It’s our fifth day in Greece and today our legs demanded a break. In the last days we discovered a whole new site of Greece and it’s filled with beautiful but quite high mountain scenery!
On the way from Igoumenitsa’s harbor to Meteora, where we are at the moment, we had to manage our first high climbs and it was a real challenge. First of all, our bodies are not used to it yet, especially since we didn’t have any training with this amount of luggage, second it’s a whole different story to make 800 height meters when the sun is burning on your head without mercy the whole way up. But we decided to set about it slowly and with tons of water and a rest in the shadow now and then, we slowly fought our way up.
On the second day, when we were again stopping to gasp for breath, we had a first opportunity to encounter Greek hospitality: and older couple stopped their car right next to us and smilingly asked: “Where are you from? Do you want to come for lunch?” Totally surprise we gladly accepted their invitation. Two hours later we arrived at the junction to their village of 50 souls. The way to go down was minimum 17% steep! We were hesitating a long time because it was sure that we 
would loose all the hard earned height meters of this day within no time. But the joy about this unexpected hospitality and the prospect of a home-cooked Greek speciality made us going anyway and we were really not disappointed. Alex and John served us delicious traditional meals and we soon felt like in our mother’s home where you are also encouraged to eat until you burst at the seams. When they also invited us to stay overnight we couldn’t resist to enjoy a hot shower and a comfortable bed. Additionally we had the chance to try traditional drinks together with half the village, including the “Pope”, in the local bar of Polydroso, which btw means something like “multi-cool” 🙂
The next morning we started rested and packed with 
more specialties like Lokum, Halva and this special cheesecake Alex had made for us. But this day should hold a less pleasant surprise for us. At 4 some dark clouds were gathering and the first refreshing drops quickly turned into an intense thunderstorm. Totally drenched we luckily found shelter in an abandoned shepherd’s hut where we also spent the night.
The following day we finally reached our first stage goal, Ioannina. We just quickly passed through this less delightful big city to start the climb to Metsovo, a peak of 1700m. Obviously we must have given a quite pathetic picture on the way up so that a friendly farmer offered us a ride in his pick-up and by the end of the day we reached Kastraki and found a great camping with an amazing view on the impressive Meteora rocks.
Off the beaten tracks we discovered the Meteora monasteries today. We found remote and peaceful trails through this remarkable and somehow surreal scenery and spent a relaxed day marveling about the outstanding craftsmanship that was necessary to build these monasteries at the top of so high and inaccessible rock needles.
The campground we reached is a really lovely place situated directly at the seaside, right between hundreds of industrial chimneys and the main boat canal on the way to Venice which obviously requires 24h maintenance by huge cran-ships that are digging out tons of mud around the clock. What a dream holiday destination! But at least the bungalows resembling henhouses where cheaper than the price for two persons and a tent and the paper wall protected us a little bit from the surrounding noise.
Similar to the US security entry policy they wanted us to send every single little bag through the x-ray unit. That means taking of all the luggage, the trailer, the bike lamps and the repair kit pocket from our bikes just to afterwards put it on again for the last hundred meters for entering the ferry, where we took everything off again! What a waste of energy… but a really good training 🙂 Along this way, they really considered it necessary to control our passports five times- Eventually, with some friendly chatting even the angriest police officers took off his serious Venetian mask and encourages us for our way with a big smile.
