Previous Day (Delphi & Kalambaka)
Destination: Greece
Duration: 9 Days 7 Nights (Oct 18~Oct 26, 2011)
Day 3: Kalambaka -> Meteora -> Athens
Breakfast was of course served in hotel with the typical European style buffet. It was similar with Novotel breakfast yesterday but presentation wise was inferior. Well, I was happy as long as they served cheese, ham and salami. :p
 |
| Some Hams & Sakami with Tomato and Cucumber |
 |
| Lots of Cheeses, Plum & Olive |
 |
| Pastries & Mini Croissant |
 |
| Bacon, Sausages & Scramble Egg |
 |
| Grapes |
 |
| Different types of Cereals, they actually have Brans! |
 |
| Something to go with your cereals |
 |
| Cakes, Cookies & Pastries |
 |
| Bread, Breadsticks & Some Condiments |
 |
| More Breads! They loves bread! |
According to our tour guide, Meteora meant “Up in the Air” – this was exceptionally apt,
as the monasteries are spectacular perched on top of rocky pinnacles soaring over 1,000 feet above the ground. There used to be like 24 monasteries but only 6 survived. We would be visit 2 of them today.
 |
| The View from Hotel |
 |
| Bye Bye Hotel! |
 |
| Hotel Divani does have a pool! |
The road to the top was kind of scary as it was quite narrow with lots of turns. But the view was spectacular! The bus stopped at a “lookout spot” for us to have a panoramic view of the 6 monasteries. We had to climb up to some rocky surface in order to reach the spot and when we were up there, it was beautiful but yet terrifying for those afraid of height! There was no railing at all - the 1000 feet cliff was just right beside you and if you chose to be, you could be standing like 1cm on the edge of it! I got cold feet by just standing 1 meter away from the cliff… no, make it 3 meter! *shivering* I was so amazed when one of the foreign tourist who was a grandma like 80-90 years old trying to climb up there.
 |
| Halfway to Meteora from Bus |
 |
| Reaching our Lookout Spot - the Cat loves the view too! |
 |
| Oh my God! Uneven surface with no Railing! Guess there are some risks for great view... |
 |
| *Scared* |
 |
| A Panoramic View - Stunning huh? |
After the lookout, we went to the Holy Monastery of St Barbara. We went down the stairs at a jungle-trek path for like 15mins before reaching the entrance – and more stairs awaiting us! When I was walking down the stairs earlier, I was wondering it would be crazy for us to climb up the same stairs again after our visit.
 |
| Do i need to climb up this stairs later?! |
 |
| More Stairs Awaiting |
The monastery was really at the top of the cliff and we had to wait over a short bridge to reach it. It has a balcony where you could admire the surrounding view. By the way, female visitor had to wear long skirt as a sign of respect to enter the monastery – they provided some wraparound skirt for those unprepared. The monastery was quite small but the painting inside was amazing. Our tour guide forgot to tell us that photography was not allowed and we snatched a photo of the interior with magnificent painting before the nun stopped us. I knew we should’ve deleted the photo but just couldn’t have the heart to press delete. *facepalm* Lord, please forgive us for our sin…
 |
| A View of the Monastery's Garden from the Bridge |
 |
| Crucifix & Flags |
 |
| A Panoramic View from Monastery's Balcony |
 |
| Our Entrance Tickets! |
 |
| Look at the Place! |
 |
| Cute Rock! |
 |
| Entering the Chamber with Wraparound Skirt |
 |
| The Forbidden Photo... *sshhhhhh* |
Apparently the path was different when we left the monastery, instead of climbing up the stairs as my earlier fear, we actually walked down more stairs to reach our bus. Guess they were really considerate on our fitness. :p
 |
| Leaving the Monastery by the Bridge |
 |
| Look at the Rope Stair! Do they still use that?! |
 |
| At the Bottom of the Monastery |
The bus then stopped at a roadside (yes! Roadside!!!) to let us have a astounding view of Monastery of the Holy Trinity. It was the hardest accessible monastery as it was basically in the middle pinnacle from nowhere! According to the tour guide, you have to either:-
- Climb down from the cliff and then climb up the cliff leading to the monastery
- Climb in a bucket to let people pull you over the cliff
Can you imagine climbing up and down the cliff by your bare hand and feet? The monk did that last time!
 |
| See the little isolated rock pinnacle at the left? |
 |
| The Close Up |
We continued our journey to the Holy Monastery of St Stephen – a bigger monastery if compared with St Barbara. Again there was no photography allowed inside the beautiful monastery. If you think the previous (forbidden) photo of St Barbara was marvelous – then St Stephen’s interior was miraculous!!! Words couldn’t describe how majestic it was – or perhaps my vocabulary was just too limited. It was full of painting with story of Christian revelation (Sorry I was not familiar with Christianity to re-tell the story). There was this herbs burning smell as well – you really felt awe, respect and serene when you were inside.
 |
| Holy Monastery of St Stephen |
 |
| Looking down when entering the Monastery |
 |
| Some of the Buildings inside |
 |
| Walking to the Courtyard |
 |
| Entrance to the Chamber - No Forbidden Photo this time |
 |
| Panoramic View from the Courtyard |
 |
| The Chamber's wall was full of painting like this - Use your imagination |
 |
| Look at all the Tour Bus!!! |
Anyway, I heard that the Holy Monastery of Great Meteoron was the biggest and most popular monastery for tourism but unfortunately it was under reconstruction. I guess bad timing again?
After the monasteries, we went to a shop selling amazing Christian painting with gold and silver. The craftsmanship was really something. But we were too distracted by the doggie outside the shop who kept inviting us to tickle her tummy! So cute!!!
 |
| The Shop |
 |
| Some of the Paintings |
 |
| Cute Doggie! |
Lunch was at a restaurant called Palazzo and we got to choose our main course from chicken, pork or lamb. I chose chicken since I was not a fan of pork and lamb. We were served with lamb soup with vegetable – very flavorful to eat with bread. It was followed by Greek salad with Feta cheese then our main course. The chicken I chose looked the same as the one I ate previous day in Delphi – and the side potato was not as good as the Delphi restaurant. I heard people mentioned the lamb was not bad. Then our dessert was a simple piece of cake.
 |
| The Restaurant and our Tour Manager! |
 |
| Lamb & Vege Soup - look like our Sup Kambing? |
 |
| Bread |
 |
| Greek Salads with Feta Cheese |
 |
| Braised Lamb |
 |
| Roasted Chicken |
 |
| Strange cake! |
It was during lunchtime that all hell broke loose when our tour manager Sylvester told us that the boat strike has been extended from Oct 19-20 to Oct 19-22. This meant we would miss out Mykonos as we couldn’t get our Greek island! He then mentioned that Reliance tour was willing to put us on a 3D2N Mediterranean cruise to hop around islands and some ports in Istanbul. He couldn’t give us more details on the cruise as it was a last minute changes but he mentioned something about Crete (another Greek Island) and Troy. The catch was – the cruise would be stopping at Santorini on the 3rd evening and we only got to stay in Santorini for the night before departing at 10.30am the day after to Athens.
Frankly speaking I was thinking it was kind of a good idea as we still could continue our holiday and actually got to go more places than our itinerary indicated. However, this did not bore well with some of our tour members and their reasons being:-
- “This is a Greece Tour! Not some Istanbul tour!”
- “Cruise Ship is boring and you would only manage to get on the land for like 2-3 hours”
- “Santorini is the most romantic place on earth and I’ve been waiting for years to go there! I can’t only stay there for such a short period!”
Anyway, I was quite impressed with Reliance as I was thinking most other travel agents would’ve just throw us in the Athens hotel and told us not to come out for days as they were not responsible for any political situation that might occurred. At least they had a backup plan for us.
The atmosphere was so tense in the restaurant and I was wondering whether people would start a riot there. Since the tour members just wouldn’t shut up about Santorini, our tour manager discussed with the Greek ground tour agent and came up with another proposal – let’s stay 3 nights at Santorini instead and they would fly us there by plane since the boat was on strike! But we would definitely missed out Mykonos which was (and still is) a big disappointment for me. *cry*
 |
| This is where the Riot starts! |
Since we were in the land where DEMOCRACTIC was born – Sylvester gave us some time to think about our options so that we could VOTE on our opinion later. I really couldn’t believe the circus there as people starting to pull vote from others. I thought I was in a political drama. The vote ended on us staying 3 nights in Santorini with a free optional half day tour there – I was actually quite horrified, what could we do trapped on an island for so long?
There were questions that if they could fly us to Santorini – why couldn’t they fly us to Mykonos and then Santorini? Later it was explained that there were not flight between Santorini & Mykonos – you would have to transit in Athens. Then of course the airplane fares issue – all $$$$!
Anyway, our itinerary had become:-
Day 1 (Oct 18): Arriving at Athens in the evening
Day 2 (Oct 19-STRIKE!!!): Leave for Delphi & Kalambaka
Day 3 (Oct 20-STRIKE!!!): Visit Meteora Monastries & Back to Athens
Day 4 (Oct 21- MORE STRIKE!!!): Fly to Santorini with free half day tour
Day 5 (Oct 22- MORE STRIKE!!!): Full day at Santorini
Day 6 (Oct 23): Full day at Santorini
Day 7 (Oct 24): Fly back to Athens for city tour
Day 8 (Oct 25): Full day Athens free at leisure until plane departure at 7.55pm
We left Kalambaka in a somber mood and headed back to Athens in a 5 hours journey bus ride. We also stopped at the same rest stop yesterday and we had ice cream again to cheer ourselves up.
 |
| The Rest Stop Again |
 |
| Some Panoramic View from the Rest Stop |
 |
| Yoghurt Ice Cream! |
 |
| More Ice Creams! |
The tour guide put on “Troy” and “300” for us to watch during the journey and aptly pointed out that the movie version of “Troy” was totally historically incorrect. For instance, Achilles and Patroclus were of course NOT cousin, definitely NOT cousin and totally NOT cousin. Hahaa… the Trojan War lasted for like 10 years and Achilles was actually killed years before Troy was even captured. Then of course Agamemnon did not die in the war but was killed by his wife and her lover after back from Troy victory since the wife hated him for sacrificing their daughter to Artemis for strong wind sailing to Troy at the beginning of the war. All in all? Blood and violence all around! :p
Strangely, according to our tour guide, “300” was actually one of the most historical correct Hollywood movies if we disregarded the monsters and creatures. But I thought I could point out one discrepancy – those men in the movie were wearing underwear during a time when underwear hadn’t been invented!!! But I mean who would want to see Gerald Butler or Michael Fassbender running around NAKED in the movie, right? Right? Hmm…. On second thought.. maybe I would. *facepalm*
My argument regarding the underwear was confirmed when we reached the site of the Battle of Thermopyles aka the HOT GATE where King Leonidas and his 300 died fighting the Persian. The statue of King Leonidas was of course NAKED (duh!) and so were his comrades. We were treated with a view of the sea where Persian sailed in as well – this was viewed from the bus as they had since reclaimed the land near the Hot Gate thus making the shoreline further away.
 |
| The Naked King Leonidas! |
 |
| Another NAKED creature |
 |
| Oh my Gosh, they were figthing NAKED! |
 |
| More NAKEDNESS! |
 |
| The Sea where the Persian ships sailed in... |
 |
| A Closer Look! |
We then stopped at another rest top on the highway. There was this foodcourt thing and this time I bought the Greek famous cheese pie. Yummy! It was really full with cheese! Hmm… FAT!!! *bangwall*
Another world war hit us when we almost reached Athens. Apparently Reliance Malaysia was not happy that our tour manager had go ahead and booked last minute plane tickets for us to Santorini and screwed him senseless. But apparently he had no choice as he needed to confirm the booking before the airline closing time. Unlike almost expired food (which is much cheaper), plane ticket actually cost much more when bought last minute. According to him, it was EUR175 per pax for the last minute Athens-Santorini plane ticket and Reliance was determined that someone had to pay for this! They then calculated our original boat fare (Athens -> Mykonos -> Santorini) to contrast with plane ticket and decided that we had to pay EUR60 per pax for the ticket.
Well of course we had our opposition party not willing to pay this extra cost and complained how bad Reliance and the tour manager was. It really was a nightmare! I kind of pity our poor tour manager being screwed by so many parties. I wouldn’t want to be in his position! Anyway, the funny thing about Sylvester was that he was actually a freelance tour guide – he was also a tv actor staring in some Singaporean comedy! We all laughed out loud when he showed us the show.
Dinner was at a Chinese restaurant in Athens – I never could understand why people wanted to eat Chinese food in a western country especially when they were on holiday. Did they really miss Chinese food that much until they have to eat during holiday? Normally Chinese food in western country tasted horrible and cost more if compared with the original anyway. Why waste the money for Chinese food when you could try another authentic local food?
We were served with chicken corn soup (Yucks!), stir-fried chicken, steamed fish, stir-fried pork, noodle and fried pork rib. Hmm… frankly speaking – it was not good.
 |
| The Chinese Restaurant in Athens |
 |
| The Interior |
 |
| The Soup |
 |
| Stir-Fried Chicken |
 |
| Steamed Fish |
 |
| Stir-Fried Pork with Black Pepper |
 |
| Fried Noodle |
 |
| Fried Pork Ribs |
 |
| The "Dessert" - LOL!! |
 |
| Does this look like a Myvi? |
Our hotel of the night was of course Novotel again and we were informed that they would collect the EUR60/pax from us in next morning before boarding our flight to Santorini at 11.10am. I did noticed that a lot of our time in Greece was wasted on transit as we would be going to the airport to wait for the flight on the next day without doing anything in Athens. Anyway, what a dramatic day!
Next Day (Santorini - Pyros & Megalochori)
Masterpost (Click to get to day to day link)
No comments:
Post a Comment