yes my friends, another gorge, though today we only peered down into its maw and did not hike down into it. Today we woke up at a reasonable hour and walked to a local coffee shop for java. When we got back to the hotel it was minutes before tour guide, Ioannis was at our hotel and ready begin our adventure. The area of Zagori, which means Behind the Mountain, is located north of the mountain which stands in front of the lake of Ioanninna. The area is the ozarks of Greece, and for this reason I told Ioannis that I too was a hillbilly from Missouri. The drive to the mountains was fast and furious with Ioannis telling us the history of the region which you can goo google now.
The main attractions of Zagori are the 27 villages scattered throughout the mountains, the stone bridges which span the rivers that run between the mountains and the Vikos Gorge which is apparently the deepest gorge or something, who knows.
We drove into Zagori area and the weather was perfect. We made a stop at the first of several stone bridges that we would visit. These bridges look old, but most of them have replaced wood bridges that would keep getting washed away, so they built these awesome stone bridges, some of them 50 feet off the ground.
We continued down the road and made it to another bridge, this one was a 3 archer, very cool.
We stopped at a place where we could see the stone steps leading up the mountain to to the village of Vradeto. There were a lot of steps and we were very far away which helped us realize how lucky we were to not be walking up them.
At this point we drove around to the other side of the mountain and to the very top to get some excellent shots of the Vikos Gorge from above. There is hiking in the gorge, but not by us. One gorge hike a month is enough for us.
After the gorge we went to an area known as the stone forest, were a bunch of cool rock formations exist and also a bunch of rock piles made by people which I hated. Ioannis tried to get me to make one to prove my love to JW and I flat out refused. Later I made a tiny one so he would leave me alone.
From the rock forest it was time for lunch in the village of Monendraki at a cute place Ioannis picked out for us, no doubt he has a deal with the owner.
After lunch we checked out a museum of weaving and saw a church, yawn.
The day was pretty much other by now so we headed down the mountain stopped briefly at a memorial to the Zagori Women who basically kicked some major asses during WWII.
Ioannis took us back to the hotel where we are resting up for dinner. Tomorrow will be rain all day, and I have no idea what we’ll do if this happens, though laundry is on the schedule.
Btw, Ioannis took a bunch of pictures of us plus videos explaining the entire trip we took today. Since the tour cost us so much money, I’ll probably post a page tomorrow just of his pictures and videos for your listening pleasure.
We got back to the hotel and JW was out like a light, I wanted to sleep, but did not and wrote the entire first part of this post for you.
7ish, later and later, we headed out for dinner, though rain was in the forecast. The distance to downtown gets longer and longer the more we do it. This hotel is really in a terrible location.
We found the place Fysa Roufa, which was a cute cafeteria style very reminiscent of our favorite on Crete, Kouina EPE. The food was marvelous and we made friends like we always do with our waitress Vicky who was full of dirty enuendos and talked a mean game to this old man.
Vicky recommended a bar nearby, the Rock Bar Indian, which is a super racist name, but we went there anyways, and it was dark, and only the bartender and his young friend were inside, the walls were covered with pictures of heavy metal gods throughout the years and they were playing very obscure European metal on the JUKE. I fell in love immediately, but by now we were tired and ready to go home after one drink.
We left Indian Bar and it had begun to sprinkle. Did I tell you the distance to our hotel got further and further every time we made the trek. It seemed an eternity and both of us needed to peeeeeee.
We got home though, 11:15, and now we will work on stuff or go to sleep who knows? Everything we have planned tomorrow is up in the air, we may just sleep all day.
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