Monodendri
In the past few weeks I have been editing a guide to ancient Greece for a Russian professor of Classics (perhaps he wasn't satisfied with my work - I haven't heard from him recently) and I have been working on a guide to the Vikos Gorge. This is harder than I thought it would be. There is a lot of information that is hard to get and hard to put together. Nevertheless, it has been fun.
All the snow in the Vikos Gorge area was followed by almost a week and a half of rain, with the snowline moving up to about 2000 meters or so. This meant that the Voidomatis river was raging! It had been totally dry when I was first there, and to see it full of water was a little surprising. When I went down to have a look it appeared that the water level had been some ten to twelve feet higher in some places (depending on the width of the canyon, of course). Fantastic!
It was such a pleasure to see water in the canyon but I was also very happy that I didn't face the same when I hiked through previously. Crossing would have been difficult to impossible.
I also had fun hanging out with the two young guys in Monodendri (yes, there are only two), trying to convince them to take me with them in the mornings to milk the sheep. They wouldn't let me. They thought that it would make me smell too bad. I didn't want to force the issue, but I really wanted to milk a sheep. I had to settle for tearing up bread and putting it in a bowl of fresh milk that had been heated and was amazingly salty. I guess that you don't really drink the milk straight, but put bread in it. I am not sure if they salted it or whether it really is that salty straight out of the sheep. They said that cow milk tasted funny to them and they couldn't drink it.
They also treated me to a pie of fresh sheep cheese, although not pie in the American sense, and not cheese in the American sense either. It was great. We followed that up by watching Champions League Soccer.
Here are some photos:
The Monastery at Monodendri built in 1412. The paintings inside are from 1413-1414. Amazing. It was built with money from Michael Veovodas Therianos because his daughter, by the grace of God, had been cured from an incurable disease.
The river, quite full. Last time it was just rocks - and my hair was shorter.
Lefteris (aka "Lefty") and me, warming ourselves by the fire, talking soccer. Lefteris is a traditional name that means free or freedom - or so he claimed. Although he had milked the sheep that morning, he didn't smell.
All the snow in the Vikos Gorge area was followed by almost a week and a half of rain, with the snowline moving up to about 2000 meters or so. This meant that the Voidomatis river was raging! It had been totally dry when I was first there, and to see it full of water was a little surprising. When I went down to have a look it appeared that the water level had been some ten to twelve feet higher in some places (depending on the width of the canyon, of course). Fantastic!
It was such a pleasure to see water in the canyon but I was also very happy that I didn't face the same when I hiked through previously. Crossing would have been difficult to impossible.
I also had fun hanging out with the two young guys in Monodendri (yes, there are only two), trying to convince them to take me with them in the mornings to milk the sheep. They wouldn't let me. They thought that it would make me smell too bad. I didn't want to force the issue, but I really wanted to milk a sheep. I had to settle for tearing up bread and putting it in a bowl of fresh milk that had been heated and was amazingly salty. I guess that you don't really drink the milk straight, but put bread in it. I am not sure if they salted it or whether it really is that salty straight out of the sheep. They said that cow milk tasted funny to them and they couldn't drink it.
They also treated me to a pie of fresh sheep cheese, although not pie in the American sense, and not cheese in the American sense either. It was great. We followed that up by watching Champions League Soccer.
Here are some photos:
The Monastery at Monodendri built in 1412. The paintings inside are from 1413-1414. Amazing. It was built with money from Michael Veovodas Therianos because his daughter, by the grace of God, had been cured from an incurable disease.
The river, quite full. Last time it was just rocks - and my hair was shorter.
Lefteris (aka "Lefty") and me, warming ourselves by the fire, talking soccer. Lefteris is a traditional name that means free or freedom - or so he claimed. Although he had milked the sheep that morning, he didn't smell.
posted by Scott Warren at 8:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home