- Mostly mountainous hillsides, quaint towns with slate roofs, friendly folks and great food! Just don't try to eat dinner before 10 pm!
- The amazing area called Meteora is a unique geographical area of rocky spikes rising up along a valley. 600 to 800 years ago monks raised the building supplies up amazing heights and extensive monasteries were built. It was recorded that it took 20 years to bring up the building materials for one monastery and then it was built in 20 days. Monks were hoisted up great heights in baskets by means of a pulley.
- We were there for the Greek Orthodox Easter. The celebration begins the night before Easter. Between11:00 and 11:50 pm (most come nearer to 11:45), people flock to the church. Each carry long taper candles that have been decorated with material, small toys, beads etc. wrapped around them. They enter the church and light many little candles (probably in memory of someone). Within a minute of setting their candle in the sand, a church elder, pulls them out and discards them to make way for more candles. People then go around to 4-5 "stations", genuflect and kiss the glass topped icon photos of holy folks. Meanwhile there is a mysterious voice chanting and others in the audience responding for an hour. There is noisy chatting while everyone waits to light the big candles at midnight then flock to the streets to party.
- Easter day we hiked through town and up to several monasteries. The smell of roasting lamb filled the air. Every third house had a rotisserie rigged up with one or two entire lambs cooking all day. Members of the family would turn the roasting lamb for hours. We were offered the most delicious kabobs along our hike. At our hotel, bright red hard boiled eggs were served for dinner and breakfast, with the tradition for two people to smack them together and thus have a good year. My egg broke very well but not Peter's. I don't know what that means!
- We traveled west to a larger town for the night (Ioannina). Here we noticed a quaint town set on a lake with an island in the middle and snow capped mountains behind. We observed that the economy had taken its toll though. Many boarded up shops and cafes. It looked like they had been that way for several years. Life is very uncertain for many.
- We traveled to small hillside towns (Metsovo and Monodendri), cobble stone streets, quaint churches and great folklore and art museums. We drove through a "stone forest", all outcroppings instead of trees. Then to a gorge that made the Guinness Book of World Records as being the highest natural gorge in the world. Check out the walkway to view the 2950 foot drop off!
- Greece was somewhat more expensive than Albania. Delicious grilled lamb, tasty little dishes and red wine. Pastries were abundant, baklava, donuts, a round bread like hot cross buns with...of course a bright red egg in the middle. The Greeks don't eat much breakfast but in the B & B's you get a "toast" which is grilled wonder bread with a mild cheese and ham inside.
- Drivers are not as wild and crazy as here in Albania!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Highlights of our Greek adventure
Peter and I packed in a lot in 3 days in northern Greece. Below are some observations:
Grrek Orthodox Easter in grand style
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Every third Greek family roasting a full lamb or two for Easter |
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Left..Bright red hard boiled eggs served at every meal |
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Monday, April 9, 2012
Saturday Hash part 2
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Below is Tokyo Joe, a Canadian, who is conducting the HASH circle after the hike, anointing the man who set the trail with, of course, flour and a round of beer. |
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For $12/pp we had an array of salads, all the wine and beer you could drink and plates of grilled lamb (with intestines!) |
Saturday Hash part 1
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Saturday HASH hike 30 minutes outside Tirana |
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Small settlements dotting the hillsidesAbout 25 folks (of which we are in the senior bracket)took a van and did a marked HASH hike for 2 1/2 hrs.Half are foreigners and the other half are Albanians.This was our first day of rain showers since early March. |
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Weekend in Kosovo
I have put up several photos of our past weekend in Kosovo for you to see. Thanks to many of you who have reviewed my entries and enjoyed them. There is much material to use here in the Balkans!
Kosovo was mostly the same terrain as Albania in terms of rugged rocky mountains, orange tiled houses dotting the hillside and friendly people, some of whom speak English.
The interesting and at times, confusing part was the climate (not weather) and politics. Kosovo suffered mightily during the war in 1999 when part of the population, the Serbs, decided to take over the country and try to force the mostly Muslim Albanians out. The history over centuries has fueled this uprising. We would walk into a few preserved13th century churches, Turkish baths or Ottoman houses from 1600’s but most have now been burned or destroyed by these wars. We learned that church and state are very intertwined and have been for years. The Orthodox priests would align themselves with the governmental powers and lead a charge on the neighborhood mosque. The reverse was true as well. In a more regional context, you had the Turkish empire waring against the Austrian Empire and the churches would follow one or the other.
Today there is a big presence of UN, NATO and Italian entities in the country. When we visited the monastery on Sunday, we had to call ahead, leave our passports at the gate and retrieve them when we left the Italian outpost. There is still real fear that some Albanians might, in this case, try to destroy the Orthodox monastery. I think there will be an international presence in Kosovo for a long time.
Other observations:
I tried to order my daily Coke Zero and found it hard to get because it was bottled in Serbia and the Kosovars were boycotting the product.
If you want to travel from Kosovo to say, Vienna, the most direct way is through Serbia. The Serbians won’t allow any car registered in Kosovo into the country so one must drive around the country. We could enter Serbia in our car because we are from Albania.
If you fly from the capital of Kosovo, Pristina, the pilots have to fly due west and then up to Vienna and can’t fly over Serbia
There is so much overlap between the Albanians and Muslim Kosovars. The Albanian flag is flown everywhere in Kosovo. Kosovo has its new flag (it only became a country in 2008) but most people say it is only flown to irritate the Serbs and seldom flown at all.
There was recent issue up at the border where the Serb/Albanian tensions are strong. Some Serb hot heads piled 3 feet of rock across the main street in town, thus blocking the predominately Serb side of town from the Albanian side of town. It took members of parliament to travel up there from Pristina to quell the madness.
We had a good snow storm and 30 degree temps our last day there but 3 hours later when we arrived back in Tirana, it was partly sunny and 65 degrees. I like where I am living!
The capital (which I walked around for a long time while Peter was at his conference) was a crude mixture of building styles, museums not open because all the artifacts are in Serbia, no parks and plenty of restaurants because of the huge international population.
I have put up several photos of our past weekend in Kosovo for you to see. Thanks to many of you who have reviewed my entries and enjoyed them. There is much material to use here in the Balkans!
Kosovo was mostly the same terrain as Albania in terms of rugged rocky mountains, orange tiled houses dotting the hillside and friendly people, some of whom speak English.
The interesting and at times, confusing part was the climate (not weather) and politics. Kosovo suffered mightily during the war in 1999 when part of the population, the Serbs, decided to take over the country and try to force the mostly Muslim Albanians out. The history over centuries has fueled this uprising. We would walk into a few preserved13th century churches, Turkish baths or Ottoman houses from 1600’s but most have now been burned or destroyed by these wars. We learned that church and state are very intertwined and have been for years. The Orthodox priests would align themselves with the governmental powers and lead a charge on the neighborhood mosque. The reverse was true as well. In a more regional context, you had the Turkish empire waring against the Austrian Empire and the churches would follow one or the other.
Today there is a big presence of UN, NATO and Italian entities in the country. When we visited the monastery on Sunday, we had to call ahead, leave our passports at the gate and retrieve them when we left the Italian outpost. There is still real fear that some Albanians might, in this case, try to destroy the Orthodox monastery. I think there will be an international presence in Kosovo for a long time.
Other observations:
I tried to order my daily Coke Zero and found it hard to get because it was bottled in Serbia and the Kosovars were boycotting the product.
If you want to travel from Kosovo to say, Vienna, the most direct way is through Serbia. The Serbians won’t allow any car registered in Kosovo into the country so one must drive around the country. We could enter Serbia in our car because we are from Albania.
If you fly from the capital of Kosovo, Pristina, the pilots have to fly due west and then up to Vienna and can’t fly over Serbia
There is so much overlap between the Albanians and Muslim Kosovars. The Albanian flag is flown everywhere in Kosovo. Kosovo has its new flag (it only became a country in 2008) but most people say it is only flown to irritate the Serbs and seldom flown at all.
There was recent issue up at the border where the Serb/Albanian tensions are strong. Some Serb hot heads piled 3 feet of rock across the main street in town, thus blocking the predominately Serb side of town from the Albanian side of town. It took members of parliament to travel up there from Pristina to quell the madness.
We had a good snow storm and 30 degree temps our last day there but 3 hours later when we arrived back in Tirana, it was partly sunny and 65 degrees. I like where I am living!
The capital (which I walked around for a long time while Peter was at his conference) was a crude mixture of building styles, museums not open because all the artifacts are in Serbia, no parks and plenty of restaurants because of the huge international population.
Monday, April 2, 2012
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