Greece was beautiful this month! I went there for a conference which was held in Alexandroupoli, in the North of Greece in the Thrace province, just next to Turkey. I visited the University and spoke to some researchers there who said an assistant professor only earns 1700 euros after tax and a post doc 1300…
Before the conference, David and I toured for 1 week. We landed in Thessaloniki in the Macedonia province, the second largest city in Greece with dirty beaches, lots of fantastic tags on the walls and many angry citizens holding heated talks about democracy and camping at the foot of the White Tower. They said they won’t move until they get what they want from the government. They sit on the grass and collect ideas from who ever has any then they send them to the government. I learnt that democracy is a Greece invention, which dates as far back as 600 BC. One guy called Solon, decided to abolish slavery, give rights to all citizens. They were divided into 4 classes with the lowest comprising the least educated people who could not rule but could vote for governors which were the top class.
We then drove to Meteora, beautiful place in the mountains where monks first started living in some of the numerous caves in the 14th century then built monasteries on top of large steep rocks. The point was that no one could reach them and do all sorts of nasty things to them (beheading being the #1 fun) that are painted in great details in their churches. It seems that the Turks (Ottoman empire which started when a Roman emperor decided to move his capital from Rome to Bizance, renamed Constantinople then Istambul) were after them. Six of the original 24 monasteries built around the 15th century are still active today so we visited them. I am glad they have since built bridges! I would not like to get there the way they used to: hauled up into a net!! Interesting also to learn that the orthodox church at that time took over art and decided on purpose to make everybody ugly! The point was to be different from what the ancient Greeks were doing, with all their gorgeous gods! 🙂 Anyway amazing landscape!
After that we visited Dion, an village at the foot of the Mount Olympus, Zeus’ hangout. Nothing to do with ancient Olympia, on the island of Peloponnese where the Olympic games started, 13 centuries ago! Dion has an ancient Greek city from the 3rd century BF with lots of temples for the old gods decorated with nice mosaics. Dion also has a nice museum with beautiful sculptures and artifacts dating back from the first Greek civilization, the Minoans, 3000 BF. The cheeky vase with a flying penis is from that time! =:O
On our way to Dion, we camped by a peaceful lake in Ionnina which looks like Switzerland!
In Vergina, further North, we saw the amazing treasure found in the grave of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. I learnt that Alex was only 33 when he died of some disease, after conquering most of the known world.
We also explored the mountains north of Ionnina, in the nature reserve of Zagora, near the border with Albania. The mountains villages were peaceful and beautiful and we did a day trek from Monodentri to Vikos along the deep and narrow Vikos gorge, apparently the deepest and narrowest gorge in the world. Anyway there are snakes in that deep gorge… and one lone house!! They build nice half circle bridges there!
Voila voila! Yet another very very nice holiday with my wonderful David!! 🙂
