Day 5 – Wednesday: Traveling to Greece (Continued)
The flight to Thessaloniki Greece and drive to the hotel was uneventful. Right when we arrived at the hotel, Lily also arrived and gave everyone a big hug. It was great to see her. We checked into the hotel and then went out to grab dinner. Lily brought us to Aristotle Square for gyros and other Greek food. We had a nice dinner and caught up with our adventures.
Day 6 – Thursday: Thanksgiving at Mt. Olympus
Today we ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant and then we were on the road to Mt. Olympus, to look for the gods. We had a rental car dropped of at the hotel at 8am and Belinda got to drive again. It was about 1.5hrs from the hotel to the Mt. Olympus visitor center.
The mountain was about 9,500ft, but we were not going to the top. We ended up hiking from the Ayiou Dionysiou Monastery, a 15th century Monastery that was destroyed by the Germans in WWII, along the E4 trail. The trail was in a ravine with a river flowing though the middle. It had a couple waterfalls and bridges along the path.
We hiked from a lower parking lot to the top lot and then beyond. At the top lot, we met a local dog that came running up to us wagging his tail and the bell on his collar was ringing away. He wanted us to play with him. He had an old long sleeve shirt that he was dragging around like a toy, so we threw it a couple times. Jokingly we called him Zeus, but decided to continue our hike up the mountain to a lookout point.
On the way back down, we saw Zeus again and this time he followed us on the trail down the mountain
We got back to Thessaloniki and after cleaning up we set off to have Thanksgiving dinner with Lily, her friends (Koko, Sanchita, Evia) and Evia’s parents (Tina and John). It was a fun dinner meeting Lily’s friends and parents. There was live music, which was fun, but it seemed like they kept cranking the volume up as the night went on and it was hard to hear the conversation. The food was great, very authentic Greek cuisine, and everyone was stuffed. And then in Thanksgiving fashion, they brought out dessert and we all ate some more…
Day 7 – Friday: Campus
We did a 30min walk along the seawall to get to Lily’s hotel, the Queen Olga.
Bussed to campus where the administrators gave a presentation. Got a tour of the campus.
We found Lily at the library with her friends. Then we walked her to class, where she had a Calc 2 test. We than had coffee and bougatsa at the library, a flaky Greek cream filled doughnut, and hung out on campus.
The school then provided parents and family with a guided city tour. There were three stops: the old city wall, a Greek Orthodox church and the White Tower. About 70% of the old city wall was removed in the early 1900s.
Stop 2 was a Greek orthodox church.
Stop three was the White Tower and statue of Alexander the Great. The White Tower was another fort along the old wall, but all of the wall along the sea has been removed to improve sanitary conditions. Thessaloniki was named after Princess Thessalonike of Macedon, who was the half sister of Alexander the Great. Her name literally meant “Thessalian victory”.
After the tour and after Lily finished with class, we met up with her for treats before dinner.
Then we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant for dinner. Didn’t get a picture of it, but the steamed buns were delicious.
Day 8 – Saturday: Meteora
Today we went to the monasteries of Meteora with Lily. Our guide, Giannis, picked the 4 of us up at the hotel and then went to get Lily. It was about a 3hr ride to get to the monasteries. The monasteries were built by monks in the 14 to16th centuries. They are built on top of very remote and isolated rocks for defense from the Ottomans.
It was a rainy day and the first stop was to see some caves and monasteries built into caves in the side of the mountains. Unfortunately the van could not get up the hill due to the wet leaves, so we ended up hiking up the hill to see the caves.
Then we moved on to see the monasteries. The rain was steady, but not pouring. The fog and mist made this ancient area even more mysterious and wonderous. There are 6 active monasteries of the original 24. We visited two of them. The first was the Monastery of All Saints (Varless).
The second was a Nunnery. The Monastery of Saint Barbara (Roussanou)
We drove by the other 4 to take pictures and then to a panoramic overlook to see the whole area.
After that we had lunch at a restaurant that the guide recommended, which was traditional Greek food. Including lamb chops, black pig steaks, beef in a pot, moussaka, a feta cheese dip and others (including free dessert).
After a long drive back of sleepy driving in the rain- besides Moody and Giannis who talked about all sorts of subjects, we were dropped off at Lily’s hotel. Lily showed us how to use the bus and then we got some pastries at Aristotle Square, still in the rain. We really were quite lucky the whole trip of only having 1 day in the rain. The tree lighting was suppose to have been that night, but it was delayed due to the weather.
Day 9 – Sunday: Home
Last Day (for some of us). Before we got to the airport, we found out that MoJo’s flight was delayed to Switzerland, enough so that they would miss their flight to Chicago. So they still made their way to Zurich and got put up in Switzerland for the night. Belinda and Matt flew to Amsterdam and then overnighted in Boston. Unfortunately our bags stayed in Amsterdam… So it was a long night at the Boston Airport to report the missing bags.
Besides the flight delays to and from, we had a wonderful trip. Tuscany and Greece did not disappoint with the scenery, the history and the food! Lily came home for winter break just 2 weeks after we left her, but it was a proud parent moment to see her thriving in both college and abroad.