The Magic Man and Hill Climbing in Greece

By:  Kelly McKenna

In the little town of Kalampaka, Greece, you don’t see the village so much as the cliffs and mountains above it. They are absolutely breathtaking, and if you look close enough, orange terracotta roofs can be seen. These are the monasteries of Meteroa. While definitely not an easy walk, visiting the Greek orthodox churches contained within these religious centers was well worth the 300 steps it took to get there. To respect the religion, we didn’t take pictures inside and the females in the group used wrap-arounds as skirts over our pants.

After leaving Kalampaka, we drove to the small town of Delphi, which is built on the side of the mountains. On the way to Delphi, we stopped to see a hot spring of water coming down the mountains as well as monuments to the Spartans and Thespians of the Battle of Thermopylae. A few of us ventured to take off our shoes and put our feet in the hot spring and found it very refreshing. After arriving in Delphi and touring the museum of the ancient city, we toured a smaller town further up on the mountain. While walking on the city streets, there was a staircase that went off up a hill. After the many steps from the monasteries the day before, I thought it would be a bright idea to climb the hill to the top of the town. Of course we had to stop half way up to play on the seesaw and swings on a playground we found, but at the top of about 265 stairs, we received a beautiful view.

After arriving at our hotel in Delphi, a few of us decided to go out and look around the different shops. We ended up walking to the end of town and coming back down another road. While passing one store we remarked about the Spartan armor in the window but continued walking until the store owner invited us in. We went in and he told us that because we are students and it is the off season, he would give us discounts. We ended up buying multiple items and getting a few magnets for free. This store was a big topic at dinner, so afterwards almost everyone on the trip went back to the store. The owner of the store was very good at persuading us to buy souvenirs and after leaving the store for the night we collectively nicknamed him the “magic man”, because your money seemed to just magically disappear.

Today we toured the ancient ruins of Delphi and were joined by two cats that we promptly named Apollo and Artemis because the temple at Delphi was dedicated to Apollo. After leaving Delphi we set out for our trip to Olympia, stopping on the way for lunch and a tour of an Orthodox church. We stopped by a seaside restaurant for lunch and ventured out to the shore, skipping rocks and exploring a rock pier. Our group has really enjoyed the trip so far, becoming very close through inside jokes such as Panos, glue, and keeping our tally of cats we have seen (58 in four days). Tomorrow we will be exploring Olympia, visiting the museum and ancient Olympia along with shopping in town.