Trips

Thurs., 5/17/18 - Meteora to Zagoria

The landscape changed as we drove into the Pindus Mountains. The roads switchbacked and wound up and over mountains or through passes. Finally we got on the new national road built with help from the EU. We must have gone through three dozen tunnels some that spiraled up or down within the mountain.

We stopped in the town of Metsovo, which is Slavic for Place of the Bears. We had time to wander and I bought a clever wooden olive fork made of olive wood. The town is home to the well known Averoff Gallery and its collection of 19th and 20th century artists.

Hilltop church	New bridge
Gas station	Cute sign
Souvenir shop	More things to buy
Places to go from Metsovo	View from Metsovo
Complicated staircase up to the park	Typical slate roof
Sitting on the square	Ladies arriving for an event
Fresh water spring in Metsovo	We had another cooking lesson where we were each given a ball of dough to roll out, fill with meat and cheese, close, and put an identifying mark on top. For lunch we ate soup, salad, lamb, and potatoes while our “pies” baked. When our pies came out, I realized someone else took mine and the only one left was a burnt misshapen lump - Marge and I shared the one I made for her.
The finished products	After another beautiful 1 1/2 hour drive, we stopped in Ioannina. It is a city of “silver art creators.” Alexandra lead us on a short walk through the former Jewish quarter. Greek Jews were rounded up by the Nazis and shipped to Polish death camps. There is a stone and glass statue of a cypress tree. These trees were planted around cemeteries. We walked inside the grounds of the palace. The walls were begun during Justinian Roman rule. The Crusaders improved the walls in the 13th c. In the 14th c. the Ottoman Pasha (Ali Pasha) lived inside the upper part. Two mosques with minarets remain, but they are not in use. There are two hamams, a harem house, and ruins of the pasha’s stables and other walls. The Ali Pasha was assassinated on the small island in the lake and his beheaded body is buried near the upper mosque.
Greek sign	Beautiful scenery
Walls of the castle	Stone and glass statue of a cypress tree
At least it looked interesting when I took the picture	Nice sign
More signs	Interesting sign
Ottoman Library	Ottoman Library
	Tomb of Ali Pasha
Fethiye Mosque	Byzantine Museum
We were driven to a silversmith’s workshop and we spent two hours watching him make a sunflower necklace.
	Silversmith George Zaravellas being introduced by Alexandra
George at work making the piece shown below
	The finished product
Firing	Another bus ride through wonderful mountains took us to our hotel in Aristi Village, Zagoria. Dinner was a buffet at our hotel.

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