Christmas Festival in Trikala, Greece

The city of Trikala lies about 30 kms (18 miles) south of the popular cliff monasteries of Meteora. It's not much of a tourist destination. They have one small castle, and the old town area is pretty run down with a lot of graffiti. 

But we were told about a Christmas festival they do called Mill of the Elves and apparently people drive from all over Greece to take part.

We found the parking area located very close to the festival. We asked the guys if we could stay overnight, and they said that was fine. And it was all free.

Even the entrance to the festival was free. But you do have to line up to get your vaccination status confirmed. They had no problem accepting our paper Netherlands vaccination cards. Everyone else we saw had the code on their phones. The guy sees ours, and we had to show our passports as ID, and he's like "what in the world are you doing in Trikala??"

As I said, it's not much of a tourist place.

Merry Christmas?

I dunno... it's all Greek to me!

We wandered over late afternoon, but we quickly decided it was better to come back later in the evening when the lights are on. There are a lot of food stalls, and rides like bumper cars and a Ferris wheel. That type of thing.

Everybody loves bumper cars.

The Christmas festival.

It's really well done, and we can see why it's popular. and the fact that it's free to go in and wander around is great. But, if you want to eat or play, it's fairly pricey. The rides cost €13 ($18.85 CAD, $14.75 USD) for 4 rides. We thought that was expensive, but we're out of touch on that kind of thing. Some of the food stands looked interesting, but again, it was priced too high for us.

Still, it was fun to wander around. We kind of expected it to be busier, but apparently it's this weekend when it is busiest. They have shows going on Saturday and Sunday too, so perhaps that would have been the time to come.

We decided to walk downtown and see what there was to see, then return to the festival after dark.

There is a castle downtown, but it closed at 3:30pm and we were too late. The castle itself might have been interesting, but there really wasn't much else to see. 

Except graffiti. 

It's really bad here. I don't understand why the society puts up with this kind of vandalism. It's like they have simply given up. 

Yikes. Graffiti everywhere.

They even graffiti the churches in old town. 

Restaurant near the castle. 

The clock tower was badly damaged by the Nazis in WWI, and rebuilt after the war.

The clock tower seen from old town.

Sunset at Trikala.

The Archaeological Site of Ancient Trikki.

They think that people have been living here since 3300 BC. The remains of the structure in the photo above date from 100 BC. Look how far below street level they had to excavate. Many more structures lie beneath the modern roadways and buildings.

It's just a small site.

They had to expropriate three private land plots and tear down some modern buildings in order to excavate here.

They should build some walking and cycling paths along the river.

Lights downtown.

We went back to Max and had some dinner, and then walked back over to the festival.

They even had a small skating rink set up. 

Would probably have been more fun on the weekend, but we still enjoyed being out for a walk in the evening.

Today we are going to put on some miles and head further south.

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