Middle-aged flash packers

Okay, I’ll admit it, I might have been a bit hasty in my opinion of Meteora.

Today we hiked up to the main monasteries area and a with a bit of sunshine they look very picturesque. Being built on the top of rocky outcrops, an added benefit was a bit of a workout.

Lots of different nationalities here including Romanians, Americans and Bulgarians. Not on the Chinese radar yet.

Question – is a war museum appropriate in a monastery? Seemed a strange choice to me. Never mind, the soldiers’ uniforms were hilarious. Unfortunately I couldn’t take any photos but take it from me, the Greek army were a bunch of cross dressers!

It didn’t take too long for us to be monasteried out so we walked into kalambaka and had gyros for lunch. (Like a kebab in rolled up flatbread). 

Next we needed some cash. We were expecting problems due to emergency measures meaning Greek people can only withdraw 60 Euros a day. Imagining queues round the block, I prepared for a long wait but there were only a couple of people at the ATM who kindly let us go first and told us tourists were unaffected by the limit.They weren’t hanging around waiting to mug us! People seemed quite calm about the whole thing.

The highlight of our meal tonight were the free cherries given as a freebie. They were the most delicious cherries I have ever tasted. Apparently the cold and wet weather is the reason as they needed longer to ripen on the tree. Obviously crap weather has the odd benefit.

Tomorrow we head for the Pelion region of Greece. I read about this years ago and have always wanted to visit it. It’s supposed to be very beautiful with a lovely coastline and not too touristy. That could have all changed. Fingers crossed it hasn’t.