Exploring Greece and Southern Balkans, (Turkey, Albania, Macedonia)
24 days, 10 Cities, 6 Flights, 2017[1]
Istanbul, Wednesday, September 20: A long 13.5 hour flight LA to Istanbul and 2 additional hours in the traffic jam to the old town hotel, Amira, left me pretty beaten and a lost day.
Istanbul, Thursday, September 21: Walked around the old city (Byzantine, Constantinople, now Istanbul) and saw and entered where possible most of the old historic sights. Blue Mosque, Hippodrome (a horse race track) and Basilica Cistern. The latter an extensive underground chamber supported by dozens of marble columns, an underground Parthenon, apparently for nothing more than storing water for the church overhead. Then the Topkapi Palace and gardens and Harem, all really rough and plain, but with good views across the Marmara Sea near the southeast extreme and the Bosporus from the northeast. Finally, the Hagia Sophai, a striking example of Byzantine architecture. More than once during the day I found myself joined by a man who seems to be too friendly and offering to help me find the attractions. I let them, soon learning that these people represent one of the high-end shops and really are intent on inviting you there to see the rugs. One took me to a high roof-top restaurant where I could get great views and photos of some of the impressive buildings like Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophai. I got my silk rug several years ago in India so declined theirs. Hotel tourist map shows museums and Mosques, making me wonder if a NY tourist map shows museums and churches?
Very heavy security at Ataturk Airport, with a complete check with x-ray etc. before entering the terminal and repeated again inside after immigration. I just made it in time as a few days after this visit Trump and Erdewan got in a tiff over US treatment of a Turk diplomat and closed both borders to visitors – that would have been inconvenient! Istanbul album:[2]
Street venders selling very nice looking corn on the cob reminded me that this used to be a common summer treat at home, from grocery of course, before we started putting it all in the auto gas tanks! Later at Heraklion on Crete I found it is €2.50 each, so they must be putting a lot in the gas tanks too!
Athens, Friday, September 22: Our hotel in Athens is in sight of the Acropolis and Parthenon and other ruins on top. Interesting, but the Parthenon is a shell in restoration from war destruction. Spent the 1st half day exploring these, then Old Athens and the Agora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Agora_of_Athens . Also Hadrian’s Arch entry to the Olympian marked only by an empty field and a few standing columns. Evening meal for the OAT group served with a “saucer” to eat from on a narrow table with many dishes of fried dough stuffed with bland vegetables while sitting on chairs that gouge the central back. Dry bread. Lots of cheese. Not very good welcome.
ATM money withdrawal is really a rip off. I have done this over the years in 20 countries at almost no expense though have to search a little to avoid the “tourist ATM.” After searching several here in Athens, I still ended up getting euros at a loss of 7 – 8% fee.
Next day very early morning, 4 am, we leave for the airport and the city of Chania on Crete. Athens album:
Heraklion, Crete Tuesday, September 26: Monday morning en route we stopped in Rethymno and walked the town with a guide Ritsa G. A surprise, an OAT home hosted lunch turned out to be at Ritsa’s, prepared exquisitely by her spouse – the best such lunch I can remember. First evening in Heraklion a walk around city center for gelato and we lucked upon a free concert of a “famous” musician [3] featuring a Cretan string instrument, lyra, with shades of a ukulele or violin – not too exciting to me, I liked the drummer better. Tuesday morning a visit to the Knossos archeological site dating around 3000 BC, palace of King Minos or the Minoan people of Crete, counted among the oldest civilizations of the Middle East. This was a real king, but named Minos after the Greek god by archeologists in later times, as were the Minoan people (until 1600 BC). The palace, with 1500 rooms was a unique construction of masonry built around wood framing claimed to make it immune to damage from the frequent earthquake of the region. However, for naught, as the great volcanic eruption of Santorini, about 1500 BC, (believed 2nd only to Krakatoa, 1883) accompanied by earthquake spilled over the oil lamps and burned the castle. As the occupants fled toward the water of the Aegean, they were wiped out by the accompanying tsunami. Both the ruins and the museum with artefacts in town are worthwhile. The phrase “take the bull by the horns” reputedly derived from a sport of doing so and executing a forward flip over the bull, first coming astride the bull hands down and feet in the air, then landing feet first on the ground behind the bull. A mosaic art found in the castle of this. Also they claim origination of “honeymoon” from the liter of honey and one month time schedule, given to consume and consummate! The web has lots of other claims to this custom. Heraklion is a trashy dumpy city excepting one tourist shopping street.
Thessaloniki, Greece, Wednesday, September 27: Greece has a plethora of history spanning many periods, in brief: Ancient 1100 – 323, Hellenistic 323 – 30 BC, Roman 30 – 330 AD, Byzantine 330 – 1453 AD, Ottoman Turk 1453 – 1821 AD, WW II, Civil war 1946 - 49, and finally now economically failing independent democracy. Maybe saddest is of recent times, is post WW II when despite siding with allies and German occupation, afterward the country was split on whether to side with the west and choose democracy or go communist – leading to the Civil war. Also very interesting and unusual was the great population exchange of 1923 after the Greek-Turkish war where more than 2 million Christians and Muslins were uprooted and exchanged between the countries. Interesting sights in Thessaloniki are the White Tower and the Rotunda. A near gesture of OAT is to sometimes expose us travelers to a speaker on sensitive or controversial topics. One such speaker in Thessaloniki discussed the sad state of the Greek economy, huge debt, 50% unemployment in the 20 – 32 year age group, and squandering of borrowed money creating superfluous government jobs for friends – with government employment ballooning from 400,000 to more than 1 million, while neglecting to invest in the economy or infrastructure. Most promising economic activity at present is tourism, greatly enhanced of late by Turkey’s turbulence and terrorist threats, events.
Meteora, Greece Saturday, September 30, 17 En route to Meteora we stop at the village of Vergina, home to Aigai, the ancient capital of the Macedonian kings. Discovered beneath a man-made hill only 40 years ago by Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos, the sacred site contains the fourth-century BC tombs of King Philip II—father of Alexander the Great—and other ancient royals, along with numerous items of daily life from the Macedonian era, now housed in an underground museum. Upon arrival at Meteora, we have dinner at a local restaurant featuring a syrtaki dance performance—where we to learn and try out some of the steps made famous in the movie Zorba the Greek.
Around Meteora are spectacular mountain cliffs adorned with numerous monasteries and nunneries. About 6 active today but once upwards to 25, perched on cliff sides and pinnacles, some reachable only by cable lift or today by a cable gondola. By sheer number more spectacular than Tiger’s Nest in Bhutan – a must see in Greece. Meteora album:
Zagoria(Aristi), Greece Tuesday, October 3, 17 We are in the Zagoria region of mountains and the Avikos-Aoős National Park of northern Greece. On the way we have a brief visit at a high mountain village, Metesovo. The modern highway through the northern Greece mountains has many 10s of tunnels – sometimes even through a low hill that would be a cut rather than tunnel in other places? At Aristi our hotel is perched on a near cliff overlooking a small village. It is called Aristi Mountain Lodge (Incidentally listed in the National Geographic Unique Lodges), pretty neat. The report is that there are 46 such small villages in this 100 km2 mountain park region. We traveled through two or three en route to the beginning of our hike. All the buildings are of local masonry and generally very old and separated by narrow inlaid stone streets. The terrain might be similar to the Kern River canyon except that nearly all trees are deciduous and more densely covering all the area. Curiously, there are no large trees in this area or most of northern Greek mountains, apparently supplying no wood product. We hiked about 3 miles down into a canyon to a river, but dry at this season – this is where I lost my right hearing aid. Others of our group went rafting in another, almost dry, part of the Voidomatis River, I only hiked to see them off dragging the raft over the rocks but skipped the float. Flow looks like about 300 ft3/sec to me. They should come to the Kern! After the hike, lunch at a village restaurant featuring local mushrooms might have been the best food of the entire trip.
Gjirokaster, Albania Wednesday, October 4: Southern Albania looks just like Mexico or worse. Buildings in bad condition or not complete, lots of trash, etc. However, going north through some mountains things improve approaching the Gjirokaster area. Large fertile valley bordered east and west by sharply rising mountains to 6000 ft or so. Mountains are barren of trees though. Maybe because they are all rock with no soil, though not obvious. Highway is very steep and narrow but despite this our bus encounters tractor trailer rigs with double trailers, requiring one vehicle to stop while passing. Gjirokaster is attractively quaint with steep stone paved streets and a large mostly intact fort, castle, on the hilltop.
Immediately upon crossing the Albania we encounter the 1st concrete bunker. Under communist rule nearly 180,000 of these were built under the pretext of defending the country against invaders, but really just as make work so communists could claim everyone had a job. From the end of WW II until mid 80s Envar Hoxha ruled under communism. Other communists were not strict enough for him; so after first isolating Albania from the non-communist world, he gradually cut off other friends/allies from the country, 1st Tito, then Stalin, and eventually Mao. Thus Albania was left with no allies and no trading partners by 1990. This, maybe even more than China, was another of the strictest and brutal communist regimes for 45 years. Today the land is a split in tiny plots as the communists confiscated it all, then under the 90s democracy it was given back, not to original owners who largely couldn’t be identified, but split among all families. So each gets 1 acre of good level land, then 1 acre of barren hillside perhaps miles away and 1 acre of mountain grazing land in yet another location. So even under the new democratic freedom leads to very inefficient land use. Today all hate communism, and the country is enthusiastically trying to pull itself out of the last century 3rd world.
Friday we journey to Tirana, declared capital in 1920, today seems like pretty modern city with lots new and modern buildings. Saturday morning we are treated to plum tea, yuk, I noticed everyone left it all except a swallow, while we were treated to another OAT arranged speaker, Mr. Kurtezi, who lived through the entire communist horror under Hoxha and presented a very interesting talk and discussion of the post WW II Albania.
Ohrid, Macedonia Sunday, October 8: By bus today from Tirana to Ohrid (On the Hill). Smaller town on a beautiful large lake. Very clean and pristine water and environment. Nice resort town for a vacation. Macedonia, like many of the Balkan countries, was part or communist Yugoslavia under Marshall Tito. There is a Tito vacation home on the lake a few blocks from our Hotel Tino. A quaint ‘old town’ dating from BC. A Roman amphitheater was uncovered very recently (1960 ?) and has been excavated and restored for current performances.
Albania majority Muslin while Macedonia majority Christian.
Macedonia is one of only 4 countries that use the Cyrillic alphabet.
Our experience with Albanian and Macedonian food is much better than Greek. Balkan tomatoes are fabulous, ripe and sweet and plentiful and despite that they haven’t discover mayonnaise. I saw beautiful tomatoes in the market $1 per kg (2.2 lb.)
Skopje, Macedonia Wednesday, October 11: Skopje, the city you never heard of. After a few hours drive from Ohrid with stops at Tetovo to see a small unusually floral painted mosque and a cruise up the river of Matka Canyon and Treska River to visit a nothing cave, we arrive late afternoon. Skopje center is spectacular having been elaborately rebuilt in Project 2014. Beginning with the centuries old stone bridge and a wide clean river, several plazas and many new buildings, museums, theater, government, make up the city center from which vehicles are excluded. The buildings are all elegant marble, dwarfing the Parthenon, and countless bronze statues. Bronze statues everywhere, one pedestal with 7, the artist bridge with 35, another bridge with 20, and then the big ones of Philip II and Alexander the Great along with many others. Some Macedonians say too much money was spent. Probably so in as much as the country can only operate schools 4 days per week and are collecting Grand Circle contributions to support the one we visited in Elshani in an otherwise affluent appearing neighborhood!
In the Kichevo and Tetsovo areas are many Muslin Albanians who reputedly ignore Macedonian law, double park everywhere and flount Macedonian athuthority like they are claiming northwest section of the country. Our Macedonia guide, Elena, says Tetsovo is the most polluted city in Europe other sources enhanced greatly by the presence of the Jugohrom Ferroalloys facility. All around are bright colored and accented buildings, as though throwing off the yoke of drab communism. Skopje album:
[1] Part of the fun is the neat people you meet, not just the locals, but the fellow travelers. This description is of a great OAT trip and must have been the “law group” as we had I believe 3 lawyers and a judge! Also senior citizen, female race car driver, and a couple bankers and an accountant – wada group. Our great guide for the entire trip, Angelos, was so good at talking with his hands that I learned to listen with my hands. Sometimes his graphic explanations would accelerate so fast that he didn’t even know he was speaking Greek (Chinese).
[2] A note about photos. I am trying to make them available optionally to the reader without overwhelming he or myself. It’s still a learning process for me. I am creating albums associated with a subject or location and putting a link in at the end of related sections of text. Hence the reader can choose how many photos to view in accord with his own interest and giga bit availability.
[3] Ross Daly is a world musician who specializes in music of the Cretan lyra. Although of Irish descent, he has been living on the island of Crete for over 35 years.