Sunday Drive

LET US OUT OF THE CAR!

We went on a beautiful drive Sunday up to an area called Vikos, it should be a hot tourist destination but it is a little difficult to get to so it's not as busy as it should be. The drive wasn't to bad from our location only taking about 2 1/2 hours although within the first 30 Nik had thrown up twice (not the fun part).
These are some shots on the way up to the gorge after leaving Ioanina. Arthur kept stopping the car to get out and take pictures, this was a little upsetting to the kids and myself since we were stuck in the back seat. I couldn't wait to get to our destination the town below Monodentri (one tree) were it got it's name I have no idea, there were a lot of trees.
One reason this area is so interesting and nice is that all of the houses are built with stone including the roofs. A little monotonous (maybe this is what the name meant) but at least they add some color to the windows and doors, mostly blue but some red too.


The stone forest and Vikos gorge our next stop.
Fascinating rock formations that would make a geologist go gaga.
We took another little stop in this wonderful meadow with flowers that the kids could pull out of the ground (not allowed at home).

A photo of Kat didn't make it into this group for some reason I will show it later. Nik above picked about every one of these flowers and spread the seeds around. Kat below on her walk with Dad to the gorge, she's trying to find a place to sit down.


There's the photo, how it got here, well it's cute.



The gorge below, and Nik riding with his head out of the window on the way to Ioanina because I didn't want him to throw up again. He really enjoyed the trip this way I think both kids like having the wind in their faces.

Ioanina has a wonderful castle and lake a great place to eat lunch while sitting next to the lake.
Nik really wanted to go on the boats that cross over to the Island and we would have gone since it was just 4euro's round trip for the adults but the boat going at the time that we were leaving was small and enclosed and not one of the bigger open boats.

Day Trip-Pili

"No Arthur, not another picture of me take a picture of the bridge." (this is the first photo)
This bridge is outside of the town of Pili, it was built in 1514, very old and in great condition.
This is me taking a seat inside of a tree next too the bridge.
We visited a Vitoumas (βιτουμας) nunnery in the mountains south of Kalampaka. This is a picture of Arthur climbing down a stairwell that was so short we were stooped over and then decided to just scoot down each step on our butts. We were laughing so hard we had to take a couple of breaks, I don't know if your allowed to laugh in nunneries. Our destination was a cave where a relic from Mary was found, as you can see from the last picture the cave was also for very short people. Jon will have to slid down the stairs or come up the mountainside to see the cave, you can't be over 6feet tall at this monastery. I borrowed a skirt from the nuns, you aren't allowed in without it, this also applies to the monasteries over our house.
Back to Pili we enjoyed some of the best hot chocolate in Greece, they had 63 varieties of different chocolates. The original was delicious, we then had white chocolate hazelnut and that was okay (real chunky nuts-not something your used to drinking but eating) and also a wintry forest one that was for dark chocolatic alcoholics. So we need 61 volunteers to come over so we can try all of the hot chocolates (you buy).