Athens

Parthenon on left; bad grass fire on the right from rooftop of our hotel

After the mountains, we took the train back to Athens and spent a few days there before we boarded our cruise to the Greek Islands.  Our plan was to play tourist some and to just hang out at the hotel some.  A good plan since it was hot and very windy while we were there.  Luckily for us the taxi driver who picked us up at the train station told us we should go to the changing of the guards the next day at 11 since on Sundays they also do a short parade. 

Syntagma Square and the Changing of Guards

Syntagma Square is where their parliament building is which used to be a palace and is the site of the tomb of the unknown soldier and of changing of the guards.  The Greek military have a very unique way of marching at least for ceremonies.  It is very slow (hot climate?) and you better have good balance!  They hold their weapon in their right arm and when they lift up their right leg then their left arm and the guards also have a very slow 3 step or so process. Kick leg out, hold it, bend leg, place it down and I think I skipped a step or 2 in there.  On Sunday's, there is a short parade that includes a marching band which I suspect played a common Greek military march and later did play their national anthem.  The band was followed by a small battalion mostly in ceremonial dress.  Oh the pompoms on the top of their shoes: we were told in Metsovo that was to help block snow.   Click on video Jeff shot below to see what I mean.  

Changing of the guards

National Garden

The national garden is right next door to the Parliament.  It is not a botanical garden but more a park.  It is a nice size and includes some palm trees and some lakes.  I mention the palm trees because they date back to when it was the royal garden and a queen planted them.  I mention the lakes because supposedly there are 6 of them and we had to go back a 2nd time and wonder around till we found 1!  It is a nice green oasis in the city.

Pond is on the right

Hadrian’s Gate & The Temple of Olympian Zeus

Staying in the area, Hadrian's Gate and the Temple of Olympian Zeus are on the opposite side of the national garden.  The gate is out in the open and you can just walk under and around it.  The temple is a protected area and requires a fee.  We were not inspired to pay the fee and were happy to just look through the fence.  A word here.  Jeff and I are not big fans of Greek or Roman mythology so we dabble in the ruins and then move on to something that interests us more. 

Hadrian's Gate

Temple of Zeus

Hop on Hop Off Bus

We had shared our train car coming back from Kalambaka with a family from California who had told us the hop on hop off bus was good here.  Oh man were they wrong!  We waited to get on about 10 minutes - first bus overflowing, 2nd bus we slip on and stand so no audio.  Quickly able to sit, but it is hot - heat wave in Europe hot and the first floor of the bus has no air conditioning nor windows that open.  We were able to move upstairs - most people were doing the circuit so not  much movement and get some seats up there were in the sun.  We stayed on for a little bit and then gave up.  We  did see the Zappeion which is the only remaining building from the first of the modern day Olympics and we saw the Panathenaic Stadium or I did at least.  One of the last stops we made it through was an interesting square and we got off when they got to Plaka.  We would later see the Zappeion up close on our second visit to the National Garden but could not enter it.

Zappeion is in the background

Acropolis Hill and the Parthenon

You can see the hill from most hotels.  It is kind of like Edinburgh in that it is a key structure built on a nearly vertical hill in the middle of the city.  I now know that it has had many uses over the years and this is not the original structure since that was wood and burned down.  The acropolis has multiple buildings on top.  The Parthenon is the one you see the most.  The Parthenon is a temple dedicated to the Greek Goddess of Athena who was the patroness of the then city-state Athens.  I think it was built in 6 years and there are some visual gamesmanship done up there like corner pillars are larger than theothers so you can see more and it is not and was not meant to be perfectly squared off rather it is a little pyramidal on purpose.  The Greeks and the Persians fought a lot back then so it was ransacked once and had many of the statues vandalized.  The site was then left to sit for awhile before the Athenians finally decided to rebuild the area.  Later on the Parthenon would be remodeled into a church and I think even a mosque at one time.  Currently the Greek government is working hard to rebuild parts of it.

looking town at Athens from a viewing site on the Acropolis

Jeff selfie - do you see Carol in the photo too?

photo taken from the museum

Another building on top of the hill is the Erechtheion.  This building's unique feature is that on one of its facades are six statures of women being used as pillars.  This might have been the building that was built for maidens.

the Erechtheion

the ladies

One of the first things you see as you reach  the top of the hill is Sanctuary and Theatre of Dionysus.  Dionysus was the Greek god for festivity, wine and grape harvest.  Theatre was first only and it was Thespis who first originated words on the stage.  You look down on the theatre and its seating - I did not see anything listed, but it sure looked like it was set up with some modern day lighting and chairs for a possible show.  The seating had different rows for the Greek royalty versus the common man.

looking down into the theatre

shady spot on the acropolis - like my new hat?

Acropolis Museum

The Acropolis Museum opened its gates to the public in 2009.  It is a great museum and a unique building.  Like many buildings and even sidewalks in Athens, part of its floor is clear plexiglass so you can see the ruins beneath it.  Additionally part of the top floor is built to reflect the Parthenon - oriented the same way.  Once you finish exploring the 3 floors inside (which may take a couple of hours), you can go outside and explore the excavations under the museum too.

under the museum

Plaka

Plaka is a nice neighborhood in Athens that everyone tourists and locals alike visit.  It is a rarity in the city - very little graffiti in a city full of it.  There are cobblestoned streets that are heavily pedestrian, cute little outdoor cafes under shady trees, everything under the sun for sale and lots of people watching.  We got a snack one day and sat and watched the people go by.  Observing fashion choices and enjoying the view.  One positive for Greece and Athens is while people smoke here not nearly as much as they did in Great Britain.  Here it is the occasional smoker there it was most people especially vaping.  Plaka did get some money from us.  Pair of Birkenstock sandals for daughter (man I hope I can get them home), couple of decorative pillow cases and a trinket for a friend.  Oh the Roman Agora is on the edge of part of Plaka and we did stop and look through the chain length fence.  The Agora was a neighborhood and marketplace at one time.

reverted to my car's hat for a very windy day

pretty street in Plaka

Art museums

There are a couple of nice looking art museums here and we had planned on visiting one on our last day, but I decided to ram and I do mean ram my foot into a coffee table so with a very bruised toe we stayed at the hotel and worked on our blog and postcards.

Metsovo, Greece

We are  in the Pindos Mountains in Greece; Metsovo the town we are staying in is at 3,786 feet elevation and is very much a tourist town, but not one many Americans are aware of.  We ran into a family, but they had Greek roots and knew of it that way and were on a Greek tour to show their teen age daughters Greece.  Rather this is a tourist town for Greeks and other Europeans who want to go skiing, hiking or maybe a day trip to Meteora.  It's most popular times to visit are the winter and August.  We are high enough in the mountains that there is a ski resort here.  We originally heard of Meteora which is how we came to this area for 5 days. 

After taking a train from Athens to Kalambaka, we rented a small Peugeot and drove the rest of the way to Metsovo.  The first 40 kilometers took awhile since it is the original mountain road as in lots of cutbacks and only 2 lanes but in good condition.  Then we got to the nice new highway with its 4 lanes and slow sweeping curves and loooong mountain tunnels as in well over a mile maybe even 2 miles long tunnels.  Once we exited the highway we drove a mile or so till we got to Metsovo but with no real idea what the town was like, I thought we were driving on pedestrian roads when we were on car streets just narrow cobble stones, and steep.  Our map app kept saying go left go right every 5 feet until we happily stumbled onto a sign directing us to our hotel the Katoogi Averoff Winery and Hotel.  After we got settled in we went off walking to explore - definitely a town to explore on foot!

This 1 pump gas station is the only one in town

While we were in Metsovo, we hiked, biked, visited the winery, saw local culture and just enjoyed ourselves.  Since it is a small mountain town, you get fantastic views from all sorts of places.  You can see mountains off  in the distance or look over the roof tops.  The people tend to live a simpler life there then we do in the States.  For instance, we saw a shepherd with his sheep come down to town at the end of each day.  Across  the road from our room was 2 small fields (1/4 acre each or so) with horses and chickens so each evening they were rounding the chickens up and getting them in the hen house.  

horses across the street from the winery and our room

The town comes across as doing well which is partially because it had a very smart politician in Evangelos Averoff - Tositsas.  He was a native to the area who went on to get a law degree and become a powerful Greek politician.  To Metsovo, he is the man who found a rich, former Greek to donate a lot of money to the town to rebuild it and turn it into a tourist mecca.  After WWII much of Greece was quite poor so Averoff decided to try and find someone with Greek roots with money to donate some to his hometown.  He found such a man in Baron Michael Tositsas.  The Baron lived in Germany and was quite rich (millionaire in the 40s).  He had never married and did not have any relatives and while he had never been to Greece or spoke the language he agreed to support the town after Averoff reached out to him.  With Tositsas' money, they formed a foundation and rebuilt homes, churches, stores, built schools and healthcare facilities and started a cheese factory, a wood working factory, and the winery.  Over the years things like a nice art museum and folk art museum have been added.  When they did these things they did them well - no pinching pennies.  For instance, the winery.  Averoff decided to start a winery because historically people had grown grapes in the area.  However, when he started this winery he went to France to get Cabernet grapes and hired a French winemaker.  He did write the original label by hand and for some varietals they still use that label today.  Mr. Averoff died in 1990, but the foundation still continues.

While we were there, the town was visited by the leader of the Orthodox Church.  When we went to eat dinner one night a lot of the young men were gathering all of the local horses and riding them - not always well.  We noticed the local young ladies checking them out which was kind of fun to see.  The next day we came back from a hike and we noticed young children dressed up in period costume and those same young men are too and are now trying to place old fashioned saddles on the horses and ride them.  We asked our hotel clerk what was going on and she said a high ranking church official was visiting the town.  Since it was a religious event we stayed out of the way.  Next day our bike guide told us it had been the head of the church - quite an honor for a small town!

Town square

The tourist shops around the town square looked like what you might find in a small town in the Smokey Mountains.   I saw a fur skin cap that resembled a coon skin cap like Daniel Boon. There were also wool slippers that were decorated with beads, much like a leather moccasin.  

Our hotel: Katoogi Averoff Winery and Hotel

We of course had to take a tour of the winery while we stayed there.  It was more of a history and art tour than a tour on the making of wine.  A couple of years ago the winery celebrated its 70th year and had several well known Greek artists design work for them and it is displayed in the cellar of the winery.  At the end, we had a wine tasting in their wine bar which was still underground and had unique art in that they took champagne riddling racks and filled them with bottles of red water and lite them up - quite nice looking.  We tasted a couple of whites and then some red wines.  One of their wines had won a gold medal in Berlin recently they pointed out.  My favorite was the merlot.  Seems I am not the only one who likes the merlot - story is the local bears kept eating up all the merlot grapes so they had to place an electric fence around the grapes to keep the bears out.

Hotel portion of winery top is the front door.

There was artwork throughout the Winery.   

Me walking along glass walkway over wine bottles

Cat theme because cats are special to Metsovo

Faces on Wine Barrels

Oh almost forgot to tell you - they love cats in Metsovo thus the cat art work in the winery.  There are I'll call them feral cats everywhere.  They might be better called community cats because they are not dangerous and lots of people put food out for them.  They are all skinny though.

Cultural Center

We were about to skip this when our bike guide told us we should visit.  He was right.  It was the town’s version of a mansion.  The center’s guides explained how people used to live in the old days and can point out some very nice old artwork.  The top floor contained Averoff’s office along with awards and photos of him with world dignitaries like John F. Kennedy and Mandela.  

this is a bedroom where the whole family would have slept - even if wealthy

dining area

clothing from olden times

Hiking

Being in the mountains there are a lot of hiking opportunities in the area.  However you don't even have to leave town to do part of a major hiking trail the Ursa Trail.  Ursa trail was developed by a team of Greek and English hiking experts.  As you see from the sign in the picture if you do all 3 parts, you will do a 100Km or about 62 miles.  Oh Ursa means brown bear because there are brown bears in the area.  The trail is very well marked both in town and in the mountains.  On the advice of our hotel, we drove to the edge of town where their war memorial is (WWII era tank) and started a hike up to the back of the ski resort.

Sign in town describing the 3 trail sections

view along the trail

Top of ski resort the hut in the background is for the ski lift - first in Greece

various flowers we saw on the trail

Biking

On one of our last full days in town we went on a bike ride along a local artificial lake with the owner of Go Active Tours.  An artificial lake is a manmade lake to you and me.  It is called Aoos lake since it is the start of the Aoos River which runs westward to the Ionian Sea.  It is in a reserved area - not quite a national park (there is one nearby) but an area where you cannot build permanent buildings and sheep and cattle graze in the summer.  So while we were technically on a road, cars were quite rare.  The dam is different than most in that there isn’t any spillway.  All water is pulled under and then released to generate electricity.  We had E bikes or electrical assisted bikes which was good since I am definitely not used to hills anymore.  I also apparently meandered too much in the second half because both our guide and Jeff thought I wasn't going to make it to the end - we did around a 26 mile ride.  The lake area is quite pretty - we saw sheep with bells and dogs shepherding them off a ways and just pretty scenery.