Parga: olive groves and a change of plan

Posted on May 24, 2012 by BarryH

Last words of yesterday’s blog post:  “Still a lot more to see here before I move on again”.  Wrong again!  But more of that later.

The weather wasn’t brilliant again on Thursday but it certainly started out better than yesterday with good blue sky.  I had been recommended to visit the River Acheron, the fabled River Styx and had read up a bit about it.  I thought I would go by boat rather than bus and remembered that the posters on the harbourside said it left at 10.00.  But not today.  It seems it’s too early in the season and the boat isn’t running yet.  I then toyed with the idea of going back up to Ali Pasha’s castle on the mountain top.  However by the time I had finished breakfast, sorting myself out for the day and ambling down to the harbour it was clear that cloud had descended from the mountains, the tops of which were all obscured.

So, thinking on my feet, instant decision, I would walk over to the next bay south, apparently an attractive walk over the intervening ridge and through olive groves.  Very interesting walk not least because I got to see something of the olive gathering process in action.

I noted yesterday how vast acres of mountainside are draped in black plastic nets tied tightly around the trees so the olives drop from the trees onto them and flow down to lower levels.  But it seems that they are given a helping hand.  Not at all like the advert on the TV for a well known brand of olive oil spread in which geriatric Italians leap high into the air to pluck individual olives from the branches and lissome young maidenss dive headlong to prevent them hitting the ground when they fall.

For a start, around here no olives are picked, they wait for them to drop thereby ensuring maximum ripeness. Indeed the trees are so huge that they couldn’t be picked anyway.  Some trees are about 50 feet tall.  They collect in all sorts of intervening ‘flat spots’ and when it is time to collect them a guy in a red cag with hood up crawls underneath the nets on all fours and lifts them up so the olives flow even lower down.  Not a job for claustrophobes, the nets are very extensive and the way out could be very difficult to find if you get disoriented.  Note: the red cag may be optional rather than a uniform but it aided photogenicity (in other words the guy could be seen in red rather than camouflage colours). The large pools of olives are then scooped up into sacks for transport by pickup truck to the nearby industrial-scale olive press.

When there are no olives to drop from the trees the nets are carefully rolled up and tied, presumably so they don’t collect  extraneous material and therefore don’t need so much clearing of rubbish.

Olives on the tree

Guy in red cag crawling up the mountainside under the plastic netting, sacks of collected olives in the foreground

Olives collecting at the lowest level of the netting

Netting stretched taut over the path to avoid avoid waste

Netting furled up when not collecting fruit, in this case because trees have been cut back to reinvigorate growth

Not all the trees are massive olives.  In some of the groves, though none that I walked through today there are lemons as noted yesterday. But there are also some very long established plane trees.

Very venerable plane tree: more than 10 feet in diameter with a hollow inside the size of a bell tent

On the way back from the beach to which I walked, and there was no point in lingering under grey skies, it started to rain as I reached the highest part of the walk.  Then it started to thunder and the rain became extremely heavy again.  However, by divine providence, just as it started to become uncomfortably heavy, I reached a small, very simple church which not only had a tiny porch but was also open.  So I sat on a chair on the doorstep and read a book on my Kindle until it eased off and I could resume the onward ramble in comfort.  Now how good is that!!

When I got back to the hotel I cleaned up a bit and, as the sun was now shining and it was very pleasantly warm, I walked back up to the castle at the edge of town. Ambled up to the high point of the castle camera in hand and ….

Looking down across the main Parga bay from the castle

Remains of Ali Pasha’s domed bath-house at the top of the castle.

Basking in sunshine at the top of the castle but storm clouds looming large

…. that’s where my plans changed dramatically.  From the top of the castle, with views over to Paxos, I phoned the friends who I was planning to visit there en route south from Corfu on 2 June.  Problem!! They were leaving to fly back to Wales on 1 June.

Always one to thrive on a challenge, I went straight back to the hotel, found out the times of buses to Igoumenitsa from where I could get a ferry to Paxos, found out the time of the ferry, re-arranged my plans to stay in the Parga hotel, re-arranged my arrival date on Corfu, and phoned back to Paxos with an ETA.

I leave unfeasibly early Friday morning and arrive on Paxos early afternoon.  God willing.  Will then head for Corfu a couple of days later than planned

The friends on Paxos do not have a computer on the island so no WiFi connexion.  Therefore I will need to suss out local tavernas with WiFi and so the blog posts and communication with family and friends may not be so regular.

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Parga: water and growth

Posted on May 24, 2012 by BarryH

I regret to say that Wednesday arrived grey in Parga.  And before anyone e-mails to crow about it, I already know that the weather at home is sunny and warm. It’s certainly not cool here but the dependably sunny weather hasn’t yet arrived.  I think that is for two reasons.  First is that this Northern Greece and on the West coast which clearly isn’t as blessed with sunshine as the Dodecanese islands in the diagonally opposite corner of the country with which I’m most familiar.  Second is that there is no getting away from the fact that though Parga is on the coast the high mountains are its immediate hinterland and with winds blowing in from the west that creates orographic cloud and rain.

When I was doing a lot of paragliding it was always important to be especially carefully in late spring/early summer because the air was still cold but the sun was gaining in strength with the result that thermals were very ‘punchy’, small and violent.  I guess it’s the same here with the result that when it rains it’s not for long but it’s very heavy and thundery.

The cloud sat brooding on the mountains behind the town all day but the coastal strip cleared and was very pleasant. Me?  Inexorably, unavoidably, I headed for the mountains.  I was on the Ali Pasha trail.  I visited his citadel in Ioannina on Monday, today I visited what is reputed to be his summer palace in the kastro overlooking Parga and then climbed higher to what is known variously as ‘Ali Pasha’s Castle’, Agia Castle or Anthousa Castle.  Whatever it’s called it’s a spectacular location with great views and a good walk.

The walks in Northern Greece are very different from those in the Dodecanese but each place I’ve been they have been very different from each other as well.  Athens …. Meteora …. Metsovo …. Ioannina.  Wednesday was no exception.  New stuff all the time.  This blog is once again mainly visual because that has been the dominant character of the day, a ramble of visual discovery.

The start to the walk along the beach was very grey

… with a distinctly choppy sea

The vegetation around Parga is far more luxuriant than I have seen anywhere else.  In the Dodecanese it is stunted by lack of water.  In the high Pindus mountains growth, although vigorous, is limited by the short growing season and lower temperatures.  Here even the mares tails are luxuriant.  Olive trees are massive and everywhere lemon trees with massive fruit seem to grow wild, all a combination of plentiful rain in the mountains and higher temperatures close to the coast.

On the way back down from the mountain-top Castle-of-Many-Names I was tucking into mulberries from a tree alongside a small church, having been invited to do so by a Greek lady I had met earlier, when I was hailed by an English couple who have bought a house here.  They offered to show me The Waterfall.  On the way up I had seen an area marked ‘Waterfalls’ with a few pretty insignificant and unimpressive examples compared with those at Metsovo. I politely agreed the kind offer.  I wasn’t in any hurry after all.  I’m glad I did.  The way to it was pretty obscure but rounding the last contortion in the path and it was a real ‘Wow!!’ moment.  Not as much volume of flow as at Metsovo but far more impressive.  About 60-70 foot vertical drop down a narrow water-smoothed channel in the rock. This is the positive benefit of the higher rainfall in the mountains. Out of deference to my guide I took only a couple of photos but will go back and spend more time there.

The blue of cornflowers is more in evidence than the red of poppies

Other worldly look: massive olive trees with acres of black netting spread out below to catch the fruit as it falls

All the trees are deeply pock-marked

Some are clearly very old and venerable

Olives drop from the trees and flow in rivulets down the plastic netting to collect at low points from where they are gathered

Inside Ali Pasha’s mountain top retreat

With clearing skies looking across to Paxos from the mountain top

The waterfall, about 60-70 feet vertical drop

Mulberries, massive very succulent fruit

Excuisitely formed seed head

Grasshoppery thing

I have been chasing these sulphur-yellow butterflies around Greece for years. With eyes that big no wonder they see me coming.

Lemons by the tree-full

Sky clearing …. but so is the beach

Art variation of chain link fence. Each lop is about 40 cms in diameter and individually made from 5 mm steel hawser, must have cost a bit. Graffiti a common miss-spelling of a friendly greeting

I’ve now been in Greece two weeks but it seems much longer than that because I have moved on so much and everywhere has been so different, dramatically new milestones on the space/time continuum.  Athens seems a lifetime ago but in fact it was only a fortnight.  Still a lot more to see here before I move on again.

In the evening, more thunderstorms.  A reminder that all thus luxuriant growth and spectacular waterfalls isn’t without its negative side.

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Ioannina to Igoumenitsa to Parga: from grey skies to sunshine

Posted on May 23, 2012 by BarryH

I had originally thought to spend 2 or 3 days in Ioannina but changed my mind.  Partly that was a practicality: the hotel I stayed in only had a vacancy for one night.  Not that Ionanina isn’t a pleasant enough place, it clearly is.  Like much of Greece it has it’s laid-back street scene with pavement tavernas and restaurants and lots of people of all ages wandering around and sitting around having  a frappé or glass of wine in the sunshine or the shade depending on the temperature.  Very chilled … in terms of ambience not temperature.

I arrived on the bus from Metsovo in trousers but they proved too hot in Ioannina at half the altitude (about 500 metres rather than 1200) so I changed into shorts.  I had been the only person in shorts in Metsovo even in the sunshine.  But surprisingly the same was true in Ioannina.  I saw only two other people in shorts throughout Monday and they were both tourists like me.  I used to feel a bit self conscious in the UK in shorts when everyone else was in trousers but now shorts are common-place in the UK even in winter.  I even saw a good few people wandering around Banff in Canada in shorts in temperatures down to -20oC.  But not in Ioannina in +20oC.

There is also much indication that Ioannina is part of the global economy with all the major brand names in Latin script very much in evidcence: Mercedes, Opel; Hyundai, De Walt, Karcher, Makro, BP …. and many, many more. Particularly noticeable was the large number of German brand names, presumably part of the deal on the Euro bail-out.  Pleasingly few US brand names.  It may be there somewhere but I saw no MacDonald’s. A small victory for Greek fast food, the gyro, with a large out-of-town ‘Gyroland’.  There were several edge of city-centre garden centres of varying size. I even saw three outdoor gear/mountaineering shops with recognisable brands of good quality stuff.  Whatever the outcome of the political hiatus over the economy and the Eurozone, Greece is now firmly tied to global consumerism.

But there wasn’t enough to keep me there.  The main interest is the old citadel which I ambled around yesterday and the area of narrow streets and lanes leading down to it full of tavernas and unusual and idiosyncratic shops.  But that’s not my scene at all.  I could have taken a boat trip out to the island in the lake which sounds picturesque but not very photogenic surrounded as it is by pretty discoloured, polluted water and under grey skies.

And Tuesday dawned with very grey skies.  Turning black!  My onward journey was to take a bus to Igoumenitsa, a major international as well as local port in the far North West corner of Greece, close to the Albanian border and opposite Corfu.  I had sussed out how long it would take to trundle my luggage to the bus station from the hotel and the times of the buses.  Rather than another early start I decided to go for a leisurely stroll after an 08.00 breakfast to catch the 10.00.

I had had an ouzo nightcap in a backstreet taverna in a small courtyard and noticed a great bit of wall art so, as it was only slightly out of my way, I called in there to take a photo, much to the bemusement of the staff who must have wondered what this weird bloke was doing wheeling in a Big Bag, fishing out a camera, pointing it at the wall, and then wheeling off again.

Wall art in back street courtyard taverna in Ioannina

The route to the bus station was towards and then parallel with the lake and I could see above the buildings that the sky was turning darker grey and then black.   Before I was half way heavy rain spots started to fall leaving large wet dots on the pavement … and on me.  I quickened my pace but knew I would not beat the deluge which was clearly visible, approaching at some pace across the lake accompanied by crashing thunder and flashes of lightening as it descended from the mountains.  I didn’t.

I stopped under the canopy of a periptero (street kiosk) and pulled on my ultra lightweight cag, put on my sun hat which gave some measure of protection to my top half, but within minutes my trousers were absolutely saturated.  Because it was a lot warmer in Ioannina than up in the mountains in Metsovo I had packed my shoes and was wearing sandals, so at least the water flowed out of them rather than collecting inside.  For the final quarter of the journey it fair lashed it down.

I was so wet that when I got inside the bus station I pulled out a pair of trousers from the Big Bag and went and changed in the loo.  With the air conditioning on, some of the buses are distinctly cool and I didn’t fancy sitting in wet kecks for a couple of hours.

As it turned out the indication in the Rough Guide to Greece of the journey time to Igoumenitsa was significantly wrong.  It took 1½ hours not 2½ hours, thanks I guess to the new motorway and the tunnels cutting through the mountains rather than meandering over the top.  But the 2012 edition of the Rough Guide should have got that sorted out.  The journey to Parga was in two parts, first to Igoumenitsa then to Parga.  The journey time in the Rough Guide for the second part of the journey was also wrong, 1½ hours not an hour.  I concluded earlier in the trip that the Rough Guide is just that, a rough guide.

But it worked out well.  I had calculated that I would get to Igoumenitsa by 12.30 and get a connection to Parga at 13.15.  As it was I got to Igoumenitsa by 11.30 and sat in the sun enjoying an espresso until the connection at 12.30.

The bus meandered through a few villages inland to get here which is why it took so long and one thing which struck me was the number of telegraph poles with storks nesting on top.  Hope to find some closer to Parga while I’m here.

I had researched affordable hotels in Parga on the internet before I set out and the bus stopped  a mere 20 metres away from one of them.  I couldn’t be bothered humping baggage around looking for a better deal so, as they had vacancies, I checked in. Wunderchöen as we used to say when I spent part of a summer in Austria.  And it should be nice and convenient when I head back to Igoumenitsa for a ferry to Corfu.

First impressions of Parga are favourable on the whole.  Major advantage is that having finally dropped down out of the mountains onto the coast the sun is shining.  Exceedingly pleasant.!!  I ambled around a bit and took a few pics to give a flavour of the place.  Problem trying to get a map showing footpaths.  The assumption is obviously that most visitors hire a car and zoom around the region rather than explore the local area on foot.  There is even a road train!!!!!!!!

The iconic island monastery in Parga

Looking along the ‘town beach’ to one of the craggy headlands

Colourful buildings growing organically up the hillside behind the bay

It was a marked change to see that I was far from the only one in shorts.  The place is heaving with tourists and most are in shorts.  I don’t think I heard a single British voice since I arrived in Athens but in Parga they are everywhere.  A few are obviously returning visitors of long standing who seem sit in particular bars all day and hold court  It saddens me that so many do no more than stagger between the beach and the beach-front tavernas, claiming waiters as life-long friends, and presumably stagger back to some hotel at night.  Perhaps when I get old and overweight I’ll be less driven and I’ll do the same.  But in the meantime …… Parga is a pleasant place to be.

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Metsovo to Ioannina: a day of the unexpected

Posted on May 21, 2012 by BarryH

Back to grey skies on Monday.  I was up earlier than usual in order to catch the 08.15 bus to Ioannina.  For whatever reason the next one isn’t until 15.30.  Breakfast early.  Last bits of packing and then ready for off.  Enthusiastically, if somewhat clumsily, I hefted the Big Bag in Rucksack Mode onto my back and headed out of the hotel and down the steep road towards the main square.

I very soon recognised the feeling from some years ago when I had given blood and the elastoplast didn’t do the job.  I felt blood trickling down my arm and dripping off my fingers.  I had taken a layer of skin off my forearm and was leaking somewhat. I clamped a paper napkin over it (I always carry a couple in case of such emergencies) and continued downhill.  I had left early because my banana purchasing on Sunday had met with a problem: the shop didn’t have change for my €5 note so they said “Pay tomorrow”.  I therefore had to make a detour to the fruit shop, trying not to drip blood all over their floor.

The blood had soaked into the sleeve of my cag and my arm was a mess.  I rapidly concluded two things.  First that I should visit the fresh water spring in the main square and wash the blood out of my sleeve.  Second, that I should get the first aid kit out of the Big Bag to effect a repair to my leaking flesh.  I should admit that when I’m over here I carry two first aid kits weighing between them more than 1Kg.  One of them I always carry in my camera rucksack when I’m out walking but because I was doing safe ‘urban’ stuff today I had transferred it to the Big Bag.  Mistake!

I have always maintained that the mind is focused by deadlines. In this case, a bus leaving at 08.15.  I washed out my cag sleeve under the constantly running spring and transferred the first aid kit back to the camera bag and still had time to say cheerio to the brothers who run the hotel I where I was staying  who were down in the square to see me on my way.

Less than an hour to Ioannina, much of it in the tunnels through the mountain.  When the bus emerged from from the last tunnel, the lake on which Ioannina sits came into view on the right with the town spread out along it’s further shore.

Ioannina is a thriving but basically work-a-day kind of town rather than a tourist place.  The main visitor attraction, surprisingly, is Muslim in origin rather than  Orthodox Christian.  The town was the seat of the notorious Ali Pasha, an Albanian-born Muslim who controlled much of Greece ostensibly on behalf of the Ottoman Empire but really pursuing his own ambitions.  He built a citadel for himself on the shore of the lake, perpetrating many acts of great savagery against the Greek population.  It is the remains of this citadel which form the main focus of the town’s historical and tourist interest.

It was a very grey day but I spent it wandering around the old citadel and the narrow streets surrounding it.

Strong impression when you get off the streets in Ioannina is the vast number of poppies everywhere

Interior of the mosque built by Ali Pasha’s son in 1816

Some of the firearms on display dating back to that period

The mosque in the core of the citadel known as Its Kale

Next to the mosque is the wrought iron cage supposedly covering Ali Pasha’s grave

Many works of public art. Some obviously commissioned.

Some commissioned but also functional

Some just for the fun of it

Many on steel shutters, maybe encouraged to cover up or to deter graffiti

Shorter stay than anticipated in Ioannina.  Tomorrow I travel to Parga on the coast.

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Metsovo: down by the riverside … a really long way down

Posted on May 20, 2012 by BarryH

I was equally dazzled by the sun on Sunday morning when I swung the curtains open to the balcony doors as on Saturday morning and the sky was again cloudless blue.

This time I didn’t revise my plan for an amble down by the river but set out after breakfast into warmer air than any morning since I have been in the Pindus.

First port of call was the fruit shop to stock up on bananas.  As I ambled down the steep main street I was struck by the number of people walking up in their ‘Sunday Best’, obviously on their way back from morning service at the church in the town centre.  As I got closer to the main square it was clear that it was humming with life.  It seemed that about half the entire population had been in church.  Some were just standing around chatting to friends.  Others were ensconced in coffee shops.  A number of more elderly ladies were in traditional dress with very colourful additions to the basic black.  It was obvious that here in Metsovo more people were devout Sunday worshippers than anywhere else I have been in Greece.

The direct route to the fruit shop was through the large enclosed area outside the church and through an archway into the street beyond but it was crowded with emerging churchgoers so I walked around the outside.  In the open area opposite the fruit shop there was a ‘Sunday market’ selling flowers and plants which was thronged with people.

Sunday market

I was heading down to the river and a couple of monasteries there but I didn’t realise quite how far down it was.  The path zig-zags down some 250 metres below the town.  It should have been obvious how far down it is because the new motorway viaduct crosses the valley at a high level and that itself is a long way below the town.

One of the new viaducts seen from the path down to the river

Basically I spent the day mooching around down by the river, around a couple of monasteries and climbing up to a village on the opposite side where I had a frappé before ambling back.  After walking 10 miles up and along the ridge on Friday and 18 miles yesterday I thought an easier walk today would be good but in the end I covered 12 miles with almost as much height gain.

Two main things struck me.  First was the vast amount of running water compared with what I am used to in the Dodecanese.  Second, the completely different style of old monastery buildings, based on different materials and climate.

Around here some of the churches have old frescoes on the outside

Theotokos Monastery

I love these random stone-tiled roofs

Monastery of Agios Nikolaos

In 2006 an art exhibition was staged partly in the vineyards of Agios Nikolaos Monastery. This one remains, the discs reflecting the light according to the angle you look at it, in this case the blue of the sky.

….. and in this case the green of the vegetation

Water features figure largely in the grounds around Agios Nikolaos Monastery

One of the many waterfalls on the river

Old watermill

Detail of waterfall

….. and another

Short blog today because an early start Monday as I catch an early bus to Ioannina, my next stopping off point.

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Posted on May 20, 2012 by BarryH

Metsovo:  getting it wrong and a discourse on the nature of paths

Swung the curtains open to the balcony doors Saturday morning and was dazzled by the sun streaming in from a cloudless blue sky.  Weather forecasts on the internet seemed agreed, for once, that it would be a dry, warm day.

So I revised my plan for an amble down by the river and decided to go back up the mountain to take advantage of the much improved conditions.

Yesterday I followed part of footpath P3 which goes up to the top of one of two ski lifts and then to a couple of other high points in the mountains looking west.  Today I decided to follow footpath P2 towards  a large lake North West of the town.

According to the diagrammatic map the footpath begins at the edge of town, about 400 metres from the hotel, easy to find because it starts at the point of  a very pronounced hairpin bend.  Not so.  New apartment blocks and accompanying huge retaining walls seem to have obliterated the path.  It may be there somewhere but I could find no trace of it.  In the UK if development obstructs a public right of way an alternative has to be provided and signposted.  As I have commented on other occasions, in Greece development, road works in particular, frequently sever access to paths with no provision whatever.

But no big deal.  Knowing my inability to find a way out of town I had sussed out an alternative which meant taking another path, not marked on the map but which I located when I got here on Thursday, and then trudging a couple of kilometres up the near deserted top road to the next section of the path.  At the high point of the road a taverna has been built so I sat outside basking in the sunshine and had a mid-morning espresso.  The guy who served me saw I was looking at the map and looking quizzical, so he asked if I was going for a walk and proffered the information that the path began about a kilometre further along the road and was marked by signs.  He also warned me against ‘dangerous dogs’ which roam the area, not a prospect I welcomed having experienced them elsewhere in Greece.

Suitably caffeined-up I trundled on and in about a kilometre reached the other ski lift where I had anticipated the path to be.  There was a cluster of buildings and a track heading off in roughly the right direction so I followed it.  Basically, I got it wrong and found myself on another part of footpath P3.  But not before attracting the attention of a pack of vicious looking dogs which came out barking aggressively from behind a shed.  I did as the guy in the taverna recommended,  picked up a big stick.  They followed me for about  a mile but made no attempt to attack.  Dogs encountered elsewhere in Greece, and there have been many, have all been tied up and thankfully so.

I was irritated by having got it wrong but it was a good walk and I got the satisfaction of getting to the top of the highest peak on the ridge on this side of the valley and working out reasonably accurately where I was and where to go.

It made me think about footpaths and the problems there can be when working from diagrammatic maps.  In the forest the path can be wide, clear and easy to follow but is indistinguishable from forest tracks laid to facilitate access for felling and hauling timber and because the grain of the country is completely masked in trees it is difficult to judge where you are.  There may be a knack to it and if I walked in woodland more often I might find it easier.  I haven’t brought my GPS this time but if I had it would be little use in woodland because the signal is attenuated by the tree canopy and is little use without a geo-referenced map to relate to.

Coming out of the forest onto high level pastureland and the path disappears.  Sometimes the line of it can be made out because there is a line of slightly shorter grass with fewer flowers where the soil has been consistently compacted by the passage of feet.  You can follow this if you are on the line but not infrequently there is no indication at all and you just have to make a guess as to where path goes or scout around at the next edge of forest to find it again.  Over rocky ground the path frequently disappears completely.

The signing of the paths is not very helpful.  The occasional ‘P3’ plaque confirmed that the bit of path I was walking on was the one I want to be on but rarely is there any indication at points where there is a choice to be made or where the path disappears under pasture or over rock.  Waymarking can be difficult, particularly in open pastureland, but solutions can be found.

One satisfaction of the day was that I walked in sandals and shorts.  Very much better.  And to crown it all I got back to town and dived into a coffee shop just as it started to rain.  For the rest of the evening there was a series of ferocious thunderstorms with rain lashing down outside so I was content to sit by the log fire in the lounge and read.

In woodland paths can be quite clear … but it might not be the right path!

On the ridge top paths disappear over broken, rocky ground

Why a chunk has been cut out of this dead tree with a chain saw is difficult to imagine, but at least the ‘P3’ sign is left in place.

Selective felling within the forest leaves the forest intact, unlike the clear-felling practiced in the UK which is extremely unsightly and destructive of habitats. Not that there is much habitat in the monoculture larch woodland generally planted in the UK.

At the high point on the ridge: a trig point, a weather station, and confirmation that this is path ‘P3’

Snow on the North Face of the ridge opposite

Those who have skied will know that this type of lift is a drag.

I pick and eat wild fungi at home but wouldn’t touch this with a bargepole. Must look it up in the book.

Aaaah! Sweet!

High on top of the ridge

Strange phenomenon, a spring bubbling out of the ground ….

…. which then explodes 2 feet into the air.

x

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Metsovo: taking bananas for a walk in the Pindus

Posted on May 19, 2012 by BarryH

The rain had stopped by the time I got up on Friday morning, the cloud had lifted to just above the tops of the mountains and there were growing patches of blue sky.  The optimism about the improving weather had proved justified.

After breakfast I ambled down to the town centre, partly to look at it when it was ‘t raining and partly to find some bananas to take for a walk.  I find that bananas are never happier than when being taken for a walk in the mountains.

Surprisingly, they proved difficult to track down.  Much of the town centre is taken up with hotels, restaurants, tavernas and bakeries with shopping seemingly dominated by the regions specialties of carved wood products and cheeses.  One double-fronted shop caught the eye as being very different not only from all others in the town but from any I have seen anywhere.  It seemed to be the entire contents of house clearances across Northern Greece 50+ years ago and sent through a time portal to this shop.  It reminded me of the shop opened by Gary Sparrow played by Nicholas Lyndhurst in the TV series ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’, only a lot more random.

One of two unique shop fronts.

Alongside it, the other.

Eventually I tracked down bananas in a great little fruit shop in a back street behind the church and the main square at the bottom end of town.  It was interesting seeing the the traditional random-stone slate roofs compared with the newer, and presumably cheaper, red pantiles and corrugated iron of most of the town.

View from the bottom of town across traditional stone roofs to the snow on the mountains

One of those roofs

Greengrocer’s

The plan was to find and follow footpath P3 shown on the diagrammatic map which the owner of the hotel kindly gave me.  A perfunctory hunt for a bookshop to try to find a better map completely failed so, as has been the case in so many places I have walked in Greece, I used what was available.  I found a path of sorts which took me up to the top of the ‘teleferik’ ski lift at about 350 metres above the town.  Ski lifts are not usually associated with Greece but here in the Pindus they are part of winter life and important for the town’s economy.

At the top of the chairlift

Up from the valley below …. but not in Summer

From there picked up the path I was looking for, marked at random intervals by plaques about 10 inches square saying ‘P3’ and nailed to trees.  Indeed, much of the path was in trees, opening out occasionally to reveal dramatic views up to the highest peaks with a covering of snow and down to the valley floor and the massive viaducts connecting the tunnels of the new motorway.

View across to snow covered peaks with the road just visible down in the valley far below

There were gaps in the clouds periodically but even with the sun shining the wind and the high altitude made it very cold.  Relying on multi-layering to keep warm just about worked and for the first time in Greece I did a walk wearing long trousers and shoes but I would have been much more comfortable and therefore more confident about committing myself had I had more appropriate clothing which I left at home.  At altitude in the Pindus Mountains in May is not a place to be in summer-weight clothes even with two ‘T’ shirts on.  Nevertheless I covered about 16 kilometres (10 miles).

Shoes, long trousers and orchid

The landscape was similar to alpine forests and meadows with lots of flowers swathed across pastures.  Quite spectacularly there were also numbers of orchids scattered here and there.  Much of the forest was hardwood, especially beech in contrast with the planes of Meteora.  Some of the beech was ancient and in places the walking reminded me very much of the flank of the ridge north from Pontypool to Abergavenny, though at considerably higher altitude.

Flower-covered meadows between the trees

One of many orchids

Another

This could quite easily be on the ridge to Abergavenny in the Brecon Beacons National Park rather than the North Pindus National Park

I got back to town about 16.15 and felt I had earned a coffee and cake so I slobbed out in a café for half an hour.  Very touristy and decadent.  Slackness like that could ruin my reputation!

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Meteora to Metsovo: and a touch of déjà vue

Posted on May 18, 2012 by BarryH

Moderately early start to Thursday in order to catch the express bus to the next place on my itinerary, Metsovo in the Pindus Mountains at an altitude of about 1200 metres..

Usual morning ablutions; finished packing; breakfast at 07.30 instead of the usual start-time of 08.00; pre-arranged taxi arrived at 08.30 for the short trip to the KTEL bus station in Kalabaka.  There was then a standing around in the office which served as a bus station waiting room, ticket office and parcel delivery/collection centre, two buses just parked up in the middle of the wide street outside with cars parked higgledy-piggledy all around.  More people came and waited, more parcels arrived.  And then a third bus arrived, the one that we were all waiting for.  The driver and a guy I took to be his mate supervised the loading of Big Bags and we were on our way.

The bus wound its way gradually, laboriously into the mountains, taking hairpin bends slowly, stopping periodically in unlikely spots to let someone on or off.  At one point a guy got on the bus in the middle of nowhere, using the centre door, and the driver’s mate ambled up the aisle to take his money and dispense a ticket.  Most of us had bought tickets in the bus station before setting out.  All very laid back and leisurely as befits Greece.

The sun was shining during the first part of the 1½ hour journey but the mountains in the distance were shrouded in cloud, revealing patches of snow at higher levels as the clouds drifted aside for a few minutes before settling back once more.

Batting along in the bus in the sunshine, cloud low on the mountains ahead

The old road between Kalabaka and Ioannina is said to be very spectacular but is now little used.  Instead a recently opened dual carriageway, the E2 ‘Odos Egnatia’, tunnels through ridges and crosses valleys on huge viaducts, speeding up the whole journey.

Then in the space of 5 minutes the day took a sudden and unexpected turn. The bus left the motorway at an exit signed to Metsovo, went a couple of hundred metres, turned around and stopped.  The driver shouted that this was Metsovo so I grabbed my things and shot off, retrieving my Big Bag from the outside ‘hold’.

It very clearly wasn’t Metsovo. It wasn’t anywhere.  It was a motorway exit with no development of any kind in sight.  Two nuns and the driver’s mate had also got off.  The nuns got into a waiting car and puttered away and as the driver climbed back on board he shouted that the guy I had taken to be his mate was waiting for a car and they agreed that that would also pick me up.  I went from complacency to confusion in less than 2 minutes.  What on earth was going on???

Chatting to the guy in  a mixture of Greek and English I pieced it together.  On some days and at some times the bus goes into Metsovo but not the 08.50 from Kalabaka on Thursdays.  Instead it stops at the motorway exit, about 5 or 6 kilometres from the town.  Why had no-one thought to mention this when I bought my ticket?  Perhaps the lass who sold it to me didn’t know?  Furthermore I found out that the guy wasn’t the driver’s mate but a policeman on his way to do a 24 hour shift in Metsovo which he did once a week and the car he was waiting for was a police car.  But no problem, I could have a lift.

Without the serendipity of being on the bus with that guy I would have been completely stuffed.  There was no-one to ask where Metsovo was and which of the road options led there, no phone number to call a taxi, no information of any kind.

The air up in the mountains was significantly colder than down in Kalabaka but at least it wasn’t raining. Two minutes later it started to spit with rain and the cloud level dropped dramatically.  The guy led me around the other side of the big lorry parked up  where the bus had stopped and into a massive log-built bus shelter.  Another minute and the mountain opposite, previously shrouded in cloud, had disappeared completely as it lashed down with rain and the thunder crashed around overhead.

Cowering in the log-built bus shelter, rain lashing down outside and the mountains all but disappeared.

Ten minutes of cowering in the log cabin and the police 4×4 arrived and we dashed through the rain to get in.  Ten more minutes and it stopped outside the hotel I was heading for, rain still absolutely lashing down, the sides of the steep main road in the town a rushing torrent.  First time I have been delivered to a hotel by police car!!  Am I glad that I had taken the trouble to suss out a hotel on the internet and e-mail ahead.  I would not have fancied trying to find somewhere suitable in this weather lumbering around loaded with baggage.  It was cold outside but  the welcome was warm.

Déjà vue?  In the first blog post when I arrived in Athens I wrote “When I left Grey Britain it was cold, wet and grey.  Very cold, wet and grey.”  Believe me, it’s colder, wetter and greyer here in the Pindus Mountains.  It reminded me of going to the Lake District with the scouts when I was a teenager and having to take on trust that there were mountains there.  I literally saw no mountain tops any of the times I went.  It was many years later when I went back that I found that they were not a myth.  Thursday and it was the same here.  At one point the cloud lifted slightly so I can see across the valley at the height of the hotel but have no idea what the mountains look like, except for the occasional glimpse of the snow which fell today.

View from the window of my room when I arrived … and the rest of the day

The temperature in town was 5oC at 15.00.  This being a ski resort locals are all going around town wearing ski jackets or similar.  Inside they are all wearing thick sweaters or fleeces.  I had thought to bring a thin fleece but didn’t.  Instead I decided to rely on multi-layering.  A mistake.  I have no long sleeves to wear inside the hotel and only a thin windproof to wear outside.  However, I do have a pair of walking shoes without which it would be very unpleasant.  First time I have brought shoes to Greece!!!  Previously I have only brought sandals.

After hanging around the hotel for a while hoping for the rain to stop and the sky to clear,  I ventured out for  a walk to get the feel of the place.  I ambled in the rain up to the start of a footpath close to one of the ski lifts, hidden in the cloud.

Ambling up the road from the town gave a view down to one of the viaducts and tunnel entrances of the new motorway far below ….

…. and of the motorway exit where I was dropped off

Metsovo snow plough station: evidence of the amount of snow they get regularly in winter here

Ski lift in the mist

I got wet and cold and so was very pleased to get back to the hotel and find that a log fire had been lit in the lounge.  I sat in the big comfy armchair next to it, read a book on my Kindle, and dozed.

I’m told that the weather will change tomorrow and that by Monday the temperature will be up around the 30o mark.  I certainly hope so.  There is little point trying to do any walking while the weather is as it is.    This is a far cry from the Greece I know. But then the Greece I know isn’t the only reality and finding and dealing with the unexpected is part of the experience of travelling.

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Meteora: a last day and a lesson in practical logic

Posted on May 16, 2012 by BarryH

Wednesday’s weather was fabulous using the word in both its common usage of ‘very good’ and its etymological usage of ‘of the nature of fables’.  This was the weather for which Greece is fabled and one of the reasons I keep coming back. It started off blue sky and continued so, with just a few small patches of cloud to add ‘a good sky’ to photographs.

I had a walk planned to suss out where the footpath led which I had been tentatively exploring when I came upon the Salamander on Monday.  I had a pretty good idea and it would be satisfying to test it out and add on a proper ‘finish’ back to Kastraki..

However, the planned early start was thwarted by the fact that my reading glasses broke on Tuesday evening (I wrote the blog with them tilted up diagonally across my face, looking very odd) and I had to find an optician in Kalabaka to see if I could get them repaired.  The optician was very good, he downed tools on what he was working on and said come back in an hour.

So I thought I would rectify an oversight when I packed and buy myself a nail brush.  That was the day’s problem solving exercise.  First port of call in the UK is always Boots so I went into one of the pharmacies in the town centre.  I don’t know whether the Greeks are hypochondriacs like the French but there was an unfeasibly large number of pharmacies in the centre of Kalabaka.  I counted 8 and then gave up.  I hadn’t expected to be doing this and so hadn’t looked up the Greek for ‘brush’ nevermind ‘nail brush’.

So I resorted to that unerring standby when you can’t speak the language – mime.  All the pharmacies seem to be staffed by attractive young ladies which became embarassing because when I mimed scrubbing my nails the light of recognition shone across their faces and they took me to an assortment of nail files.  Adding the word ‘katharizo’ (to clean) simply replaced the look of disappointment when I said ‘ochi’ (no) with a look of complete puzzlement and growing fear that I was some kind of lunatic foreigner.  In one shop the nail files were hanging up close to babies hair brushes so I pointed to them and mimed again and the young lass twigged ….. and directed me to the supermarket.  I suppose there is no reason why the fact that nail brushes are sold in chemists in the UK should mean that they are everywhere else.  Different association, different logic.

So I trundled off to the supermarket.  Like other larger supermarkets I have been to in Greece this was on two floors with cleaning and washing stuff in the basement.  Found the soaps and shampoos and the like but no sign of nail brushes or even facecloths.  I approached another young lady who was stacking shelves and by coincidence was taking wire brushes out of her trolley.  So I tried the same trick which had been successful in the last pharmacy, pointed at them, said ‘mikro’ (small) and mimed scrubbing my nails again.  I thought she was going to run but with an effort of self control she took me to another part of the basement, pulled out a basket of assorted stuff from a shelf low down and gave me …. a smaller version of the wire brushes she was stacking elsewhere.  Why different sizes of wire brushes are  3 aisles away from each other is a logic I couldn’t begin to approach.

Then I noticed that there were all kinds of brushes hanging up opposite the shelf with the mikro wire brushes.  There were stiff and soft long handled brooms, stiff and soft short handled brushes, scrubbing brushes, shoe cleaning brushes.  Just about every kind of brush you could think of and then colour variants of each.  I pointed to the smallest scrubbing brush and was just about to say ‘mikro’ again when I spotted them hanging up behind, hidden by the plethora of other brushes, nail brushes in pink and blue.  Perfect! And for the princely sum of €0.90. I would have paid more for the entertainment value and the education in logic and association.  But I was married to a Cardi too long to give house room to a thought like that for more than microseconds.

A major water feature in the centre of Kalabaka

Back at the optician my glasses had been repaired and cost €6.  A bargain and a great relief to not have to spend the next two months with my specs skewed across my face.

After the nervous exhaustion of the shopping, the walk was a great relief and very relaxing.  I wandered along bits of path through the woods, between and around the rocks, to see where they led (the paths, not the rocks) and to try to build up more of a picture of the area in my mind.  I found my way to the place I wanted to be and then headed up to the Varalaam Monastery, one of the highest and one which the Rough Guide reckons has the most to see.

I got there about lunch time and it seems that that may be a good time to visit because the coach drivers have taken their loads to the restaurant or taverna where they get the best kick-back.  So the number of coaches and hence the visitors at the monasteries is significantly reduced.  Of the three monasteries I have paid my €2 to go inside I reckon Varlaam has most to offer.  As in them all photography is forbidden in the church but I think my camera went off accidentally a couple of times.  Not that any photos which might have resulted will be published on the internet.  That would be disrespectful.  Suffice it to say that every inch of the insides of the church was covered in frescos painted about 450 years ago and in magnificent condition.  Very well worth seeing.

Looking down on the entrance way at Varlaam Monasterynow carved out from the rock and provided with a bridge, seen from ……

…. the winch tower still with the original equipment

One of the church ‘towers’ at Varlaam

… and the original water barrel, more than 2 metres in diameter and I think made of oak. Believe me IT’S MASSIVE

…. and having scraped the bottom of the barrel for photo opportunities, the inside of it.

Another photo of rocks

Another shot of a monastery

Another bird picture. An eagley thing, very large., picked up too much height in the thermal before I could get the camera on it.

And finally from Meteora …. I just liked the colour combination.

Another great day’s walking.  I highly recommend a visit to Meteora.  It’s now one of the top 3 most dramatic places I know in Greece, excluding Athens which stands on its own.

I’ll be sorry to leave Meteora because there are still walks I would like to do and others I would like to do again.  I might well come back and if I do I will definitely stay in Kastraki again, partly because it’s closest to the rocks and partly because it has a kind of small island feel about it which I like.

Thursday and I move on to Mestovo in the Pindus Mountains and the next stage in my Greek ramblings for 2012.

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Meteora: more monasteries, more rocks, more perspectives

Posted on May 16, 2012 by BarryH

The weather forecasts for Meteora on Tuesday had all agreed that it would be grey and wet.  Local opinion also agreed.  As if to thumb the nose at the experts, it wasn’t.  It started off bright and then clouded over and then cleared and then clouded over.  All in the space of 3 hours.  But no hint of rain and from about 12.00 onwards it became increasingly warm and sunny.

I had decided to walk to a monastery furthest from Kastraki where I’m staying using a path the start of which I had sussed out on Monday.  It turned out to be a very good path and a very good walk.  I fair zipped along.

Two rambles en route.

The first is that I can’t always tie in the footpath guide with what’s on the ground.  This might be that it was written some years ago and a combination of vegetation growth and road improvements have rendered it unhelpful on some paths.  Vegetation growth is a major issue because some parts of paths are through dense scrub/tree cover which grows across and blocks paths.  There is little evidence of maintenance work. On the other hand the first path I walked on Tuesday  has been much improved and much of it is stone-paved.  The second path I walked isn’t even shown in the guide.  Road improvements, like on some of the islands I have walked, have simply severed paths which become impossible to find or access and so become unused and unusable.

The empty bars and restaurants in Kastraki in the evening are probably one consequence of this poorly developed and recorded footpath network.  If more, or even if anything, was done to develop and mark a proper footpath network it would probably encourage people to come and stay rather than shoot through in a coach for the day on a culture-fix.

The second ramble is that mass coach tourism in Meteora may ring the tills in the monasteries with Euros (or Drachmae in the not unimagined future) but is a pain in the bum for the lone connoisseur like me.  Case in point.  I dropped down to the Roussanau Monastery from the top road only to find that the bus load of Russians which had clogged up Agios Triadhos monastery had parked at the top so they could walk down, rather than use the official car park at the bottom and walk up.  They then completely blocked the steps down whilst their guide waxed eloquent, I assume with interesting titbits about the history of the monastery with what were obviously frequent funny asides judging by the laughter.  I gave up on trying to get past and sat down on the steps and ate my sandwich.  They then completely filled and therefore blocked the entire inside of the tiny ancient church bit of the monastery.  When they left they went down to the bottom car park to which the coach had moved.  Uphill walking must be beyond them.

The problem is that these guys arrive in double-decker buses with bars, loos, TVs and fridges (they say so on the side) and so are in vast numbers.  Cheap and efficient to move around the world but totally out of scale with diminutive ancient monasteries perched on the top of rock pinnacles.  Minibuses zoom around as well with small groups which seem far more in keeping with the scale.

By contrast I had passed a party of about 20 French people walking up the steep and sustained climb all the way from Kalabaka and their average age must have been 65+.  Respect!  Like me they recognised that the getting there is as important as arriving.

There were amazing views from the Agios Triados Monastery to which I walked first and then along the route to Roussanou where I went next.  The camera clicked incessantly as new perspectives opened up on the four monasteries I had walked to and photographed previously.

Holy Trinity Monastery high above Kalabaka

As with the others it fills its pinnacle-top perch

Four other monasteries in one shot: Grand Meteroa, Varlaam, Roussanou and Agios Nikolaos

From another perspective, Rouussanou and Agios Nikolaos Monasteries

Grand Meteora and Varlaam: the path goes up the densely wooded gully between the two rocks

Roussanou and Varlaam: despite the appearance of the bedding in the rocks they are perched on completely separate pinnacles some distance apart

A new perspective on a rock garden: this is Holy Trinty Monastery garden

And there were lots more rocks.

Climbing high on the way up from Kalabaka

Looking down over Kalabaka and its flat river valley flowing into the vast Plain of Thessaly

Looks like something created by the SFX boys for a SciFi film. But it’s not, it’s real. I think.

Another aside on the mass coach tourism issue.  These coaches and double-deckers park up on parts of the road near viewpoints obstructing other traffic while the hordes on board got off, walked back along the road by the score clicking away on mobile phones and cameras, posing liking models from Vogue in the foreground of ‘The View’.

A very good and interesting walk but it got me back to the hotel at 16.30, too early to finish the day’s activity, so I sat in the garden in the sun, had a coffee and cake, and then did another walk.  Circumnavigation of the Agio Pnevma (Holy Spirit) rock. Did it in less than an hour about which I was well pleased.

And then I showed myself up.  Badly!  I came upon a small group of French walkers who asked if they were on the right path to Kastraki.  They were and I wanted to tell them it was only a further 10 minutes.  But completely unbelievably I couldn’t remember the French word for 10 !!!!!!  I could only think of the Greek and then the German. I even thought of the English third!!!! When I started learning Greek I couldn’t think in Greek only in French.  What a change round!  I must be improving in Greek.  But what humiliation, having to speak to French people in English!!!!  Lots of exclamation marks there.

I had hoped to see storks when I was in this part of the world and today I did. Used to craning my neck to look up at the rocky crags as well as down to where my feet are trading, I spotted a pair of storks flying high overhead, circling in a thermal.  Interesting wildlife round here.

Flying high

I guess it’s a stork but may be wrong

 

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