0915:

The bus I’m on is inching its way up the side of the mountain, it’s going slowly so I thought that this would be a good chance to summarize my thoughts about Delfi. I really liked the town a lot. It had all the charm of a small town, the kind that if it was on the beach I would love to have stayed for a week or two. My ultimate destination this morning is Meteora but since it’s Friday I can’t go directly there, I have to do a series of transfers until I make my way to the place where supposedly monasteries appear to be floating.

Last night I felt like having a beer and watching the sun go down, so I headed out of the hotel about 8. The problem with traveling by yourself, one of the problems of traveling by yourself, is that it’s hard to go out for a beer without drinking too much. At least for me it’s hard. I tend to drink way too fast when I’m not talking, and that’s what happened last night. I didn’t over-drink, but within an hour I felt that I needed to get back to the hotel. Nevertheless the view of the valley below as the sun went down was spectacular.

1036:

I’m at the train station in Livadela and it is absolutely perfect. The station is a small, two-track station that looks like it was built in the 30’s or 40’s. From what I can tell there are about 5 or 6 buildings, but only two are being used, the rest seem to have been abandoned, the sun is beating down, there are only a couple of people here, and the sound of cicadas is almost deafening. So why is that so great? I guess in my mind I feel like I was transported back fifty years or so to simpler time. There aren’t any vending machines, there are no queues for anything, no one is pushing or rushing, it just seems like if you were to visualize a train station out of an old movie, this would be it, with some exceptions of course. My train leaves in about an hour for Larisa, and from there I need to take a bus or maybe a train to Meteora. The guy in charge couldn’t tell me which would be the better option, so I’ll have to wait until I get there to see. On a side note, I’m really enjoying this part of Greece much like I liked Turkey. There is a sense of maturity here, though I’m not sure that’s the best way to describe it, it’s relaxed in a way that feels comfortable but not boring… though no doubt there are a lot of people that would say it was boring.

Damn. The station is filling up with people completely wrecking my groove. I hate when that happens. ☺

3:30

I’m in Larisa waiting for my bus to Trikala It turns out that I have to go there, to catch a bus to Meteora. On my way from the train station to the bus station I wasn’t very confident that I could find the station on my own, so I ended up asking just about everyone that I saw where it was. There was this one guy that I asked that told me that I was going in the wrong direction, so he started walking… I followed. He was older than me, smaller than me, but walked faster than me. Mind you I had both of my backpacks on so I was slower than usual, and I did keep up with him. After about 15 minutes we walk into the station, he orders the tickets, and then leaves. I tried to buy him a drink, coffee or water or something, but all he would accept is a handshake. Nice guy. When I took off my backpack I can’t believe how sweaty I’d become. It was so humiliating that I went and changed my shirt.

17:22

I’m leaving the station of Trikala heading for Kalambaka.

1800

Made it. It’s a nice town so far. I didn’t have a reservation anywhere so I just kind of walked around until I found someplace. I make it sound like I made an effort to find a place when in reality I looked at some hotels, found one to try, which isn’t a hotel at all, but a place that had a sign, “Rooms” outside. I rented a room there… big mistake.

I have to say that I really enjoyed the journey today. I went to what, four cities, rode on a train and three buses (or was it four?) and saw more of Greece than I think I would of if I had gone any other way. In the end it was a journey of domino type of events and to my surprise everything worked as it should have. It was a good day. ☺