Day 14: Road Trip to Meteora

The previous night, Dan and I had stayed up checking manuscript images and burning DVDs. By the time the sun was up, I was exhausted. Regardless, it was a great day for a road trip. I could sleep on the way, after all. There were three candidates for this road trip: hit a Greek island or two, travel the Peloponnese or go north for Meteora. Going to the islands held a risk, in that a problem getting back to the mainland might mean missing our flights early morning Tuesday. As for the other two, I had no strong feelings.

Previous Posts in the series:

1. Getting Ready
2. Day 1: Traveling
3. Day 2: Manuscript Business
4. Day 3: The Paleographer
5. Day 4: Catalog Day
6. Days 5 and 6: General Work Days
7. Day 7: Road Trip to Sounion!
8. Day 8: Easter
9. Days 9 and 10: General Work Days Part 2
10. Day 11: Manuscript Photography Day 1
11. Day 12: Manuscript Photography Day 2 and the Awesome Bookstore
12. Day 13: Finishing Manuscript Photography at the National Historical Museum

Garrett, however, had been wanting to go to Meteora for some time. So Meteora it was. Soon afterwards I packed, had a quick breakfast and headed out. After dropping off some DVDs of manuscripts at the National Historical Museum, Garrett and I headed north. Fortunately I was able to start sleeping, as not having any sleep in 24 hours is a serious drag.

Providence smiled upon the adventurers early on, even while I was sleeping. Fortunately, we were running out of gas and Garrett pulled over at a gas station. I went in to buy a snack (gas stations over here don’t have the variety of snacks that their siblings in the states have) and settled on some ice cream. As I was purchasing, the clerk and I were talking in broken English and Greek. He asked why I was here and I said that I was a tourist (certainly true today). In response he reached behind him, grabbed a postcard with a statue of a naked muscular dude (those Greeks) holding a spear and shield, pointed down the road and said "300 meters". I thanked him, walked outside and looked at a sign by the road, this one to be precise:

So I thought "Thermopile…Thermopylae! Isn’t that where the Spartans fought the Persians!?" Sure enough, 300 meters down was the very site of the battle, and we had a great time looking around. First we went up the rather short fortified hill of Kolonos, which is apparently where the Spartans were finally defeated.

Next we went down a path that didn’t seem to lead anywhere (what fun!). We came back down and saw a ridge that looked very steep. I mentioned that it would be fun to climb. Garrett countered that he didn’t think I could do it. So, of course I had to. Here is me at the top of the ridge.

At the top of the ridge I found the remains of the fortification wall of Phokians:

Not being sure exactly what that is, I snapped a few pictures. I can look it up later. Instead of climbing back down the way I came up, I took the sane route of finding a different way down (it really was steep). There was a path leading from the ruins and I took that. It took us to the path that we went down before…which we stopped short of following far enough. Doh! The next stop was across the street, on to the fancy monument for the event so long ago (and, of course, yet more dudity...those Greeks...):

Here is one close-up of the sculpted panorama (couldn’t think of the sculpted-in-marble equivalent of the word "fresco" for painting) depicting the battle (this is on the right, the side where the Spartan warriors are depicted):

Next was a drink from Leonidas’ spring, of course. Those who know me will find this difficult to believe, but I’m pretty sure this took me from being very manly to being super manly.

On the way out we dropped by the springs, just a quarter of a mile from the monument. The spring smelled of rotten eggs, so there is sulfur present. To my surprise, the waters were very hot.

So then we headed out. On the way we saw another manly destination, the spring of Achilles. We, of course, drank from that one too. As of yet we have seen no side effects like dysentery, insanity, etc. However, we have noticed that we have both grown much thicker hair on our chests.

We headed out again. The mountains and valleys that separate Athens from the northern area of Greece, like Meteora, are gorgeous. Fantastic sights. This is yet one more reason why vacations in Greece should have as little as possible to do with Athens…too crowded and dirty.

We arrive in the area of Meteora and the view is fantastic. Cliffs rise out of the ground to intimidate all around, dwarfing the tourist city that sits below them. Of course the line from the Princess Bride struck me, “The Cliffs of Insanity” (said with a slight lisp, as I am sure you remember). The following pic was taken from the town square the next morning. Big.

And that doesn’t do it justice. We drive through the town and head up towards the monasteries that occupy the cliffs. The first “v” in the road sends you left to the Holy Trinity monastery or St Stephen, the right leading to all the rest. We park just to the left in front of the path to the Holy Trinity monastery and start hiking down the path. About halfway there we notice a path down to the right into the woods labeled "Kalambaki". Being adventurous and not having a clue what that meant, we decided to take it. For a while we guessed what it was. "Maybe it means ‘bottom’". "Maybe it is referring to the place where they lowered the rope to bring up people and supplies from before they had staircases". Et cetera. After a very long while something started dawning on us, that perhaps "Kalambaki" was the name of the town at the bottom of the cliffs, because the path started to look like it led there. And sure enough, we eventually found ourselves in the town. Doh!

I, for one, had no intention of going back up that really long path at that moment. I had only a few hours of sleep from the previous night and figured it might just kill me, so my idea was to find a cab. And as it turned out, the trip down to Kalambaki at that point was fortunately timed. Most of the overnight rooms apparently closed around 7:00, and we had just enough time to eat and reserve a room before everything closed down. If we had stayed up at the monastery...who knows. We might have had to sleep in the car that night.

We had a fair supper with a fair price and then obtained a room for 34 euro. We tried to find a room with internet access, but since it was so close to 7:00 we could not be picky about our choices. I had asked the waitress at the restaurant at which we ate, explaining we wanted a hotel room with internet. She kindly explained to me that "hotel and internet are different things". Oh well. We were, however, able to find internet access that night. We found it at an ice cream bar, though the wifi was not theirs. I still have no idea whose it was, but was grateful for it. This was the occasion for my post from Kalambaki.

Along with ice cream that evening, we were able to round up a few goodies at a local newspaper stand. They had English, French and German newspapers along with several in Greek. I bought a couple comic books in Greek...surely a good way to practice the language! After this we headed back to the rooms for a much needed snooze.

The end of day 14.