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| The trip - Delphi and Meteora |
| Thursday, March 15, 2012 |
Contd from The trip - Athens
The best part about travelling is the planning. Atleast for me. The excitment of getting to know the place, researching on what to see and why is unbeatable. So Delphi was a must see spot and Meteora was another. I saw some pictures of Meteora online and I was floored. I had to see this 'out of the sky' place! DH was not too keen until I showed him the pictures too. Now that we definitely wanted to see Meteora what remained to be seen was if the weather would cooperate with us. Greece can be divided into three sub sections. The islands - there are some thousands of islands in Greece with a couple hundred occupied. The mainland can be divided into Peleponnese and the rest of mainland Greece. Peleponnese and Athens in general are supposed to have moderate weather whereas the northern Greece was supposed to be cold. With snow. And Meteora was in northern Greece. When I actually formed the itenerary and shared it with some travel experts on Greece, they shot it down immediately saying it was impossible to cover in the time frame leave alone the baby in the picture. And add the fact we were travelling in February.
We just tentatively planned to visit Delphi and Meteora the second and third day of the trip. We didnt book the hotel room for the night and just prayed we would be able to get it worked out. Thankfully, we had the most amazing weather those days. Lots of sun. And Nicos's dad was able to get us accomodation in Kastraki inspite of the last minute plan. Almost made me wonder what I was so worried about. We left most of our luggage with the hotel and just took what we needed for the overnight stay with us.
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| En route Delphi |
We set off to Delphi at 8:15AM after breakfast. BSK was pretty good except for the fact that she hated sitting in her car seat. After awhile we just picked her up and kept her on our laps. Nicos gave us a history lesson on Greece. We were in total awe of the history of Greece. Appollo is one of the Greek gods, God of light, born to Zeus. Delphi is the oracle of Apollo, basically the site where Pythias, women who get enchanted and prophesize in the name of Apollo. It was believed that Apollo spoke through these Pythias. I strongly suspect paithiyam originated from Pythia, but dont know. Delphi was where the penhellenic games were held every four years, a precursor to the the modern Olympic games. The Temple of Apollo in Delphi was built in 4BC. What we werent ready for was the beauty of the location. Set on the slope of Mount Parnassus, we were accompanied by snow covered mountains and quaint red roofed villages all the way. Delphi is believed to be the navel of the earth, the holiest site for ancient Greeks.
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| The Gym/School |
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| Delphi |
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| Temple of Apollo |
It was a good climb to walk the historic site. We visited the Museum first, saw many excavated sculptures and other artifacts, notable was the one of a charioteer whose eyes were made such that from any angle it would look like he is looking at you. We saw the Temple of Apollo, in ruins obviously. We saw the treasury, where all the offerings that were given to the Pythias by kings for the predictions were housed. We climbed up to the theater. There was only one tour group and a few scattered tourists in the site. The Stadium was closed due to snow. Bummer. New artifacts were being recovered even to this day, and to see all those structures from over 2000 years ago, it was grass itching. On the other side down below the mountain was the Gym, a place where instructors trained students and yet another temple of Athena. Greece seemed to be a place rich with history and archaeological treasure pot. As they said on KQED, you cannot walk 10feet in Greece without stumbling onto something of archaeological importance in Greece.
We headed to the little town of Delphi for lunch. Our options were limited due to vegetarian restriction. The restaurant was located with a stunning view of the mountain slope. BSK ate her canned food, while we had beans soup and spinach pie. DH had to have his Baklava, which was awesome in this place. Then followed a long drawn four hour drive up to Kastraki, at the foot of Meteora. We talked more about Greece, the alphabets of Greek looked so familiar, with alpha, beta, gamma, lambda, phi, epsilon, miu, sigma etc. I gave my shot at trying to read Greek and Nicos helped out. It was quite awesome to see theta, beta, and other greek alphabets that we ave used only in Math and Physics classes being used in everyday places like sign boards and mineral water bottles and doors. Another grass itching moment. Reminded me of how the Greek were pioneers in Mathematics. Phythogoras was greek, Phythogoras theorem is the most basic of theorems used by most on all walk of life. Archimedes of Eureka fame was a Greek. Nicos corrected us that its not Eureka but rather Evreka. It was total information overload for us, we drank in whatever we could. We passed through some rustic Greece. It looked pretty much like any rural side of California. We stopped for a diaper break, Nicos smoked away to glory. Lot of folks in Greece smoked, man woman no bar. I couldnt bear the stink. Did I say that already?
We reached Kastraki around 5:30 in the evening. Our home for the night was this super cute cottage like place run by a family. Small but clean rooms. Nicos also stayed in the same place. We got a glimpse of Meteora and its majestic rocks as we entered the town and were really excited about the next day. We tried to get BSK in the stroller in the evening, since we had carried it from Athens to here, for dinner. But BSK was so fussy, we gave up and just carried her in the Ergo carrier. BSK still does not like to sit in the stroller. She does not like to constrained. So she hates her high chair, the car seat, the stroller. Even the play yard. Tough times ahead! So anyway we found a place to eat, but they didnt have a baby chair. So we couldnt feed BSK properly we decided to feed her once we got back to the hotel. We had giant beans and stuffed pepper and tomatoes. It was totally yummy. But we were too hungry to remember to take pictures. I liked the feel of the little town. Wish we had more time to spend there though. Night was fine, I tried putting BSK to sleep while DH took some rest. I was also sleepy, but somehow managed to get BSK to sleep too. She woke up at 2 to play and then retired at 4AM. Because of this lack of slep and jetlag and what not, my face in all the pictures looks soo bloated and fat. :--( Made me depressed. Everytime we travel, lack of adequate water intake and sleeplessness and all the travel makes my face all puffy and fat, totally depressing I tell you. I should just give up on hoping to have a good looking me, as much as possible in pictures. Bleah.
Anyhoo, the next day dawned bright and sunny. We got BSK ready and had some nice breakfast. BSK had her banana. Banana seemed to be the easiest meal to give her, most of her breakfast was banana. She enjoyed it too. At 9 we were out and started driving up towards Meteora. Meteora as the name suggests is similar to Meteorite, as in 'from the sky' or 'in the sky'. The hightlight of Meteora were the monasteries that were built on top of these rocks. Firstly nobody knows how these rocks cropped up from nowhere. The landscape and the rocks dont go together. Secondly, these monasteries were built in the 11th or 12th century by the monks who wanted to follow their religion under the Turkish Empire and seeked refuge on top of these rocks. Access to these monasteries were very difficult then, since these were built on top of smooth rocks. Baskets were used to lower and carry people up. Now there are steps to these monasteries.
The night before I kept imagining how the views would be and it was marvelous. We were wondering if it would be worth the drive. And it totally was. The gigantic rocks with crevices on them, shooting up to the sky, with the red roofed monastery on the top made us wonder just how did they manage to build this place in those days. It apparently took about 40 years to build one monastery.We visited the Monastery of Grand Meteora first. It happened to be a Sunday and there was Sunday service also. It had a lot of steps traversing the rocks. And it was beautiful. Once we were in, we saw the various rooms, the dining area, the kitchen, the praying room, where monks lived. There are monks still there, but we never saw any of them. We saw many other tourists here. And some old ladies pinched and konjified BSK in unknown language. We just smiled and took the compliments. We got some souneviers for my parents. It was interesting to see how Christianity had spread and how people went to all lengths to follow their religion. We then visited another Monastery, the Monastery of Varlaam. This had an entrance like a castle. The architecture was so old it was very intriguing. We saw the village of Kastraki and another village Kalampaka from the top. I said a small prayer in the church since there were less people here. We also saw the area where the baskets were pulled up.
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| Grand Meteora |
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| Four of the six monasteries |
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| Meteora |
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| Monastery of Varlaam |
Then we drove around to see the other monasteries from outside. The Monastery of Holy Trinity is where a James Bond movie was filmed apparently. For your eyes only. Made a mental note to watch the movie once we got back. Nicos took us to some view points from where we could see all the monasteries, and took some pictures. Meteora is probably one of the newer attractions in Greece having been built in the 11th-14th centuries, since everything else was from BC. But this was our favorite spot in Greece. The pictures don't do justice.
We bid good bye to Meteora and started driving back to Athens in the afternoon. we stopped in Kalambaka at the town center where Carnival celebrations were going on. It looked similar to Halloween, with all kids dressed up in costumes of the old world and animals. Monday was the Carnival, something akin to Mardigras here, to celebrate before the beginning of Lent. We had lunch at a not so great place. We had pasta and giant beans. Both of them were so oily we couldnt eat much. We talked some more history on the drive back as BSK slept. Democracy originated from Greece. Greece had great thinkers and philosophers like Plato and Socrates. We also talked about schools and colleges in Greece. Few generations of Greeks did wonders and ruled the world and then slowly the whole country seems to have become a nothing, and in deep trouble now.
We were pretty tired in the evening we decided to dine at the hotel restaurant. Again BSK was konjified by other guests at dinner. Having a baby proved to be a great icebreaker in Greece. Greeks love babies. Unlike US, people came and touched her and fondled her. We were to take it easy the next day because the weather was supposed to be bad, rainy. It was supposed to snow in Meteora. I was happy we were able to do this, against all odds. Had the weather not cooperated, we couldnt have seen Meteora. And that makes Meteora even closer to heart.
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posted by SK @ 4:14 PM  |
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| 3 Comments: |
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Loved .. loved....loved the pics!
Oh - another place added to my list.
BTW interesting origin for pythiam - sounds highly plausible. Because these pythia must have had dramatic revelations if they are delivering God's intent etc right?
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Saumya! Thanks! Hope I can finish it soon! You are right about the Pythia, which is why I also think it is very much possible!
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Hey..how did you plan all these with a baby? I mean didn't your husband say it's not gona work out and stuff..how old was the baby when you went? did you feed her formula or expressed breast milk? Was this a business trip? Reading your blog makes me want to visit so many places.Could you please let me know how much it would cost to visit Greece(esp. these places) in USD? How long does it take to reach Greece from west coast?Sorry to bombard you with questions!
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Loved .. loved....loved the pics!
Oh - another place added to my list.
BTW interesting origin for pythiam - sounds highly plausible. Because these pythia must have had dramatic revelations if they are delivering God's intent etc right?