Greek Sketches 2024: Northbound

...Octavian found victory at Actium more easily than we found the old battlefield itself.  The handful of homes scattered along the marshy shoreline blocks any access to the water, and there is no signage of any kind.  Surrendering, we drive north to Nicopolis, whose old walls parallel the quiet country road.  The crumbling stone edifaces and archways were put here by Octavian in 29 BC, after his victory, hence the name.  We walk awhile, gazing into the amphitheater, followed by a dog who briefly adopts us, before returning to the car to visit other Roman ruins that lay scattered along this narrow isthmus. The Necromanteion of Acheron is just to the north of here, above a small village.  I found conflicting information about whether the site would be open on this Holy Friday, but it is the locked gate rather than the old Oracle that tells the tale.  The dead would begin their journey to the underworld from here, floating down the River Hades.  Today it is kayakers who make the journey, drifting through a broad and beautiful valley.  The friendly dog who trails me as I enjoy the views I naturally call Cerberus, who chases the car awhile as we drove off...

...Dodoni lies nestled in yet another beautiful valley, whose surrounding hills reminds me of Boulder.  The ruins form a berm of sorts, hinting at an elaborate palace befitting the Oracle of Zeus.  Spring wildflowers bring color to the grassy spaces between the stones, watered by a quick and sudden storm that is a brief interlude to otherwise perfect blue skies...

 

...Greater Ioannina is a city of traffic and graffiti. Our target taverna is bustling for lunch, so we choose an outdoor seat just up the road.  Away from the sea, we settle on moussaka and a local white, a stronger tipple as befitting hearty country people.  As we eat, I watch suspicious looking figures pop in and out of an adjacent pharmacy. Once inside the inner walls of the old citadel, we immediately regret our choice of accommodation in the grotty modern city, as here all is tidy and clean.  The atmospheric upper ramparts of the castle give great views over the lake, and music wafts out from the church.  Byron had been here too, a guest of Ali Pasha, with whom he was not terribly impressed.  The Pasha is still here, his tomb covered by an iron cage.  Back in town, we have ice cream with Voula, an old university classmate of LYL.  She and her husband Vassilis are based here in Ioannina, working with the university.  We walk along the water's edge, then pass up and over the citadel to the other side.  A number of times, Vassilis is approached by apparent strangers who take him up in brief conversation.  I knew that he has a number of books and has a newspaper column, but it is becoming clear that he has some significant fame as well.  We wind up at a lakefront restaurant, quiet for the holiday, and with only about 10 percent of its menu available. But there is wine.  We make due, watching the ducks bounce in the waves of an evening gone windy...

 

...The winds have brought unstable weather overnight, which is what we don't want for our walk along Vikos Gorge.  But the mist at play beneath the towering stone walls is hypnotizing, a good distraction from the sheer drops a mere step off the narrow path.  The weather clears as we climb off trail to unmarked viewpoints, and allows us good photos of the meadow crowded with stone towers and small cairns that we stumble upon on the way back to Monodendri. We walk the cobblestone trails through the village, until the rain determines that it is lunchtime, which we take in an old inn that is familiar from any film set in the Middle Ages. Being a hotel, it would make for a great overnight.  But we are daytripping, so continue our walk, around town, down to the Monastery of Saint Paraskevi, an almost Indian name, as is Vikos itself, magnificent now in the full light of the sun... 

 

...We drive in and out of the clouds, over high mountain roads that abate at Papigko, tucked deep into the Zagori. Our digs for the night are in a sort of B&B, an old house horseshoed around a stone courtyard.  Our proprietress is a funky artist type, almost witch-like, with an apparent penchant for knitting. She takes us to the upper garden, but it is too misty to sit, and there are no views anyway.  LYL and I walk the small village, then settle in for dinner.  Our first choice is an atmospheric old taverna, but the menu was limited and the vibe a tad unfriendly.  Next door is bright and cheerful, and beneath the table my foot keeps time with the 70s rock coming through the speakers overhead.  The stone walls of our bedroom make for a chilly night, but we go out anyway, to enjoy Easter services in the village church.  We've arrived too early as not much is happening, but over the next hour more and more people fill the narrow recesses as the priests drone on and on.  Being from a small town myself, I begin to recognize archetypes, and my mind creates stories about them as I wait for something to happen.  Finally at midnight it does, as the bells begin to toll, and we all step outside to enjoy the fireworks, and those candle-lit balloons that drift ever heavenward like the souls of Jesus, though their eventual return will bring not salvation but polluted forests...

...I awake early to read in the courtyard, but the cold chases me in again.  I have coffee and little Easter chocolates until it is time for breakfast proper.  We walk the village again, this time under perfect blue skies.  In the full light it becomes clear that this mountain village is the preferred choice of holiday homes of the wealthy Greek city-dweller.   And why not, set beneath the towering stone spires above, still dusted with snow.  We find too that we missed a better hotel by a dozen meters or so.  Booking our hotels for this trip was tricky, as the trip was quite last minute due to scrambling after a cancelled cruise, and some prolonged coordination with friends we'd meet along the way.  While our accommodation was perfectly fine, the better spots had all been snatched up, which now makes sense with the awareness of the Easter holiday weekend... 

 

 ...We point the car deeper into the mountains, winding down some steep switchbacks that we'd come up the day before, which bottom out at a quaint little water crossing, before climbing steeply back up again. Here again is classic southern European mountain scenery, moving through forests from which a village will suddenly appear, clinging impossibly to the steep hillsides. (We can thank centuries of foreign invaders for catalyzing such charm.)   We stop the car at the Konista stone bridge, whose steep arch we climb for the obligatory photos, before sitting to coffee at a taverna on the far side.  We are meant to meet Voula here, or so we thought, for we find later that the bridge that served as our meeting point was not this (obvious) one, but was the one at the quaint little water crossing of an hour or so before.  But all is well as we walk the forestry road built high along the river, as beneath us kayakers drift toward Albania, drawing my eyes downward and past them to the older stone trail that plays peek-a-boo on the river's rougher side. We'll take lunch out on a terrace that overlooks a very smokey smokehouse across the car park.  The restaurant is busy this Easter Sunday, but the streets of town are silent, but for some wandering Romani musicians, who we pay to play a folk song for us.  Voula's house is at the top of the hill, with great views over toward Albania.  Though still geographically Greece, this is historically Macedonia, and Vassilis is one of the top scholars on the Vlachs, a medieval Balkan people from this region.  (Culturally, this segment of the trip has very little Hellenic Greek feel, having crossed a cultural border of sorts once we hit Ioannina.)  I read on the patio until the change of light brings out wine, then leafy dolmas.  Neighbors pop by to offer holiday greetings, all members of Vasilis's family, who all have adjoining properties.  I imagine there had once been a large family estate here, now divided up post-war.  When the light finally goes, we head off to a bed, and a very cold night.  Up here, spring is synonymous with winter...

 

...We take the faster lowland route back to Ioannina, then trace the lake's north shore before climbing again.  Aside for a quick coffee, we only stop again at Meteora, the trip's highlight for me.  I was memorized the first time I saw the cliff monasteries in a 45 year old Bond film.  We pass the rest of the morning visiting a few, up and down the steep stone steps to the eyrie churches taking up every inch of space atop the rocks.   But between, the crowds and traffic are too much.  (Easter Monday too is a thing here.)  So we retreat to the lowlands for a late lunch, then rest through the afternoon on the lawn of our small hotel, as a team of climber rappels from the impossible chimneys high above.  An early start brings respite from the hordes, and I've saved the three most intriguing sites to have nearly to ourselves.  Traffic begins to build as we move out of town. We follow small rivers, alongside which villages come and go. We climb again, though the roads run straight as they cut across high plateau, punctuated with small reddish shrubs like every other highland in the world.  We had to forfeit a visit to a site related to Alexander the Great due to Holy Tuesday (enough already!) but pulled into Thessaloniki by lunch time. It felt like we'd left Greece, and arrived in Turkey.  Which, culturally, we had...

 

On the turntable: David Johansen, "Live it Up"