Flashback 2008 Part 2

From the east of northern Greece we travelled west, 650 kilometres, to visit one of K's cousins. In 2008 he was building a luxury hotel up in the mountains near the city of Ioannina. At this higher elevation it was green and cool. We stayed four more days than we had intended, visiting wonderful little villages built out of stone,  the roads cobbled and paved. Deep gorges, rivers that were actually full of water. It was really relaxing, especially when we knew the rest of Greece was having a heat wave.  It was a relief after the dryness and dirt of the east.  

The roads up there were terrific, much the best we've seen in Greece. Six lanes, straight, a speed limit of 130 kms and no tolls. They are still working on them but are more or less like this right up to the borders.

2023 

I don't remember much about this road trip. I know we did it in one day and marvelled at the long straight roads. We could see huge viaducts, bridges and tunnels being built alongside the road we were on. It must be a super highway now. Once we got into the mountains the roads became narrow, steep and twisty again. These have mostly been bypassed and that trip can be done in half the time. 

We spent many hours closed together in that car. Somehow we made it there and back. Small things on the road added up to moments of great stress but once we arrived all was well again. Seeing the cousin brought smiles of joy for K. 

I do remember one stop for coffee at a small, mainly Muslim, village. That must have been at the beginning of the trek. Over towards Turkey in the region known as Thrace (where we had been) there are large Muslim communities. Once again I tried not to stare and would have loved to explore more. The women wore  long dresses and head scarves and there was a minaret instead of an orthodox bell tower. There were only men in the cafeteria but we/I didnt feel an intruder. The capuccino was hot and the ladies toilet was very clean. Mostly unused I suppose. 

A mountain road in the mist

An old arched stone bridge typical of the region

Me sitting on old stone bridge

Aristi village square

 We sat in the village square and had coffee under the chestnut tree. Drove through ravines of green forest and dined in the next village right on the edge of a very deep canyon. 

Vikos Canyon 

2nd biggest in the world after the Grand Canyon 

 Drove back to Aristi again for the local raki, called tsipoura, sampled the local cheese pies,  no comparison to the greasy fast food version of Athens, and lapped up the peace and stillness. 

Just a note about the pies. Pies of all sorts are part of the local cuisine, big round baking dishes of pies with greens, cheese or chicken and thick handmade pastry.

Our cousin got an old friend, a village woman, to make one specially for us . It was half a metre across, a very thin layer without pastry. The flour is incorporated into the cheese and eggs. By gosh it was good. The three of us managed to eat it all and drink a few beers. No wonder I was the size I was.

 There are 46 small villages in these mountains and they are very busy in the winter when snow calls for roaring fires, litres of raki (strong spirit) and roasted wild boar. Summertime they are quieter, popular with river rafters and hikers but wonderful for a holiday away from the crowds that surround you by the sea and on the islands.

  We sat at an outside bar till one or two a.m. most nights talking and drinking with the cousin and family and most of the village. Then we walked home, guided by the fireflies - called 'picolo-bithes' in greek!

We stayed at a pension run by an Albanian couple. It was beautifully decorated, lots of wood and natural stone and impeccably maintained. She made a breakfast of champions for us with eggs and fruit, good coffee and piles of fried cakes with lots of local honey. Everything is 'local' around here which is just what we, and tourists, want. 

Once we met our cousin much of our days were spent eating and drinking in the picturesque mountain villages. But that's how a holiday should be, shouldn't it?

Nowadays I'd take the time to hike some of the trails and visit the monasteries and churches of which there are many and most are very old. Not religious tourism. These old places are fascinating.

We could have visited Albania from here. We were only 65 kilometres from the border. Another time. Perhaps

Aberratio Boutique Hotel

Aristi, Zagorohoria

Cousin's hotel today

Built from beautiful local stone

Back then there were only the stone foundations

View with breakfast

We stayed at the hotel a few years later, invited to the wedding of the cousin's son. It was midwinter, snow only on mountain tops, bright but chilly. We lapped up the luxury and  spent long nights reminiscing with Ks family in front of a huge fireplace and drinking firewater. Days we spent in the village taverna. 

The island in the middle of Ioannina's lake

This was the base of turko-albanian Ali Pasha who ruled this area in the early 1800's. 

We visited the island and its museum and the ruined monastery where he was killed but were more interested in eating the local delicacies, frog legs and eel. 

I ate the frog legs, poor little frogs. Their legs are rather boney without much meat on them. They are deep fried. K ate grilled eel which was delicious. 

We could have chosen turtles from an aquarium which apparently they make into soup for you. I promised daughter Elli I would let the turtles live. Anyway I couldn't face turtle soup made from a creature I'd singled out to die a few minutes earlier. 

There are a lot of trout in the streams and rivers but fishing is forbidden. We found and brought back a few kilos of smoked trout for everyone, bought straight from the place it was smoked  and vaccum packed. There were stalls all along the roads out of Ioannina with tanks of fresh trout and we bought some of those too. It has been many years since I've tasted fresh trout. Since I was last in NZ and my brothers returned with their catch from a fishing trip.

Me, back then

Flashback - Bulgaria

 

EECE

Monday, July 21, 2008

With added notes from 2023

We are sweltering now (July 2008). I have the air conditioning on and am still hot and sweaty at 9pm. It is about 39 today but very sticky too.

We have just come back from ten days in northern Greece. We went way up north near the Turkish and Bulgarian border and over the border for a quick visit to Bulgaria. After staying a few days in the east we then drove across to the west of Greece near the Albanian border.

Greece and it's northern borders

Going from West (left) to East (right)

Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and then that huge area to the right is all Turkish territory 

Bulgaria was not a place I would revisit quickly. There are many thousands of Bulgarian refugees in Greece and you can see why. A lot of the transport was still horse and cart - though there were a few BMWs too. The houses were poorly built, red bricks with no plastering and in bad condition- broken windows, tiles falling off roofs and although everything was very cheap there wasn't much worth buying. It seemed to me, back then,  dirty and grimy and the loos, literally a smelly hole in the ground, down the end of the garden path.   We were thinking of going over into Turkey too but after the poverty of this area we decided not to.  It was enough for one trip.  The Turkish city of Adrianopolis (called Erdine by the Turks) is only an hour away from here. 

This part of Bulgaria seemed to be mostly agricultural.  There were roadside stalls near every small village selling tomatoes and zucchinis, alongside toilet rolls and bottles of lurid coloured drink.  We travelled into Bulgaria with another couple, friends of  Poros friends who lived in a small northern village. We met them briefly and they kindly invited us to join them on a quick visit to  relatives the next day. The wife was Bulgarian so we got the inside deal. We were very appreciative of their hospitality.  If we had visited by ourselves we would only have seen the view from the car and the inside of a restaurant.

  She took us to her sister's house, where we used the hole in the ground down the garden path and also to the house of a cousin.  All very friendly people with whom we did not share a language.  The houses were full of crocheted doilies and cheap bric brac.  Comfortable but basic family homes.  At one house we sat out in the garden all squashed into a garden gazebo.  I was at my biggest then and it was painfully obvious they were pointing out my size and laughing as we squeezed up to each other.  It just washed over me but it's surprising what you understand without having that common language. We drank flourescent coloured orangeade and listened to the small birds in a quite fancy aviary next to us.  Outside on the road there were a few old cars but mostly agricultural equipment and there was a shack/store from where we saw the bright orange-ade being carried.

 Our first stop a few kilometres over the border was at a money exchange desk at a hotel. 'Hotel' I wondered, and still wonder 'who stays here' or maybe 'who does what here'. With our pockets full of 'lev' we walked along rough roadsides without a pavement to  a big market for everything from clothes to birds in cages, local sausages, cheese and  farm animals.  Our new greek friend took us to a stall selling grilled kebabs and we had a few of them with a couple of bulgarian beers.  All very good, the kebabs were wonderful and spicy, lamb I should think.  We had a look at the clothes but didn't buy anything. They were cheap and gaudy. 

 The Bulgarian wife had some work to do in the town so we went to a small taverna, a shack which had a gas stove with a big pot on it, plates in a glass fronted cabinet, old wooden chairs and tables with stained plastic cloths. Like Greek tavernas 40 years ago. K and greek friend had tripe soup and more beer.  I had a meatball soup.   And very nice it was too. Both the tripe and the soup are popular dishes all over Greece.  Nothing strange to us .  Then toilet time again.  These were the normal kind but we had to pay to use them and get a piece of toilet paper and use the sink afterwards.  There were doilies in the loo too.  The state of the loos?  Useable.

The second town was much larger with open squares, newer cars, a big covered market and a large supermarket.

We went to the covered market and I bought a large ceramic snail which I still have in the garden and some clothes for grandchildren.

Looking back now I cannot imagine what clothes I bought. They were all cheap nylon and bright colours. I doubt if any grandchild actually wore them but it was all so cheap I had to buy something.

From there we went to the supermarket which was very similar to what we had on Poros but half the price. The Greek bought long rolls of salami, blocks of  cheese and crates of beer. He only had a very small car where we were already squashed so we refrained from doing any more shopping.

Somewhere there I also bought a thick ceramic plate which I was told was for cooking pancakes (tiganites) over a gas flame. I've still got that too though I've never used it. It's sitting on our wood stove now. Time to experiment I think. We do have an outside gas stove but the top of the wood stove gets hot enough to cook a pancake.

We visited 2 towns.  Harmonli, population 9,000 and Huskovo, population 28,000.

 We didn't need a passport, simply used our Greek ID cards and were told we could do the same if we went into Turkey. Its no longer so simple. The towns in southern Bulgaria are now full of miserable Syrian refugee camps. But back then crossing into Bulgaria we didn't even get out of the car or see a policeman or soldier. Our friend took the ID cards in to a small office and came back 2 minutes later. We then drove into Bulgaria. 

I must emphasise that this is My description of south east Bulgaria in 2008.  The tourist areas up around the Black Sea  and the ski resorts close to greece  over on the western border crossing are very different, upscale and luxurious.   

Back in Greece again..... 

The farming in northern greece reminded me a little of NZ. They were bailing hay though it was much, much drier . There were fields and fields of sunflowers, all facing in the same direction. And storks! The powerpoles had platforms around the tops of them and the storks build huge nests up there. In the evening there would be two or three of the stork family standing up there, and they would call with a loud 'clack-clack'.

This must have been the first time we booked a hotel online. In the photographs it looked new and clean and appealing. Up close it was shoddy and the bathroom in our room was 'grotty'. I won't use a worse word but I wore jandals (flip flops ) even in the shower. The sheets were clean! Unfortunately it also had a swimming pool attached to it. A swimming pool open to all and sundry, the sundry being groups of loud youths who swam and splashed and yelled till early morning. After dark it became a bar, a very popular bar.

From then on when booking accomodation I took a sharp look at the critical reviews. 3 stars is not a sign of a good hotel and never believe the photos you see.

Our Poros friend was from a tiny village which we found along very dusty narrow roads and went there to eat a couple of times and have a coffee. It was peaceful and was literally in spitting distance of Turkey. The lights on the hill opposite were from a Turkish village. There was only the wide river Evros in between the two countries. 

NB   Nowadays there's a 5 metre high fence running many kilometres along the banks of that river  keeping the illegal migrants out. 

The village, 'Praggi', population 304, had a tiny square surrounded by the village houses and 2 cafenions. The coffee was good, the beer was cold and we sat under the plane tree and watched village life while the villagers checked us out. Only men were sitting at the cafés. The owner of 'our' cafenion did more business than the other because his wife, the waitress, was blonde and busty and extremely friendly.

A kilometre away beside the river was a taverna where the owner, a farmer during the day, grilled pork from his farm. We sat under lights strung through the trees and I marvelled at the sight of those Turkish village lights and now and again the dull 'thud' from a far away gunshot. Gunshot probably from hunters but still, it could have been from the nearby army base or some small conflict, I thought.

The mosquitoes came out at dusk in clouds and the owner provided mosquito spray. Thankfully they disappeared once darkness settled.

The meat was very good, the Greek salads huge and it was unbelievably cheap.  

Earlier in the year we were planning a trip to Bulgaria, going up through a different border crossing to some towns near the greek border which are known for their natural hot water spas. Since then we've heard that these towns specialise in 'porno-tourism'. Better than Thailand - anything your 'heart' desires plus a bit of natural spa therapy thrown in as well.  

There is so much more to see and do.  There are orthodox monasteries, picturesque mountain villages, spectacular scenery, delicious cuisine and wonderful ski fields.  I would definitely visit this part of Bulgaria if I could, along with North Macedonia and Albania.  The added advantage of these countries is that you can drive there.   When you have your own transport you can drive straight to the accomodation and then tour at ease.  But we never did make that trip.  2 years later the economic crisis began and all trips were put on hold and are still very much 'on hold'.  

There was a reason for this visit, so many kilometres away. K had just retired from the Navy and he gave his new residence as that town in Northern Greece. The travel to your new permanent residence was subsidised by the kilometre. We signed in at the Army base up north, no questions asked,  and got a free holiday. 

No longer applicable by the way. Rules have changed. 

Next installment, the mountains of Northern Greece

............. 

Oddly enough I only took one photo during the first half of the trip.  One photo of the storks and none at all of Bulgaria.  In 2008 I had a phone which had no camera.  I had two cameras with me but I hadn't yet turned into today's photo reporter.

The view from our hotel.

Somewhere there be storks by gosh, on top of one of those poles.  I enlarged it as much as I could.

Swimming pool just out of sight to the right