Opa!
Though there still hasn't been any storm yet, I figured I'd write a few words about Greece, as it was ignored in the last post, and I'll be leaving it soon. So far, Greece is a lot like the rest of Europe. The first day I got here, a drunk Canadian girl I met went on and on about how the East was so amazing, intriguing, better than the West etc. I find that to be a whole lot of bullshit.
True, Greece is not Italy, and certainly not France; it's different. But so is Italy from France, and Spain from Germany and so on. Really, Greece seems as much Europe as any European country is Europe. Maybe it's just me, but coming from Taiwan, this is pretty tame. The only big difference is of course that they use a slightly different alphabet, but having taken calculus and chemistry and a whole lot of other subjects in which we use Greek letters all the time, it's nothing unrecognizable or weird. Canadians. Always overdramatizing.
That said, there are lots of unique places to see on the Greek mainland. I've been going pretty slow lately (running out of steam. dah), so I've only seen Athens, Nafplio and Meteora. I think it goes without saying that we all know about the first; many among the readship have already been. Having a not-so-wonderful impression of it before arriving, I was pleasantly surprised. The Acropolis has been hyped up to the point at which it doesn't seem like all that, but if you try to forget all the stuff you read about it, it's pretty cool. Also impressive is the subway (I'm a big fan of rating mass transit when it exists). It's efficient and really, really clean. In this way, I found Athens to be a city you could live it, but not much of a place to visit. See the agoras, see the Acropolis, but really, once you've seen a few archaeological sites, provided you're not an archaeologist, you've seen them all.
A few hours south of Athens on the Peleponese, Nafplio is a little resort town on the coast that offers ice-chipped gelato but good sunsets. There are three forts in the area that you can climb up if you're so inclined. Or, you can take a Campari and soda at a waterfront cafe and read the paper. As noted, don't eat the gelato if you like the Italian stuff; you'll be disappointed. I stayed at a pension up the hill towards one of the forts, Pension Liguria. You can look it up online if I spelled it right. It was on the upper side of my price range, which probably means David would find it posh and expensive and Todd would find it quaint and a good deal. If you don't know these people, that means it was 40 euro with a bathroom, TV, AC and an almost sea view of the wine-blue waters. All said, there isn't a hell of a lot to do in Nafplio. If I had more time in Greece, it's the kind of place I would want to stay in while I rented a motorcycle and spent my days driving around the surrounding area. For a few days of relaxation, though, it was good.
From there, I went through Athens to Kalambaka, a town just below Meteora. Meteora isn't a town per se, but a bunch of monasteries perched on some really weird looking rocks. You can take a bus at 9:00 AM up to the topish area, or a taxi later if you're lazy like me. From there, you can see any or all of the six monasteries open to the public. There is some upwards walking required, but if you bus or taxi up, most of it's downhill. The monasteries are worth seeing because it seems impossible that some guy actually bothered to haul rocks and wood and tiles and food all the way up there before there were any roads (or even now). You can't drive right up to any of them because they're all up on these rock-mountains; apparently they pull provisions up with ropes and pulleys even now. I saw a few nuns but no monks. They were hiding. Weird thing: you have to put on a skirt over your pants if you're a girl. Pants are not reverant enough somehow. Who knew?
Anyway, after about two hours of walking down and exploring stuff along the way, I'm back to the level ground of Kalambaka. Tomorrow I'm stuck here for another day because all the trains out are full: Orthodox Easter. Bah. But the day after I'm off to Thessaloniki to catch a train to Istanbul. I'm just hoping that's not full.
In closing, a few things I've noticed about Greece in general: Greeks smoke A LOT, EVERYWHERE. They also put way too much olive oil on everything. I keep getting salads, thinking I'm being healthy and because everything else they eat is meat, but it's like saving tomatoes and cucumbers from drowning in olive oil. The trains are on time and cheap, but nothing is in English so you have to ask the ticket person if you change and what time you'll get to your destination. That said, a remarkably high percentage of Greeks speak some English. No one has smacked me for being American either, not that anyone ever has. However, that'll be a good story someday if they ever do.
True, Greece is not Italy, and certainly not France; it's different. But so is Italy from France, and Spain from Germany and so on. Really, Greece seems as much Europe as any European country is Europe. Maybe it's just me, but coming from Taiwan, this is pretty tame. The only big difference is of course that they use a slightly different alphabet, but having taken calculus and chemistry and a whole lot of other subjects in which we use Greek letters all the time, it's nothing unrecognizable or weird. Canadians. Always overdramatizing.
That said, there are lots of unique places to see on the Greek mainland. I've been going pretty slow lately (running out of steam. dah), so I've only seen Athens, Nafplio and Meteora. I think it goes without saying that we all know about the first; many among the readship have already been. Having a not-so-wonderful impression of it before arriving, I was pleasantly surprised. The Acropolis has been hyped up to the point at which it doesn't seem like all that, but if you try to forget all the stuff you read about it, it's pretty cool. Also impressive is the subway (I'm a big fan of rating mass transit when it exists). It's efficient and really, really clean. In this way, I found Athens to be a city you could live it, but not much of a place to visit. See the agoras, see the Acropolis, but really, once you've seen a few archaeological sites, provided you're not an archaeologist, you've seen them all.
A few hours south of Athens on the Peleponese, Nafplio is a little resort town on the coast that offers ice-chipped gelato but good sunsets. There are three forts in the area that you can climb up if you're so inclined. Or, you can take a Campari and soda at a waterfront cafe and read the paper. As noted, don't eat the gelato if you like the Italian stuff; you'll be disappointed. I stayed at a pension up the hill towards one of the forts, Pension Liguria. You can look it up online if I spelled it right. It was on the upper side of my price range, which probably means David would find it posh and expensive and Todd would find it quaint and a good deal. If you don't know these people, that means it was 40 euro with a bathroom, TV, AC and an almost sea view of the wine-blue waters. All said, there isn't a hell of a lot to do in Nafplio. If I had more time in Greece, it's the kind of place I would want to stay in while I rented a motorcycle and spent my days driving around the surrounding area. For a few days of relaxation, though, it was good.
From there, I went through Athens to Kalambaka, a town just below Meteora. Meteora isn't a town per se, but a bunch of monasteries perched on some really weird looking rocks. You can take a bus at 9:00 AM up to the topish area, or a taxi later if you're lazy like me. From there, you can see any or all of the six monasteries open to the public. There is some upwards walking required, but if you bus or taxi up, most of it's downhill. The monasteries are worth seeing because it seems impossible that some guy actually bothered to haul rocks and wood and tiles and food all the way up there before there were any roads (or even now). You can't drive right up to any of them because they're all up on these rock-mountains; apparently they pull provisions up with ropes and pulleys even now. I saw a few nuns but no monks. They were hiding. Weird thing: you have to put on a skirt over your pants if you're a girl. Pants are not reverant enough somehow. Who knew?
Anyway, after about two hours of walking down and exploring stuff along the way, I'm back to the level ground of Kalambaka. Tomorrow I'm stuck here for another day because all the trains out are full: Orthodox Easter. Bah. But the day after I'm off to Thessaloniki to catch a train to Istanbul. I'm just hoping that's not full.
In closing, a few things I've noticed about Greece in general: Greeks smoke A LOT, EVERYWHERE. They also put way too much olive oil on everything. I keep getting salads, thinking I'm being healthy and because everything else they eat is meat, but it's like saving tomatoes and cucumbers from drowning in olive oil. The trains are on time and cheap, but nothing is in English so you have to ask the ticket person if you change and what time you'll get to your destination. That said, a remarkably high percentage of Greeks speak some English. No one has smacked me for being American either, not that anyone ever has. However, that'll be a good story someday if they ever do.
posted by bethany at 08:26
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