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.

Meteora

Meteora is becoming more common with American tourists and is well known by Europeans.  The Greek word Meteora means “suspended in air.”  Meteora is famous for its rock formations and for the monasteries on top of some of those formations.  At one time there were 24 or so Byzantine Monasteries in the area, today there are 6 that are open for visitors with most being inhabited by a small number of monks and nuns. It is much easier to get up to the monasteries today, but that is a relative term there.  You will do a lot of stairs of varying quality and height.

We read that the most probable account of the formation of the sandstone rocks of Meteora was from erosion of an ancient lake bed that was drained into the sea following earthquakes.  It is an amazing site. At the end of this post, is a very short 3rd party drone video of the area that I encourage you to watch.  

Note the line of people ascending the stairway

Look closely and you will find 4 of the Monasteries

The monks chose these remote locations to live an isolated life.  Access was limited to a lift as shown below.   Today stairways and bridges have been built for the thousands of tourists that visit daily.   At the end of the blog is a copy of short documentary from the 1920s depicting the life of the monks and the use of the net.

The hook holds a net, that lifts people and supplies from the ground far below

The wood pole in the center of the room would have four horizontal posts for monks to push while walking in a circle to hoist people and things up.

Looking up at net (circled) used to raise/lower people and things

Based on good advice, our plan was to split our visits across two days and arrive early for the most popular sites.   The hotel allowed us to pack some breakfast food before it opened and we repeated the mountainous road to Kalambaka.  It turned out to be a smart move as the crowds grew as the day went on.

Our first stop The Great Meteoron Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Savior was the first Monastery here when it was founded in the mid 14 century.  It is also the largest of the Monasteries.  It towers over you as you approach.  The stairways leading up to it appear daunting and will leave you catching your breath.  The view at the top is spectacular.   The tour includes several chapels adorned with Frescos.   You don’t have access to the living quarters, but you see some rooms depicting how the monks lived not too long ago.   A museum has been established to displayed the many national and religious heirlooms.  Photography was not allowed in the Chapels or Museum areas.

Kitchen as it would have appeared back in the day

Monastery of Varlaamj was built a couple decades later by a single monk, but it was then left unoccupied for two hundred years.   It was then rebuilt and adorned with Frescos by several famous artists.  The addition of a bridge made it very assessable for us.

One of the few religious heirlooms we could photograph

Holy Monastery of Rousanos has experienced several start overs.  First founded in the mid 14th century, it didn’t take its present form until the mid 16th century.  It was known as a refuge for persecuted individuals and families.  It declined in the 19th century and it later became a nunnery with the patron  of Saint Barbara in1980 after its restoration was complete. The monastery is 3 floors that occupy the entire plateau.   While it has some nice modern bridges to traverse the gap, their are lots of stairs to get to the bridge. 

Steps and more steps

Great view of the garden below where the bridge is

Monastery of Saint Nicholas Anapavsa Meteora has a similar start, but was abandoned in ~1910 and restored in the 1960s.   It was our fourth stop for the day.   Maybe that was it or the heat, but those steps were rough.  It is at a slightly lower altitude and has the best view of the valley below and the town of Kalambaka.  

Saint Nicholas Monastery in the middle of the 3 lined up together.

Saint Nicholas Monastery in distance

Ruins from a former Monatery

Day 2 started with the Agios Stefan’s nunnery.  It’s the newest having most of its building constructed in the 17th and 18th century.   The new church (1798) was unadorned when nuns inhabited it in 1961.  In 1980, they adorned the new church with Frescos.   The Frescos in the other monasteries were very dark from age other than a set of three small restoration tests.   These Frescos were bright in color similar to the prior small tests we had scene.  

women had to have their shoulders covered, their knees covered and if wearing pants still had to wear a scarf they gave you to cover the hips to meet their conservative values

Our final stop was the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Meteora which was the smallest we visited.  It didn’t even have a gift shop.

Each Monastery display a long board.  It wasn’t until near the end of our tours that we discovered the board was used as a drum to call the Monks to prayer or other events much like a Bell might be used.  We did not discover the purpose of the metal hanging on the left.