Time for a quick review of our journey through Greece…
Carbon
We travelled the majority of distance in Greece by modern, comfortable and quick coaches. I say the majority, since the bus that took us over the border from Xanthi to Istanbul was none of the above. Still, that’ll teach me to book a bus connection with a company called “Crazy Holidays.”
Our two week itinerary from Bari to Xanthi emitted 96 kgCO2. That’s slightly less than our first two weeks through Italy, although to be fair we travelled less distance in Greece, since I’ve included the journey across France in Italy’s total.
Surprisingly, our travel through Greece only emitted 7% more carbon per kilometre traveled than our travel through Italy (and France). I’d expected our buses and ferries in Greece to be much less efficient than Italy’s trains, but according to the UK government data, coaches are actually more carbon-efficient than typical national rail trains. I’m unsure how accurately these UK-based efficiencies extend to Italy and Greece, but it’s certainly good enough to alleviate the guilt of travelling by petrol-powered vehicles.
Costs
It wasn’t a problem at all in Greece to stick to our daily budget as we found it excellent value for money. Even though we ate out more regularly than in Italy, we spent less money overall, and Sara is dreaming of a world where she can get a carafe of half-decent wine for €3.50 in every restaurant! Despite including the cost of our travel to Italy (across France) in the Italy column, the proportion of our expenditure across transport, food and accommodation remained similar for both countries. We’re interested to see how this will pan out in other parts of the world.
Sustainability
Towards the end of our journey across Greece, we started to notice these panels and barrels on the roof of almost every building. They turned out to be solar water heaters, and according to wikipedia, they typically work by heating a “working fluid” using the sun’s rays, and circulating this fluid through a tank of water. If only the UK got enough sun to make these worthwhile!
Although we didn’t buy a single plastic bottle of water from any shops in Greece, we did end up with one on our table with pretty much every restaurant meal. Hopefully the restaurants had better access to recycling facilities than we did!
Cats
We saw a grand total of 257 cats during our time in Greece, completely blowing Italy’s total of 27 out of the water. Sara’s noticed that just counting cats per country might not be the fairest comparison, given that we’ll spend different amounts of time in different countries. For this reason, we’re going to introduce a new metric of cats per day. Greece still comes out on top, with 19.8 cats per day, compared to Italy’s 1.8 cats per day. Spoiler alert: Turkey is going to be wild.
Feeding time in Kavala
Hospitality
It would be wrong not to mention how welcome we felt just about everywhere in Greece. Hotels were friendly, Airbnb hosts seemed genuinely glad to have us to stay, and restaurants appeared to open their doors during most waking hours. On top of that, the quality of food and drink (barrel wine, I’m looking at you) that can be purchased for very affordable prices made Greece a highly enjoyable place to spend time.
While we had a lovely time on Thasos, visiting one island was hardly the island-hopping adventure of our travel dreams. Clearly another trip to Greece is on the cards, but we’ll definitely need more time and we’ll also ideally avoid peak season next time.
We arrived on Thasos in the Northeastern Agean islands on 28 August (my birthday!) and took a bus to our Airbnb in Limenas, a town on the north coast. To celebrate (my birthday, not our arrival), we booked a table at Karnagio Beach Bar, and washed down the sunset views with a cocktail.
Despite the strength of the cocktails, we still managed a sunrise swim the next day. The beach was completely empty, and it was as if the waves hadn’t even woken up yet. Honestly, I’ve never seen a calmer sea in my life.
Being up this early also meant that we got to see some lovely glimpses of local life, like this lady picking figs from a tree on the seafront using an extremely long pole.
I went off to pick up some breakfast after the swim, and spent so long trying to find the coffee in the local supermarket (there was a secret upstairs), that I completely forgot to buy any yoghurt – the one thing Sara had requested for breakfast. I confessed to Sara when I arrived back, while she inspected the milk I’d just bought with a confused look her face. The plot twist was that the milk turned out to be yoghurt after all (it was all in Greek), and I was off the hook. Sara claims that this perfectly sums up what what it’s like to be married to me in a single anecdote.
With the relaxing part of our trip to Thasos over, we embarked on two excursions around the island over the following two days. Crucially, both trips would be completed without a car, which made the whole experience a little trickier than it might otherwise have been.
Excursion 1: Day trip to Alyki
Alyki is a tiny village on the south-east coast of Thasos, about 31 km from Limenas, or 1.5 hours (!) by bus. The bus journey passed without much remark, including sailing past Alyki without even a peep from the driver. It took a panicked shout from Sara to send me to the front of the bus to check with the driver. He let us off straight away, and we began the hot uphill road walk back to Alyki. I’m not sure how it’s possible to walk uphill to a beach, but we seemed to manage it. The atmosphere was tense and no photos were taken.
Sandwiched between two beaches, Alyki would have been the perfect place to relax. But we were on a mission, and after a necessary snack break, we set off to explore the peninsula beyond. This peninsular was interesting not just because it contained the ruins of an ancient basilica, but also for its disused marble quarry, which was in use as early as the 7th century BC! We’d shortly learn that Thasos sat on a huge amount of marble, which is why the rock everywhere is so white. The views weren’t bad either.
Finally, some relaxation was on the cards, and we spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach. We set up shop in a quiet spot on the rocks at the end of the beach, and enjoyed swimming in the beautifully clear water, turned turquoise when the sun caught the white marble beneath the surface.
At least, this would have been relaxing had there been more than one bus back to Limenas that afternoon. But you have to play the hand you’re dealt, so we started worrying about missing the bus a good few hours before it was due to depart, and were waiting at the bus stop no less than 30 minutes ahead of schedule. The 30 minutes came and went, and no bus arrived. Sara hassled the drivers of every likely-looking vehicle in a 500m radius, just in case they were the public bus back Limenas. A mere 20 minutes late, and 50 minutes after we took up position in the full afternoon sunshine, the bus arrived and took us back home. To be honest, the bus home was the first time we actually relaxed the whole day.
Excursion 2: Hike to Marble Beach
Buoyed by the previous day’s success, I planned a second excursion to Marble Beach, which just so happens to lie at the bottom of a working quarry. The beach formed as a result of the dust produced from the marble extraction, and is now popular for its white sand and pebble beach.
Our route started with the 7.30am bus to Panagia, the island’s oldest town, set just inland and in the moutains. We enjoyed exploring the whitewashed town in the morning light, just as its residents started to emerge.
Our hike then began with an uphill road walk up to the Church Of St Panteleminos, where we left the main road and followed graffiti signs (scrawled on huge slabs of marble, of course) along an increasingly steep and dusty road down through the working quarry towards the coast.
While most of the passing traffic were happy beach goers, the odd marble truck would trundle past leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. Although the views were absolutely epic, this was a little sketchier than I’d anticipated, and we definitely should have accepted the offer of a lift from a kind passing driver.
Passing cars for scale
The quarry and hairpin turns finally gave way to Porto Vathy, better known as Marble Beach. Here, the majority of the beach was covered with perfectly white pebbles, with a small amount of slightly more golden sand on its fringes. Somehow, we managed to secure a spot in a (briefly) private sandy cove, before cooling off in the sea.
Despite the huge amount of noise generated by the quarry, we couldn’t hear a thing once we’d got to the beach. However, the crane, which I’m guessing was used to load ships in the past, was still a very visual reminder of the quarry.
Without wanting the retrace our steps and the 364m of elevation through the quarry, we’d planned to walk back to Limenas along the coast route. All I knew at this point was that Google hadn’t street viewed it, and our guide book discouraged driving this road to reach Marble Beach. Sadly, many people hadn’t read our guide book, so we had to share the dirt track with the odd vehicle that again kicked up a pile of dust. Still, it was very pleasant (and relatively flat) in the gaps between cars.
We took a short detour from the dust road via an even smaller track, which thankfully wasn’t used at all by pretty much anything. This route took us past an old watch tower whose height was now dwarfed by the trees in front of it, and a colourful line of (what we guessed were) bee hives. Sara rejected my offer of 5 Euros to open the lid of one of them, so we’ll never know for sure.
To give you an idea of quite how dusty the passing cars were (and, by extension, how dusty we were too) – some entrepreneur had opened up a car wash where the track eventually met the tarmac again. We seriously considered using it too.
At length, we arrived back in Limenas after covering a total of 13.5 km on foot, and immediately fell into a convenient Souvlaki joint. We ordered 1 litre of water and 1 litre of beer as soon as we could attract the server’s attention. He didn’t seem particularly surprised at this request, though our appearance might have offered some explanation. We then proceeded to demolish the feast we’d ordered out of pure hunger-greed, and spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping off our full bellies with our quest for adventure satisfied.
In summary, although Thasos is possible to explore without a car, it’s certainly not easy. I’d hoped that staying in the island’s largest town would mean that public transport would make up for our lack of private vehicle, but almost by definition, the buses made it pretty hard to get off the beaten track. We’d considered hiring bicycles until we’d actually laid eyes on the island, and 5 minutes into our first bus ride it became pretty clear that cycling was certainly not for the faint hearted.
We arrived in Kalambaka via two trains from Athens; one fast and comfortable, and the other fast and rattly. That evening, we went out for a late dinner at the creatively named Restaurant Meteora, and I had possibly my favourite ever slow cooked lamb dish. The sort of dish where the meat is so succulent that it just falls off the bone, almost as if it had been placed on top of the bone for presentation purposes.
There had been thunder rolling around the valley all afternoon and we’d even received an extreme weather warning on our phones from the Greek government, so I was fully expecting this visit to Meteora to be a complete wash out. Still, Sara wasn’t giving up that easily and set an alarm so that we could reassess the situation in the morning. I couldn’t quite believe it when Sara, while looking out the window, informed me that it was still raining, but not nearly enough to stay in bed and that I had to get up. Begrudgingly, I packed a bag full of snacks, and we rushed to catch the first bus up the mountain. The views over the mountains of Meteora, topped by precariously perched monasteries, were spectacular even from the bus window. It was already clear that this was not an opportunity to pass up for fear of a bit of rain.
Without much of a planned itinerary (other than a vague idea that we would do as much as possible under our own steam), we hopped off the bus at the Great Meteoron Monastery, the largest of the six mountaintop monasteries. A queue was already forming on the steep steps up to the entrance, so we opted to start our excursion with a hike to the neighbouring Monastery of Varlaam, which required a steep descent and ascent along footpaths between trees.
This monastery had an incredible terrace, with views good enough to make me momentarily consider life as a monk.
Inside the first room of the monastery was a giant, room-sized wine barrel, which unsurprisingly appealed to Sara. Maybe we could both find a home in the mountains of Meteora.
Although today the monastery can be accessed on foot, right up until the 1930s monks had to be lifted via a winch, rope, hook and net. Apparently, when asked how often the ropes were replaced, the monks replied “when the Lord lets them break.”
A pulley system is still in use to bring supplies to the monastery, but the manual rope system has been replaced by a steel cable and petrol motor
Our hike continued on to a convent via another steep descent and ascent, and the stunning views continued as well.
This convent was much smaller and less extravagant than the first monastery we visited, but that was probably much to do with the fact it was even more precariously perched on the rock. The nuns tended to their immaculate garden and produced honey and other goodies that were available for purchase.
The route to our final monastery of the day was a combination of footpaths and road walking, passing a couple of breathtaking viewpoints.
We were flagging by this point, so paused on a hidden ledge just beneath one rocky viewpoint to recharge and enjoy one of the best snack-views of our lives.
The last stop on our improvised route was the Monastery of Agias Triados, and fortunately we learned that it was closed before hiking the ridiculously high set of steps up to its entrance. Now, I realise that you’re never going to believe me, but we genuinely had no idea that this monastery was also a filming location for yet another Bond film. Slightly less glamorous than Italy, this spot was graced with Roger Moore pretending to scale the cliff face in For Your Eyes Only. The pace of the sequence doesn’t quite match that of the Daniel Craig era, so I’d recommend watching the clip on double speed to get the gist.
We couldn’t find much information online about hiking the Meteora mountains, so I’ve done my best to draw out our 5-6 hour itinerary on the map below. The bus route is shown in blue and the hiking route in black, though beware: the walking route included a lot of steps and zigzags that aren’t captured on the map. We’re big fans of the Footpath mobile app, which reliably plots footpaths that are often missing from Google Maps.
