Greece: Day 8

Today we left the hotel at 8:15am. We had about an hour drive to a small town called Metsovo. It’s a cute little town where they sell a lot of wood and leather products. I bought myself a honey wand made of wood. I also walked up to a church but was not able to enter since there was a service currently in progress. I forgot today is Sunday. Metsovo is a beautiful village in the middle of tall trees in a forest-type area. Lots of walking sticks and it’s on a hill. Reminds me of Austria. During this stop, our tour director gave us baklanva. BEST. BAKLAVA. EVER!!!

Meteora means suspended in the air. Monks went there during the 9th century AD to be isolated and closer to God. In the 12th and 13th centuries they began building churches and monasteries. It was 135 steps to go up to the monastery. Once you’re there the view is incredible. We also encountered a funny priest. He was teasing our tour director for standing on a small platform where only Priests should stand. This was a Greek Orthodox Priest wearing a long black robe with A LOT of facial hair. While up there we also saw the biggest wine barrel in the world (I think), 12,000 liters. You can almost live in the barrel it’s so huge.

On the way back down to the bus, I spread some of Chris’s ashes on the side of a cliff. They actually fell into the wind and spread quite a bit. This is the romanticized way spreading ashes is portrayed on tv. Normally it falls straight down because it’s actually quite dense.

​ After visiting the monastery we drove to a look out point to take pictures of the whole shebang.

Then we drove out of town for almost two hours to a cafeteria/store to get a snack. We didn’t really eat lunch because of dinner plans. We continued on for another 1.5 hours or so to arrive to our hotel in Portaria. The bus couldn’t take us to the hotel so we were dropped off, then walked uphill to our hotel. After about an hour of rest I got ready for the next outing. We met at the lobby at 6:15 and began our trek down the hill to our bus. We drove into town and walked through a beautiful hillside area to see a waterfall and the cute shops in town. After touring the town, we went to the restaurant where we were all having dinner. I had osso buco with pasta. It was delicious! We had a great time! Once finished, we walked back to our hotel. Thankfully I had my phone so I could use it to light the way through the cobblestone streets. It was a beautiful night!