Greece! (Mt. Olympus & Meteora)

On the long weekend we had in September to celebrate Bulgarian Independence Day, we drove to Greece with Brett and Betsy to attempt to climb Mt. Olympus and to visit the Meteora, home of monasteries on clifftops. It was about a 6.5 hour drive down to our hostel on the seaside in Greece. We left early enough that we avoided major holiday traffic jams or holdups at the Greek border. It was a stormy Friday night, but we hoped that the weather would clear for our hike. When I tried to talk to the proprietor of the hostel, it dawned on me that I had gone to a completely new country without speaking a single word of the language. I didn't even know "yes" or 'No' and we had not brought a guidebook or phrasebook! Luckily the tourist infrastructure in Greece is well-developed. Most road signs are posted in English as well as Greek, and most restaurants/stores/hotels had someone that spoke a little English. I still felt utterly American about the whole thing, just assuming I could get by with my home language in a foreign land. I've never done that before. [When I did look up a few words, I discovered to my horror that Greek for "Yes" is pronounced the same ("Nay") as the Bulgarian word for "No!" No wonder they've had a few wars between them over the centuries!

The rest of the crew crashed out early (before 9:30 pm, I think), but I was awake and hungry, so I had a pizza at the empty hostel bar while I watched distant thunderclouds occasionally light up the Aegean. The owner brought me several glasses of wine, gratis. Very nice.

Our hostel "Summit Zero" near Litochoro, Greece. There was an ocean view from the patio.

In the morning we were instructed by the owner, who seemed quite knowledgeable about Olympus, that we definitely could NOT camp on the mountain. We could only stay in the mountain huts. Fair enough...no need to drag all of our camping gear up a rather stout mountain (2918 m, 9,573 ft).

Hiking up Mt. Olympus.

We hiked in the rain/mist/fog for about 3 hours to the first hut. It's a large place, with a dining room and beds for 140 folks. It was quite crowded. There were no rooms at the inn, and they didn't think there were any beds at the other huts further up. Oh, and you could definitely camp right outside the hostel. Too bad our tents were 3 hours down trail at the car. Shannon decided to curl up by the fireplace while the rest of us hiked another 1.5 uphill, hoping we might break through the clouds. No such luck. The views just kept getting foggier and foggier. We had also been told that the final push to the summit involved some semi-sketchy rock scrambling that would not be possible if it were wet. It was definitely wet, and I don't think it was going to dry out anytime soon. With no housing and no expectation that we would either be able to summit or be able to see anything if we did summit, going further up seemed futile. We gave up. The gods on Olympus were apparently too hungover from their bacchanalia (literally, in this case) to come out and play. Not to be seen on this visit. The postcards make the mountain look rather dramatic, with snow-topped craggy peaks and views to the ocean. Or so we're told. Maybe we'll head back for another attempt some day.

The view above the hut never got better (top), so here was our "summit victory pose" nowhere near the summit.

Goats blocked our path both up and down the road to the trailhead. Here I'd already shoo'd them off the road, a little, and they mostly stayed out of the way.

We headed down to a cheap beach town (Leptokarya) for a dry place to sleep. All tacky beach towns are the same, I think, no matter if you are in Maine, California, or Greece. Cheap towels with imprints of scantily clad women on them, loud bars, ticky-tack plastic crap from China for sale, all the same. The main drag seemed to have a dozen bars (all showing European basketball), and only one semi-awful restaurant. There were lots and lots of hotels with tour buses...these people had to eat somewhere, but I have no idea where. I had hoped the weather would clear overnight to let us have a sunny beach morning, but no such luck. I actually bought a pair of umbrellas as I wandered down to the beach. It was a very trash-littered, deserted beach. I considered going swimming, just to have swum in the Aegean, but it seemed rather silly as I stood there in my raincoat and umbrella. I did wade in up to my knees, just for posterity or something. Beach towns in the off-season, especially on a rainy off-season day, are somewhat sad, pathetic things.

The Aegean Sea. Somewhat anticlimatic after years of reading Greek history.

We drove inland 2 hours to the area known as Meteora. This was one of the only places my well-traveled uncle Jim had recommended, so I figured we ought to check it out. I hadn't really heard of it before, but given the number of tour buses there, apparently I was the only person in Europe that hadn't. Tourbus traffic jam in Meteora.

The nearest full-service town is called Kalampaka, if you're looking for it on a map.

Meteora is a collection of beautiful rock spires (1000 ft high or so) that has developed a collection of monasteries over the last 900 years. Originally monks hung out in caves up on the cliffside, and gradually developed chapels and then rather elaborate monasteries.

Hermit caves (above).

St. Nikolas Monastery, built into the cliffside cave. You couldn't visit this one, at least not while we were there.

The clifftop locations provided both defensive protection against ruling classes of different religions (such as the Ottoman Turks) as well as removal from day-to-day mental clutter to allow for appropriate meditation. Originally, the only way in was to climb rope ladders that were released from the top, either that or getting a ride in a net raised from a pulley system. Only in the last century were stairwells carved out of the rock faces to allow easier access.

When we got there it was still cloudy/rainy/misty, but the clouds were high enough that they allowed partial visibility. The changing visibility was actually pretty neat, as the monasteries disappeared into the clouds and then reappeared. Very "atmospheric," as they say.


We tried hiking around through the rock pillars to access some hidden ruins, but couldn't really find the correct trail (granted we didn't have a proper map either).

The pulley system used to raise heavy stuff, or sometimes people,into the monastery.

Varlaam Monastery - this shows the height of the cliffs pretty well. Rather impressive.

Brett and Betsy - nice cover-up skirts!

That's all for now. There are more pictures posted at my Flickr account, so click on over if you want to see the whole slideshow.