Christmas in Greece

Merry Christmas morning!

Last year on this day, we were getting ready for Christmas Day eye surgery in Turkey. Of course Turkey is a Muslim country, so they don't celebrate Christmas, and Christmas Day is just another day.. But here in Greece, the day before Christmas is when children sing carols in the streets, families gather together to play games, go to midnight mass, and end their advent fast.

Ancient Olympia... birthplace of the Olympic Games

Having been to both Mexico and Turkey, we have explored a lot of ruins sites. But Ancient Olympia in Greece is a little different because it is where the Greek Olympic Games took place every four years without interruption between 776 BC and 393 AD... a period of 1,169 years!

Sure, to look at the ruins themselves, it's all very similar to the ruins we saw in Turkey. But it's the information learned here to do with the games that we found really interesting.

The photos don't tell the whole story.

We arrived at the seaside port town of Katakolo fairly early. They have a huge parking area that the motorhomes use, but there was only one other rig there when we showed up.

Katakolo is on the Mediterranean cruise ship circuit, so normally there would be between one and three cruise ships docked here while the tourists they carry made their way to nearby Ancient Olympia. But there is none of that happening right now.

Parked at the beach, and Max's AdBlue

It kind of felt like we wasted the day at the laundromat! But, we still managed to put on a few miles and get out of the very busy area around the city of Patras. Patras is the third largest city in Greece with a population now around 200,000 but I thought it felt much bigger than that.

The laundromat was located on a pretty busy street and we got lucky that Max was able to fit into one of the four parking spots right at the laundromat itself. One of the benefits of having a short motorhome!

Max went for his first boat ride!

Monday was a day to get some chores done. First up was to fill with fresh water. The park4night app is really useful for things like this because other van and motorhome campers have listed some possible water fill and propane fill stops.

There was a gas station along our route that had a water fill point, and it was easy access and we were quickly in and out of there. Propane might be a different story though.

If it would stay like this all winter...

We couldn't really have asked for a much better day. Sure, the temperature could still have been a few degrees higher, but if it were like this for the rest of the winter, we would be fine with that!

My mother mentioned to us that considering the weather we have had, we would have been better off in Mexico. And from a weather perspective, that is certainly true.

This wasn't in the plans!

It was spitting with rain when we set off around 10:00am Saturday morning. I knew that we had to drive up over a mountain pass, but I didn't really think much of it. I also knew it would be a little colder up there, and figured that we might see a few snowflakes.

But I wasn't expecting a blizzard!

On a mission to get further south

When I was planning our drive yesterday and looking for somewhere to overnight, there weren't a lot of interesting looking options. It turns out that's because there really isn't a lot of interesting looking things to see along that stretch. 

And, we were trying to get further south anyhow. There is a bit of cold weather heading through this area the next couple of days and so we are skipping by this area in favor of a little more warmth.

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.

The clifftop monastries of Meteora, Greece (day 3)

Yesterday we drove up to the monastery road that circles in behind the cliffs. This is how most people access the monasteries. There are some hiking trails to get up to them, but we also wanted to drive about 15 kms north to try to hike to the locations of some of the monasteries that don't exist anymore. 

And if we wanted to see all of the different viewpoints on our last day in the area, driving was the fastest way to do it.

The clifftop monastries of Meteora, Greece (day 2)

There is lots of hiking and exploring to be done in this area, and even though the temperature is a little chilly, it's actually great weather for doing exactly that. But before we set out, we had to get another SIM card for the phone. 

I wasn't happy with the data package I got from the first supplier, so we walked into town and went to the Vodafone Greece store.

The clifftop monastries of Meteora, Greece

Monday morning we woke up to a clear blue sky. What a refreshing change! With a more positive weather forecast in our future, we decided to do the detour to the monasteries of Meteora. 

It was about a 200 km detour from our loosely planned route, and with the price of fuel we don't take these things lightly. Also, toll roads in Greece are fairly expensive and while we normally prefer to stick to the back roads, they can be pretty slow going.

Just  warning... lots of photos today!

The ancient city of Dodoni

The skies finally cleared enough to go and do some exploring. We made sure to bring our umbrellas and raincoats with us though! 

Only a 15 minute walk from where we were parked is the ancient city of Dodoni. We didn't come here specifically for that, it was just a coincidence really. Which is a good thing because I read some reviews that said it wasn't really the best ruins site. 

I think the worst is over

Pouring rain again yesterday. In fact it was so much rain that the Greek authorities in this area put out a blanket cell phone alert warning telling people to stay home if it wasn't absolutely necessary. 

We had originally planned on doing some driving south, but decided that wasn't a good idea. We felt the need to find somewhere better than a parking lot to ride out the rain though. I found a listing on the park-4-night app that looked suitable, and it turned out to be a really great choice!

It doesn't matter if it's raining out if you are inside a cave!

Pouring rain again all day yesterday, just as they forecast. So we drove the short distance from Ioannina up to the Cave of Perama.

We've been in a lot of caves in our travels. It's actually one of the things that we try to seek out. But we've kind of become "cave snobs" over the years, and try to do a lot of research before spending the money to visit some caves, because quite frankly, some caves are not worth visiting!