Young, lively, buzzy; we must be in Ioannina

Dora’s system has been sorted, which is a great relief. David has once again been a really good help. We can now relax and enjoy Ioannina.

Ioannina is close to a big lake, Pamvotida. Next to the promenade, we find a parking space for Dora. We have a quick lunch on the grass before wandering around the town and also find a place to do some laundry, which is well-overdue.

Ioannina is also a university town, and therefore, packed with students. I love university towns. They bring me fond memories of my days in Toledo. I could easily spend my entire life studying, if only I could make money out of it…

Gary takes the piss out of me every time we come to places like this: “Are you going to join your colleagues on the next barricade? When are you planning to take over the capitalist institutions?”

His comment is rather sarcastic. I wasn’t particularly the stereotype of a radical, trouble-maker student looking to change the world. I did work hard though but I did also enjoy a frivolous and social life when exams were out of the way. Pretty much like these guys below.

“Look at them” Gary jokes “It is obvious that they are secretly planning the next revolution”.

Middle age people seem also to join the coffee culture. There are plenty of businesses which don’t do well in Greece. Coffee shops are not precisely one of them.

We head off towards the historic centre. There are a couple of sites worth visiting: the Kale, an inner castle and the Fetiye Cami, a mosque. It is past 15.00, the time when some of the Greeks sites close. We will see them from the outside, that will have to do us.

The mosque was built in 1611. The Greeks were invaded and occupied by the Ottoman empire for centuries. But unlike other neighbouring countries which were also invaded, such as Albania, Macedonia and Bosnia, the majority of its population remained orthodox christian. Moreover, there are not many Islamic memories remaining in towns except for these mosques.

We are not sure what this is. There is a general lack of information about this place. We will use our imagination, I wonder if it was a Muslim grave?

We get to the castle. All castles look pretty much the same; old, derelict, ancient, a few towers here and there. We just like seeing them because of the views, as they were all built strategically on high viewpoints.

Because of their age, most castles we have visited seem to be under permanent restoration. This one too. Although the refurb team has not touched this bit for a while. Wild grass is taking over the corridor that leads to the main tower.

We take the last look back at the mosque and the castle before we leave.

It is now 17.00, most of shops will be open. Greeks take a really long lunch, like the Spanish.

We head off to the only launderette we found when we did some research online. We have had difficulties in finding self-service launderettes in Greece. This sort of culture doesn’t seem to be well-established. We thought that Ioannina, being a student place, would have quite a few. But not even the students seem to need them, or perhaps they have facilities in the places where they live.

Great, the launderette is closed! A hand-written notice has been put up on the window. We ask a local to translate. It seems it has been closed for a while. What do we do? We have accumulated laundry for a month. Luckily, we see a dry cleaning place which also offers this service. We tell the guy how many kilos we have. “That is too much, it will take me all day to wash and dry. Come and collect it at 20.00 tomorrow”. Fine.

 

The next day, we awake to a lovely morning, although we feel a bit rough after a sleepless night. We didn’t realise we were so close to a main road. Cars were running all night at a considerable high speed. And then the truck drivers, who usually get up quite early.

Anyway, today, whilst waiting for the laundry, we will go and visit the island in the middle of the lake which you can get to by ferry.

The ferry is about to leave. A few more passengers have joined us. The short journey to the island only takes 10 minutes.

A few restaurants line up along the dock, offering local dishes and fresh fish from the lake. Their speciality: grilled eel.

No thanks, not precisely our favourite dish.

What about crayfish? The ones on the top are desperately trying to escape, stepping on the heads of those at the bottom. We are not sure if they are dead.

“You can also have carp”, the guy says. The poor carps have been put in a rather small tank for their size. They are desperately fighting for air.

We leave the restaurants to get on with other customers. We start our search for the four monasteries which are scattered around the island.

The island is mainly populated by tat shops.

and restaurants.

We haven’t seen any supermarkets. There are also a few houses, probably occupied by the people who work in these businesses.

We come across the first monastery. We are familiar with the decoration of this orthodox places by now: dark, gloomy, intimidating. They seemed to want to compensate it with multicolour paintings and tinted window glasses. That is not the problem, the problem is simply the lack of light.

Don’t be fooled by the photo. It was really dark, just a long exposure. GDR

We like the floor, though with simple and consistent patterns, and bright and lively colours.

The monastery consists of just one room which takes five minutes to go around. We continue our route in search for the next one.

A paved path seems to go all the way around the island. A hill stands up on our right. Maybe we should try to get to the top of it a bit later.

Boats are coming back from their fishing day. Some of them return with empty nets. It has not been a good day.

A family of geese walk happily towards the water.

The mother goes first but the babies take a while. They don’t seem that keen to go into the cold water. That is why the father stays behind, to make sure that they do.

There is no path that goes to the top of the hill. That doesn’t stop us. We just turn right and go off piste through shrub and overgrown grasses.

I lose Gary for a moment. Suddenly, he turns up with a flower. I love these romantic gestures. He still has many of this type, even after ten years of marriage.

On our way up, we come across a small cemetery. Most of the deaths are recent, over the last ten years. A cemetery here is a bit odd, as there seems to be not many habitants on this tiny island.

Maybe they bury people from Ioannina? GDR

We come across another monastery with a sort of classroom and a football pitch nearby, which suggests the monastery was also a school. At the time, the monks were in control of the knowledge and the teaching. Very likely, that knowledge passed on to the children, was manipulated and biased.

“Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” jesuit priests. or Catch ‘em young and you will infect ‘em for life. GDR

Outside the monastery, there is what it first looks like an abandoned farm. But it is not. A band of scary chickens pop out from all over running and screaming, which also makes us jump.

,

45 minutes it has taken us to go around the island and we have only seen two monasteries. We find the third one on the way to the dock to catch the ferry. We pop in quickly, two minutes and carry on. The ferry leaves in fifteen minutes and it is a half an hour wait if we miss this one.

Nice, pleasant and short journey back. The sky has turned moody.

It is 18.00. We have a good couple of hours to do bit of blogging before we pick up the laundry.

Tomorrow we head off to Zagori National park, where we have planned to stay three or four days, hiking and visiting remote, quaint and peaceful little villages scattered over the park.

SM