Xaroula: Ipeiros and Thessaly

I went on a long trip through Viotia, Magnisia, Thessalia, Ipeiros, Aitaloakarnania, Fokida, and Lokrida.

Part I: Ipeiros

The Oracle of the Dead at Acheron. Or a farmhouse. Personally, I was convinced that it was the oracle of the dead. (There's a defunct church on top of it.)

The monument to the Souliotisses, women who danced their traditional dance as they threw themselves and their children off the cliff to their deaths, to escape the tyrannical rule of Ali Pasha.

The hotel at the site of Kassope.

One of two mosques still standing in the castle of Ioannina.

The tomb of Ali Pasha in Ioannina's castle.

The view from the Ioannina lakefront toward Nisaki, the little island in the lake where we had dinner. I had wild boar for dinner!

Inside the castle walls of Ioannina.

More Ioannina.

Part of the enormous retaining walls built to keep the theater at Dodoni from falling down the hill.

Probably my favorite theater in Greece. And since we know I'm obsessed with theaters, that's a big deal to me! Dodoni.

The sacred oak tree of Zeus at Dodoni. Based on the rustling of its leaves, priests of Zeus could give prophetic replies to those seeking the advice of the oracle.

Part II: The Volos Archaeological Museum

Part III: Viotia, Magnisia, Thessalia, and Metsovo.

Here I am standing next to the best thing ever to come out of Thebes: Pindar, of course. Thebes became a running joke on our trip. We started and ended the trip there, at a hotel who's concept of breakfast was "let's put a cardboard box full of stale croissants and juice boxes on a coffee table in the lobby!" Everyone in Thebes had bad hair; note that my hair looks pretty bad too. Thebes was destroyed three times, yet still exists. It is a mystery.

It took us a long time to find the temple to the Hero Ptoos, and in fact we almost gave up. The sanctuary of Ptoos is a sad story. The excavators lost all their notes, then died, then Caitie lost her computer the night before the trip and had to rewrite her presentation on it from memory, and then of course we couldn't actually find the temple and were about to give up, when someone had the brainwave of walking up to the very top of the hill and looking there. Since everything on Greece is at the top of a hill, it is rather surprising that we didn't all think of this from the start.

This is the Lion of Chaironeia. If you think it looks like the Lion of Amphipolis, you win!

The icon of the Virgin Mary who Stopped the Tanks, at the church in the monastery of Skirpou at Orchomenos.

Some of the wall from ancient Halai in East Lokrida. As you may have guessed, the shoreline has changed since antiquity.

An early Christian basilica from Nea Anchialos. I presented on this and I still have no idea what it is.

A tholos tomb from Sesklo. Sesklo is usually thought of as a Neolithic site, but in fact there's a lot of Mycenaean stuff there (although you can't get in to see most of it now). Luckily, I spent a lot of time there in 2003. However, you can see the tholos tomb.