Greece via the Balkans 2023 – Page 2 – Judy and Valerie On the Road

Metsovo

Metsovo is a beautiful town in the Pindos mountains and is often called ‘The Jewel of Epirus’. It is a Vlach town, a people who are historically nomadic shepherds who’ve lived in the region for generations and whose origins are from neighbouring Balkan countries.

It is a village that has managed to maintain its traditional stone architecture, which used to be typical for the mountainous regions of Epirus, a place once famous for its stone masons: many buildings here have the traditional schist stone roofs, rather than the tile ones.

There is a trail going through and around the town called the Ursa trail. Ursa is Vlach for bear. As speakers of french and portuguese will recognise Vlach is a romance language.

Folk Art Museum

The Metsovo Folk Art Museum is also well worth a visit. It’s is a beautiful stone house which belonged to Evangelos Averof-Tositsas, who was also foreign minister. He bequeathed it to the town. Each room is furnished as it was in the past, with wooden floors,ceilings and furniture, including beautifully carved chests and rocking cradles, and gorgeous, richly coloured woven tapestries on the walls.

Art Gallery

The Averoff Art Gallery was really interesting. It’s on three floors – ground floor and two lower floors. There is a permanent exhibition which displays a selection of 250 paintings, drawings, sculptures and engravings by the foremost Greek artists of the 19th and 20th century with a great variety of landscapes, still life and portraits, including portraits of the town’s main benefactor and his family. There was also a fascinating photography exhibition by Kostas Balafas called “Travels in Metsovo”. The black and white photographs gave a picture of life in Metsovo in the 1960’s and 70’s. Particularly striking was a wall of portraits of older men who had clearly led their lives outdoors. They were all so different from one another, mostly with very wrinkled faces, full of character

Wild Camping

We stayed a couple of nights above Metsovo in the car park at the Ski Centre which has a wonderful spring (N39.78487, E21.15880). Lots of stray/wild dogs which were not aggressive and which looked so sad we ended up giving them some tinned sardines! The first day we went into the town but the second day we went for a walk on the Ursa Trail which we could access directly from the car park. We of course managed to get lost and were ‘rescued’ by an Israeli couple who introduced us to an App called ‘AllTrails’ which I definitely recommend.

Velventos

We happened upon our next stopping place Velventos in park4nite because it was convenient between Mount Olympus and Metsovo and we’re very glad we did. The town is situated by the second largest reservoir in Greece with mountains on all sides.

The camper stop itself is in the beautiful wooded grounds of Alsos, an outdoor bar run by Antonía and Christos who made us very welcome.

On our first night we went to the bar for a drink and met Antonía’s friends Lena and Athina. The next day we explored the town and spoke to many people in shops who all wanted to know how we’d found our way to this village and where we were staying. Valerie’s Greek is coming on by leaps and bounds. Later that day we cycled to see the Skepasmeno waterfalls which is obviously a favourite picnic area for local people. On the way we passed many groves of bright red fruit which we realised were peaches and discovered that Velventos is famous for its peaches, exporting them across Europe and even has a peach festival in the summer. In the evening we ate at En Velvento a local taverna in the town. The main street is closed to traffic in the evenings and the whole town seemed to be out on their evening volta. There was a great atmosphere.

The following day Lena took us into town to show us the sights. Firstly and very importantly we stopped for a coffee in the plateia where we met a group of her friends who gather there most days. We were again made very welcome.

Next Lena took us to meet her mother Stella who lives nearby and we had a tour of her house, built in 1910. The house was very interesting with wooden floors and ceilings and was filled with photographs of all her family.

Lena then gave us a guided tour of the Folk Museum which was fascinating and we learned so much about life in the town in the past.

On our way out of town we stopped at the peach cooperative and bought a box of 22 fabulous peaches for 9 euros!!!

Mount Olympus – home of the Gods

We camped at Sylvia Camping on the coast under the mountain. The campsite is pleasant with its own little beach and coffee bar on a beautifully situated terrace, but there is little else within walking distance. We found a restaurant further along the shore where we were entertained by a turtle and numerous kittens.

The following day we cycled to Litochoro at the foot of the mountain (a journey which was much longer than we’d anticipated and a continual ascent) and discovered that this was the day of the International Olympus Marathon – Running with the Gods!

The runners start at midnight from Dion – the sacred city of the Macedonians, run up Mount Olympus topping each of the three peaks and then down the other side. Runners come from all over the world – amazing! We saw them coming in throughout the afternoon.

They’re very keen on mountain running and marathons in this part of Greece. The Ursa Trail has a marathon, and when we hiked in the Pindos up to the Astraka Refuge at 2,000m we met a number of runners going up and down the mountain.

We then wild camped overnight at the Old Monastery on the mountain. That afternoon we walked to the Sacred Cave, and in the the morning hiked up and back to Prionia – a beautiful walk

Thessaloniki

After staying at the Sakiá campsite for about 10 days we went off to Thessaloniki, staying at the same park4nite parking lot by the sea where we had stayed in 2019 (N40°35’23” E22°56’41”).

We were able to get into town easily on the number 5 bus for 1€, although always very crowded! We love Thessaloniki – it has such a history and mixture of cultures. It had been conquered by the Ottomans in 1430, and only became part of Greece after the first Balkan War in 1912.

As well as spending quite a lot of time in cafes and the bazaar/market, we went to various museums, churches, Roman remains and to the area right at the top of the city to see the city walls and fortress. The city also has an extraordinary number of sculptures, both old and contemporary, which you just come across when wandering around.

Museums

We went again to the Archaeological Museum and to see the stunning collection of beautiful Macedonia gold items recovered from cemeteries dating from 4th- 2nd century BC. Here are some photos.

Jewish Museum

Before the Second World War 50% of the city’s population were Sephardic Jews, because when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, many settled in Thessaloniki. Between 1941 and 1943 the Nazis deported all the Jews in Greece to Auschwitz and Treblinka where of course they were murdered.

The museum provides a grim chronicle of the destruction of Greece’s Jewish population by the Nazis, but also a fascinating insight into Jewish life in the city over nearly 500 years.

Churches

The city’s best loved church is Agios Demetrios, dedicated to the city’s patron saint. The church was almost entirely reconstructed after the huge fire in 1917, but the first church was constructed on the site in the 4th century AD. It has several beautiful mosaic panels dating back to the 8th century.

Arch of Galerius

The arch was built to commemorate the victory of Emperor Galerius over the Persians in 297AD. Its piers contain weathered reliefs of the battle scenes and it is quite an extraordinary sight on Egnatia Street.

The City Walls

The city was initially fortified right after its foundation in the late 4th century BC but the present walls are dated back to the early Byzantine period around 390 AD. Their defensive abilities are quite impressive! They were 7 kilometres long while at some points they were up to 10 meters high and almost 5 meters thick. A number of fortresses and defensive towers were added during different periods of history like the Tower Of Trigoniou.

The walls originally went right down from the top of the city to the sea and you can still see fragments of the wall now and then throughout the city.

Statues and Sculptures

The sculptures throughout the city are really impressive particularly the national resistance memorial which commemorates the courage and sacrifice of the Greek resistance during World War II and the Holocaust memorial. This made in 1997 and depicts the seven branched menorah and flames in a complex of human bodies. The memorial is situated in Eleftherias Square where the Nazis rounded up the Jews in 1942 to torture and humiliate them.

In the second sculpture below the ‘branches’ have lights hanging from them powered by solar panels and light up at night. The piece aims to raise awareness about renewable energy.

For more information on the sculptures see this link https://thessaloniki.travel/exploring-the-city/art-culture/sculptures-monuments/

HS Velos

Walking along the seafront we saw a strange site – a war ship – HS Velos. This ship belonged to the US Navy during the second world war but later became part of the Greek navy and played a vital role in bringing down the military dictatorship which had controlled the country since 1967. Below is the information in front of the ship.

Rotunda

The Rotonda is a huge, circular building which was constructed by the Romans, then consecrated as a church in the 4th century AD, became a mosque in 1590 and was once again consecrated as a church in 1912, when the Greeks captured the city during the Balkan war. Inside there are no seats and no altar. It is a big, bare, very peaceful circular space with lovely mosaics on the walls and ceiling.

Sakiá market

We visited the Saturday market at Sakiá, the local town. It had been pouring with torrential rain but we finally set off on our bikes. We made a number of purchases – fruit, vegetables, olives, honey but then adjourned to the local cafe, initially just for a coffee but sitting there was so enjoyable that we progressed to lunch.

Cycle ride to Porto Koufo

One day we had cycled from the campsite to Kalamitsi and although it was very up and down found it quite manageable. So then another day we decided to cycle to Porto Koufo on the other side of the ‘finger’, said to be the most beautiful cove on Sithonia. After passing Kalamitsi it wasn’t so much up and down as up up up! After 4 miles of continual ascent to about 900ft we came to a taverna and stopped for refreshments. I concluded that my leg power wasn’t enough to get up the hill coming back and decided to stay at the taverna with a beautiful view and have some lunch.

Valerie, being more intrepid and with stronger legs, continued. It took her 10 minutes to get down the hill and 1 hr to get back up. But Porto Koufo looked beautiful.

Arrived in Greece

When we arrived in Greece we first called in at Zampetas a motorhome service agency south of Thessaloniki, to get a little piece of work done on the van (they are also a MH stop – N40°30’9″ E22°58’14”) – very helpful guys, then found somewhere to buy a Greek SIM card for our wifi, and then made our way to Sithonía, the middle finger to the east of Thessaloniki. We’re staying for a while at Camping Melissi (which takes ACSI) where we have a view of Mount Athos on the third finger.

A lovely place to wander, cycle, hang out …

Croatia to Greece

The next stage of our journey took us through Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia and Bulgaria but we just passed through without doing any sightseeing. For our first stop we made for a campsite across the border into Serbia. The road through Bosnia close to the border with Montenegro looked very windy (this means mountainous) so we started early.

The journey was fine and we stopped in a small campsite called Camping Viljamovka in Kremna (N43° 50′ 42″ E19° 34′ 26″) finding ourselves in a pear orchard managed by a very friendly chap called Jarko who insisted that we tried the pear brandy that he makes. The only other people staying were a Dutch couple on motorbikes travelling to Turkey.

The following day we again set off early and driving through Serbia saw a wonderful stork’s nest with youngsters craning their necks and lots of cows wandering on the roads which reminded us of India.

That second evening we reached Sofia in Bulgaria and managed to stay at a small motorhome stop in Park4Nite on 220 Bulevard. There are two MH stops in Sofia and this is the one in the back garden of an older couple. The gate was closed and padlocked but there was a bell to left. Eventually a very friendly man called Ivan welcomed us in. It’s a smallish area but he managed to pack in nine vans, and some pretty big. It was fairly basic but had everything we needed. By that time it was quite late and we asked Ivan if there was a restaurant nearby. He pointed towards a tower block and said we’d find everything there – restaurant, gym, swimming pool … We eventually found the restaurant, but it wasn’t the usual traditional type of restaurant in surroundings that we would normally seek out. Still, the people were friendly, someone spoke English and we had very tasty pizzas and salad.

Driving through the four countries we became aware of some of the differences. Croatia has a lot of tourism and people had wonderful gardens with beautiful flowers. In Bosnia Herzegovina any land around a house was given over to growing vegetables. Serbia had some amazingly ugly buildings. The part of Bulgaria that we drove through was very industrial with chimneys belching smoke and a pollution haze covering valleys, although the south west also had a forested national park and was very beautiful.

This was the first time we’d driven in the van outside western Europe and outside the EU/Schengen. We had forgotten about queues at borders!! It was quite usual to spend one to two hours waiting to get through the border, and having to show the van registration document and my driving licence. And for the lorries it was much much longer.

Autogas: virtually every garage sells GPL so no problems there.

Yugoslav Wars

The Yugoslav wars in the 1990s took the lives of over 100,000 people. After Tito died in 1980 there was a period of instability in which the Serbian politician Slobodan Milosevic emerged to assert Serbian nationalism. He instigated a plan which involved setting up a “greater Serbia” by swallowing large sections of the other parts of Yugoslavia – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro. Serbia used the force of the Yugoslav army against these countries and from 1991-92 Dubrovnik came under bombardment for seven months.

Driving through these countries we became more aware of the complexity of the conflicts.

Dubrovnik

From Kučiste we drove to Mlini, just south of Dubrovnik and stayed at a lovely little campsite, Camping Kate. We were glad we got there early as it was full by the evening. From there we took the water taxi to Dubrovnik, a beautiful half hour journey which took us right to the entrance to the old town. Through a website called Freetour.com we had booked a tour guide called Marco who took a group of about 15 of us on a just under two hour tour of the city. Marco was great. He spoke good English and he spoke loudly and clearly. He was very engaging and very interesting. We learned all sorts of things, including that Dubrovnik was founded by Greeks in the 7th century, managed to avoid being taken over by Venice and was an independent state for 500 years until Napoleon turned up in 1806.

Dubrovnik is very beautiful with its pale yellow stone buildings. Its pavements too are made of yellow stone and are very shiny, making the whole city seem very light. It’s also very clean. It has lots of narrow cobbled streets, enticing gift shops and wonderful gelati. What it doesn’t have much of is ordinary shops because, as Marco explained to us, ordinary people don’t live there any more. Instead they rent their properties to tourists. It also has no advertising in the streets. Shops are only allowed to advertise on street lamps!

Dubrovnik was the main filming location in Croatia for King’s Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms in Game of Thrones and the city is full of shops selling merchandise. Some tours take you around all the filming locations.

The view of Dubrovnik from above was stunning with its red roofs. Our guide Marco told us that originally the roofs had been the yellow / grey colour of the local stone, but as a result of the attack on Bosnia during the homeland war in 1991 many buildings lost their roofs. When the war ended, France donated new roofs to help with the restoration of the city and those were terracotta.

Campsite

Just across the road from the campsite was a restaurant where we were able to have a delicious meal on our last night in Croatia.