They actually showed guys in nets being dragged up the side of the mountains, with a few things in the nets with them. Could you imagine that, just standing in a net bringing some building supplies with you, then the net tightening around you and being dragged up a cliff face? I couldn't! I would have screamed the entire ride up! I am sure, over time, they built a road or a path at least to get up there, but just imagining being dragged up in a net blew my mind.
Then there was a little bit of free time to walk around the monastery. It was very grey and overcast now, not raining but that gross wet feeling. This was kind of shitty. I mean, I could walk the grounds and look over the edges and not be bothered because it was grey and couldn't even see cliffs anymore. Maybe that part was good; I was slightly more comfortable, but really, it took away from the entire thing. The point, or one of the points, of going up here is the view, and by this point there wasn't one. The grounds are still amazing, though. Flowers and a decent lawn, a small museum that I barely wandered through. Stone walls that are like walking through history, I half-assed expected to see knights in armor. The truth is, on a sunny day, this place would have been beautiful. The nuns or whoever keep the grounds beautiful. Like a hidden gem on the top of a mountain. Unlike Rome, which reminded me of the ancient world, this was much more like the Middle Ages. My only regret is needing to use the toilet here. There were a couple of semi-modern public toilets and the hole. I laugh and call people sheltered, but this is where my shelteredness comes in. It was just a hole in the ground that you squat and hover above. People had clearly missed the hole or sprayed because it was covered in shit. Couldn't do it; I gagged. Almost puked into it and waited for a toilet. My eyes were watering at this point, and I was happy to get out of the washroom, into the gloom in the courtyard, and breathe fresh air. Even rereading that, as I edited, almost made me gag again, remembering it. Shortly after that, we had to descend the long stairs and go back down to the bus. They took us to our hotel for the night.
The hotel was set a little way out of town. On the road to it, we passed a strip club. Not what you're thinking. Not hot European women, well, maybe I didn't go in, but I doubt it. No neon sign trying to drag people in, but more like a dilapidated building with a sign that said nude women or something along those lines, no witty name that is for sure. Had I not been just staring out the window, I would not have even known or noticed the club. Honestly, I couldn't tell you if it was actually even open. It looked like it might be falling apart, and I think had we gone, we may have ended up in a horror movie. I tell myself a much younger, more adventurous me might have walked down and looked. In Mexico, I really wanted to check out the strip club in Mazatlán, but I was told it wasn't really safe. In reality, I doubt I would have gone to this one; it was actually that sketchy.
This hotel, set outside of town, really reminded me of a drug dealer's villa from a movie. You came into a wide-open entry with a small sitting area or stairs down. It was only a single story, so I doubt it had that many rooms, and they were set in wings off the main lobby. I was nice, open, and clean, but nothing special. I believe there were some grounds to walk on, but no pool. It was grey, and no one went outside anyway. There really isn't much to say about this hotel or the evening. Our meal was a buffet downstairs. It was alright; after our lunch, though, it did not measure up. There was some sort of chocolate mousse, though, that everyone seemed to love. Didn't blow my mind, but everyone else loved it! A fairly early night, it was just a grey day, but no one seemed to stay up and visit like people had at other places.
Leave it here and head to Delphi next!
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