Stupendous Man

Delphi, Meteora 2 day trip & Argolis 1 day tour

Next morning, we were going to be picked up at 7.30am in the morning for our two day trip to Delphi and Meteora. Given my experience with Attalos hotel, I was not sure whether they would keep my luggage for the night we were not going to be staying there, or if they would charge a fee for it. Luckily, they did have a luggage storage service. Most hotels in Athens have this service, where-in you can leave the luggage in their storage and go out (this is useful if you have to check out early in morning, but want to spend the day in Athens, or you have 2-3 day intermediate trip like we had).

I had done a lot of research about this trip and the booking for this; unfortunately if you look at the websites, all of them seem to feature the same tour. Some of them even use same wordings. So its pretty difficult to determine which tour operator your bookings are done with, if you chose to do booking with a travel agency like we did. Hop-In offers the same tours as Key tours (both use the same buses!), and there are literally 10s of operators out there. For our bookings, we used Fantasy Travel. We had initially planned to use Fantasy Travel as our complete tour booking agency. When we asked for quotes for our itinerary they came back at us with a quote of almost 4000$, which I deemed was bloddy hell expensive for class B hotels in all places. By doing the entire research and booking ourselves, we saved more than half of that money in bookings, and not to mention we got better hotels too, save for Attalos. So tip to travelers: do your own research and booking and save that money!. But in any case, we did end up using Fantasy travel for our tours booking as the price difference didn’t seem much, and they were offering nice discounts on the 2 day and 1 day trips. We booked the 2 day Delphi-Meteora trip, and 1 day Argolis trip through them.

Anyways as we had already expected, starting at 7.30 in the morning didn’t guarantee we getting out of Athens before 10.00 am, which is what happened. We spent a good 2 hours just picking up people, and then dropped off at the main terminal, where we changed buses to head towards Delphi. There are way too many tours happening, so don’t be confused about the buses and where they take you. For the 2 day trip to Delphi-Meteora you take the same bus as the 1 day trip to Delphi. At Delphi, you change buses (again!) and join another bus which is doing its 4 day classical tour, which also is headed in direction of Meteora as its last stop. Its quite amazing the logistics these guys have built up there .

For the first part of the trip we had a different guide (to Delphi), and then from Delphi to Meteora and back we had a different guide. The first guide was bilingual, and there were an old french couple in the bus for whom she was translating everything she said in English. After a while the translation and language got on our nerves; we wished she would shut up talking in French. Seriously, is that language that irritating to hear? Anyways, as usual, it took us quite a while to get out of Athens itself, and we were made to go through same Athens trivia as couple of days before.

Our first glimpse of history came in while we passed this lake in distance. The picture is hazy and is taken from bus, but is that of Lake Marathon. I am pretty sure a lot of people know about the story of Marathon. Marathon was that soldier who ran from this lake to Athens to inform Athenians of Victory, and then collapsed and died. The distance he ran from the lake was 26 miles. Hence, the name Marathon for the 26 mile race. Even today, the Athens Marathon begins from this lake and goes through the same route as Marathon did in antiquity. I am pretty sure that would be a great high for runners. It would be for me, if I had been running marathons!

Though the distance from Athens to Delphi is actually relatively short at less than 70 Kms, it takes nearly 2 hours to get there. Before we did the two day trip, we had actually planned on driving this distance ourselves. I had gotten my international permit, even booked a car, booked the hotels at both Delphi and Meteora and had the entire driving map ready. Then, thanks to Google Earth I did more research on driving conditions, pretty much saw the whole road, and started reading about driving in Greece. What was immediately clear was driving in Greece is pretty much like driving in India, albeit on slightly better roads. Since I had never driven a car in India, I developed cold feet. Not to mention the mountainous and winding nature of the roads all around Delphi and Meteora, especially Meteora which is a scary drive. I am glad I didn’t end up driving as it allowed me to soak in the views. Not to mention the winding roads made my wife nausea-tic.

Our second stop which happened to be very close to Delphi was the Arachova village. This whole village appears out of nowhere when your bus curves on a road. The whole village is built on the side of the mountain and is incredibly scenic. It was rather unfortunate that our bus driver chose to stop the bus at some souvenir shop instead of a scenic bypass that would have allowed us some time to get more pictures. Nonetheless, the village was incredibly scenic and beautiful! I fell in love with at once.

Our next stop was of course Delphi. At this point, we were informed that those going to Delphi would leave in another bus at 1.30 pm, while the remaining who were going to back to Athens would go to Delphi museum and go back. We were glad we didn’t have to do the museum. In any case, while we listened to a lost of our guide said, at some point we lost interest and started reading the signboards and moving ahead. She was just way too boring and her french translations and time waste had gotten on our nerves. Not to mention it was really hot on top of the mountain.

A little about the temple itself that you see above. To say that this temple is in a scenic place surrounded by mountains on all side is understating its beauty. The whole area is beautiful, and a lot of ruins are well maintained. You have to remember that all of this was built with or around marble flooring. So walking on them was not only slippery but very steep as well. Anyhow, the picture is the temple of Apollo, which is more famous for its Oracles. It was at this temples that Oracles delivered their predictions in an ambiguous manner and the priests deciphered what they said. Before the oracles gave their predictions, they went into an underground room where some kind of gas used to emit that made them hallucinated. In this trance they would give a prediction.

The oracles could be requested by anybody, but there were specific days and times only when they would do the honors. Hence visiting kings, dignitaries and politicians stayed at Delphi to get their predictions before going out. At some point in history, most notably around first century BC to a 500AD, the oracles were very famous. They gradually died a natural death they believe. Scientists also tried to find if there was any gaseous substances emitting from the temple, but they didn’t find any, and assumed that if any did exist, it must have subsided.

The Delphi theatre is quite above the temple and requires a strong steep walk. In fact, there is also a stadium that is really high up on the hill where some of the ancient games were held (I am not sure if it was Pithean games that were held here). One can safely say that these greeks were probably very strong and muscular. We gave up after going to the theatre and coming back. Apparently the theatre was used to entertain kings and dignitaries while they awaited their turn with the oracle. Must say, in its hey day, Delphi must have been one busy place

After a stopping at delphi, we changed buses and got into another bus with people who were coming in from Olympia and other places to head towards Meteora. Thankfully this time it was an english only guide, and she was really nice as well. Anyways, I took this photo a minute too late to see the sea behind the valley. This was where the battle of Thermopayle was fought; remember 300 do you? Yeah, so this was the valley where Leonadis and his 300 men stood guard for many many days against the persians until one of spartans showed persians another way to get into the valley. There is also a monument on the road dedicated to the war of thermopayle and Spartans. It was indeed very weird and fascinating to be driving along a stretch of land that had so much history to it. We were in spartan land for a brief while and learnt a lot about the Spartan life.

By the time we reached Kalambka it was already evening and getting dark. It was also cloudy and looked it it was going to rain any moment. We were going to spend the night at Kalambka village, at the foothills of Meteora. Meteora means hanging from the sky, and when you see the monastries, you really will believe it. The monastries are situated within the mountain rocks that you see behind; the clever part was that while from village not one monastry is seen, from the monastries themselves you can see all villages in each direction. Kalambka is known for its yogurt, and pork. It wasn’t surprising that the place stank of pigs!

A brief stop at a souvenir shop later, we went to our hotels. For a one night stay, the hotel was really good! It had wireless connectivity and had a good breakfast. Dinner was included in our tickets, and it was a traditional meal with salads, chicken, rice, soups and desserts. We have to say it was one of the best meals we had that night. Next morning we were told to get ready soon to leave for the monastries. As expected, it rained heavily that night, and I was worried that our trip to monastries would be blinded by clouds and rain, but my worries were unfounded as I found later.

For some reason I got up very early in the morning. Which meant only one thing. Photography! I went for a stroll early morning when sun was just about come out. It felt great soaking in the village and its fresh air!
After having our breakfasts, our bus picked us up again. Our plan was to drive up to two monatries, both nunnaries and see them inside. Different tour operators go to different monastries. Not all monastries are open each day for visitors. While I would have loved to go to the great meteora monastry, which is also the biggest, to my disappointment our tour was not going there. Nonetheless, the views pretty much made up for it and we did get to see all monastries, while visiting two of them inside out.

The first feeling that you get when you start driving within the rocks is simply: WOW! These are like HUGE rocks with nearly vertical drops, so they are like one big boulder standing next to another. These rocks are intimidating and impressive. I was at once glad that I didnt have to drive here as not only the roads were narrow and winding, they had nearly little or no guard rails, and not to mention I would not have been able to soak in the views.

To say that Meteora completely bowled us over even before we had seen the first monastry in understatement. Even after the whole trip was over, this was the place that kept haunting us. If we had to return to Greece, this is the place we would go!

Our first view of the Monastry was this one, whose name I dont recall now but we did stop for a photo stop here. A little about these monastries; most of these monastries were built in the first during 11-15 century A.D. The monks wanted a place where they could meditate and learn without having to be scared of enemies rolling over them. Hence they started building over monastries over these rocks. How in the world the first monk who got up the mountain beats me, unless they were superior rock climbers! Nonetheless, as you see in the picture the modus operandi was the monks used a pulley system to pull people / groceries / construction materials from ground to the monastry. That was the ONLY way people could get to the monastry, hence you can see why they were safe havens for monks. Unless the monks wanted you could not get to their monastries.

They believed that at around the peak, there were nearly 24 such monastries around the meteora area, out of which only 6 are functional today. For a long time till 1950s or so, there were no roads to these monastries. These monastries have actually very recently started accepting tourists into their monastries. By accepting tourists and charging them 2 euros per person they also ensure they have enough cash flow to maintain themselves; not to mention I guess they feel safer in today’s world to allow people in their homes. The nuns and monks pretty much spend their entire lives here praying and learning. Few monastries still use the pulley system even now to transport goods from ground to their heights!

Our first stop was the nunnary of St. Russo as pictured above. I first went wow looking at it from the road below. Then I discovered, we actually had to climb to that monastry. By the time we were up there at the monastry, we were exhausted by the steep steps. But the views from up there made up for it. Its pretty incredible! As photography was prohibited within the monastry we were not allowed to take any.

Some more information on the monastries themselves; These monastries don’t use electricity, but only natural light and candles. It really felt like going to a gothic place when we were inside. We were given the history of the monastry we were seeing and how the nuns lived. The walls of the church inside were pained with a lot of bazynthine art showing the life of Christ. There was a lot of emphasis on virgin Mary as well. It was interesting to note that like a traditional church with a huge cross sign in middle, these churches don’t have any of those. The paintings were intended to tell the story from Bible to those people who could not read or write, but looking at the pictures could make out the story of good vs evil, hell vs heaven etc. It was very interesting to say the least.

Once we were out, I was gladly thinking that downhill back to bus would be easy. I was wrong; our guide actually made us climb up the hill to the other side of the mountain where our bus was waiting. This climb was excruciating and painful. It was steep and we must have climbed twice the distance we did before. By the time we were at top, we were out of breath. Apparently the bus had stopped a vista point, which I must agree was an amazing place to take some pictures. We could see several monastries from the vista point.

We spent a good 10-15 minutes here before our guide realized that 4 people were missing from the bus. After much calling and figuring out, they came to know that the idiots had gone down instead of climbing up inspite of the guide making it clear at least 10 times. Hence we drove down a good couple of miles down to pick them up again, and because the roads were narrow and making a u-turn was impossible, we went all the way down, did a u-turn and restarted again. Not a lot of us were happy in the bus for that

Our next stop was the St. Stephens monastry which was easily accessible without any climbing. The bus pretty much stopped at the entrance, and we were quite thankful for it. This was a very big monastry as compared to the last one, but equally as interesting inside. One trivia about the monastries though. You cannot go in wearing vests and shorts. Men have to wear long trousers and cover themselves, while women have to wear long skirts. Its an issue for men as most monastries have a wrap on skirt for women ready at the entrance, but for men, well if you fancy wearing a skirt and going in, good for you!

The next had a great location as well, perched right at the tip of the rock. We took many a pictures at different vista points of this monastry.

After spending some time here, we headed back to our village through a different route, which seemed even steeper than the one we took. Down in village, we had a fabulous lunch again, though we had to pay for it this time . After the lunch, we started our long journey back to Athens. The journey back was quite uneventful; while coming back we took the coastal route, so most of the time we were with the sea – it was beautiful though!

While driving back, we also came to know that the day we were coming back, there were some protests going to take place around area we were going to be living in. Athens is widely regarded as birth place of democracy, and people are very knowledgeable about this! Hence protests for or against an issue are pretty much common place in athens. That day’s issue dealt with immigrant muslims and policemen. Apparently in spite of assuring the police man that the box had nothing but the Koran, the immigrant muslim was not able to convince the police man about its content. The policeman forced the box out of his hands, broke it open forcibly and found it did contain a Koran. This had enraged local muslims about racism against muslims in greece and they had a protest the prior day. Today, the native greeks were protesting against the muslims about the incident; in their view the policeman was simply doing his job. While immigrant muslims thought otherwise. It amused me to no end when I heard about this incident.

Anyhow by the time we came back everything was over. We were dead tired again, and after re-checking back into the hotel Attalos at Athens, we headed to the roof-top bar for more ice-creams, and then slept early as we had another long day in Argolis the next day!

Argolis 1 day tour

We had booked another trip with Fantasy travel for a 1 day trip to three places within the argolis region – Mycanae ruins, Theatre of Epidaurus and a brief stop at Nafploin. We were pretty underwhelmed by this place, and it would not have hurt us had we not done this part of the trip at all. At the end of the day, we were quite bored and listless. Maybe by this time we had developed ruins fatigue; but in general as well, this place didn’t have the magic of either delphi or meteora. We would not recommend this part of the trip unless somebody was a history major.

As usual our travel began at 7.30 in the morning and we spent a good amount of time picking up people. Our first stop after all the lifting was the Corinth Canal which is some centuries old!

Corinth canal is actually very narrow at the bottom, at around 20 meters wide. It was not meant for big ships and was the way to get to the Athens port. From top to bottom its around 80 meters I believe. Its pretty nice when you look at it, and I am sure doing a cruise through the canal would be fun too. Except for looking at the canal though, there is nothing much to do here. Hence a brief photo stop later, we started towards the theatre of Epidaurus.

One might ask what is so special about this theatre. Well, for one thing this is thousands of years old. Secondly its known for its acoustics. The theatre is built at an angle at which sound waves reflect off the theatre itself. In essence, there is really no need for any mics or anything in this theatre. Its a large theatre that can seat around 15000 people, and there is no need of amplifiers or mics. And it is true!

I was at the end of the theatre at the top and I was able to hear what everybody was speaking down there without having any trouble. Apparently if the air is quiet, you can hear even papers being shredded. We did get a demonstration too . This theatre is still used today for plays and concert, especially in the summer months.

Our next stop was at the outskirts of Napfloi village which is very pretty and has a fort. We had stopped for a photo-op so there was no time to go anywhere. The village used to be the capital of Greece until Athens took over as capital. We also had lunch outskirts of the village and had to say it was another fabulous lunch. Our next stop was the Mycanean ruins.

The Mycanean civilization ran from 1600BC to 1000BC. This particular ruins is famous for its king Argamemnon, who is more famous, courtesy Helen of Troy. We all remember that story don’t we? Well, This is where Argamemnon ruled from it seems. As expected these are some of the oldest ruins possible, hence their state was not as great as other places were.

After the trip to ruins, we also stopped at what is believed to be the tomb of argmemnon. There is nothing to establish that this indeed his tomb, except for the fact that this is the largest excavated tomb around the area, and it faces the acropolis, hence it could be his tomb. The tomb was very impressive from within and outside. Well, we found it more interesting the ruins itself hehe!

After the short stop, we again headed back to Athens. As such we were left pretty underwhelmed with the trip. It didn’t excite us much and probably we could have avoided staying the additional night at Athens to do this trip and saved a day of our trip. However well, we wouldn’t know unless we went there would we? Coming back, same story, too tired, went off to sleep early. We had a very early morning flight Mykonos.

After days of walking around ruins, history and the likes, both of us were exhausted and were clearly looking at some sun and fun on the beach with some relaxation. We were hitting the islands to basically chill and relax. Mykonos was our next destination.

Continued to part 5…