View of Edessa, Greece, looking southeast.
After arriving in Athens on October 8, we stayed in the city two nights to give our bodies a chance to acclimate, and then took off in our rental car for the roadtrip portion of our Greek trip.
The first day's drive was the longest of the entire trip, more than six hours if we had gone straight north and not stopped, but we did take a break for a picnic lunch on the seashore, and then stopped a few more times to take pictures of cotton fields, orchards, and mountains on our way to the north of Greece. Our destination was Edessa, a city in the foothills of the Pindus Mountains near the Macedonian border, not far from Pella, the birthplace of Alexander the Great, and Vergina, where his father Philip II and many other Macedoniam royalty are buried. We were going there not so much for culture or ancient history, although there is plenty, but for natural beauty and a few days of quiet decompression as we began our journey. And spectacularly beautiful it was.
The old city, with its fortifications, sits high above the newer Edessa. We stayed in Varosi, the oldest inhabited part, above the fortification walls, in a stone building that has been lovingly restored and turned into a bed and breakfast inn. Our room was on the second floor of the heavily-timbered structure, with lace curtains and a wooden balcony that looked south across the broad valley, and east toward Thessaloniki.
View to the northeast. The mountains weren't snow-covered, just rocky.
One of the main attractions of Edessa has always been its waterfalls, which spill from rivers coming off the high mountains behind Varosi, and historically powered the city's textile mills. The cataracts were within walking distance from our inn, along with low-key restaurants, service businesses, and a tiny Orthodox church in a shadowed park filled with ancient plane trees, above an old grain mill, no longer in use. Now the water is channeled and collected for human use and water power in the valley far below the falls. Everything was very lightly curated, and because it was already the off-season, we saw few other tourists.
Edessa is thought to be where Caranus -- ancestor of Alexander the Great -- founded the first capital of ancient Macedon. Our waiter at dinner confided to us that Greece had it wrong in spending so much money on the archaeological site of Alexander's purported birthplace, Pella, because those who live in Edessa know that he was really born there. Whether that is true or not, ancient ruins have started to be excavated down in the valley. The city eventually became a major cultural center during medieval times, and has been the site of much fighting during all the centuries and all the wars since, because of its strategic border location and the clashes between Byzantines and Serbs, Ottomans and Greeks, Bulgarians and Greeks, Nazis and Allied powers, and Communists factions and Slav-Macedonians during the Greek Civil War.
The streets of Varosi are ancient and beautiful, and here we met the first of the many stray cats with whom we'd became acquainted during our journey. Some were in good shape, others less so, but many people put out food and water for them, and the cats are opportunistic too, hanging around restaurants where they know they're likely to find dropped tidbits, or sympathetic diners. This beautiful kitten spent most of her days on a rock near the door of our inn, and it was only later that we discovered she was managing on only three legs.
Within a short distance from our inn, I think I counted five Greek Orthodox churches and chapels. The main cathedral was open, and a tall bearded priest in his black robes sat talking with his assistants in the garden courtyard as I went up the steps. In the foyer I lit a thin beeswax candle for peace, placing it in the sand-filled container with other burning tapers, as war broke out in the Middle East. I sat for a while, meditating beneath the huge brass chandelier and its hanging ostrich eggs. The priest eventually came in, kissed the two main icons, and then paused near me to say a warm kαλημέρα, good morning, before he disappeared behind the iconostasis.
Someone's sunken garden, orchard, grapevines, and extraordinary woodpile.
I was able to draw in Edessa, on our balcony, and expected to be able to continue what I had begun throughout the trip, but it turned out to be almost impossible as our pace picked up and we had less time to just sit and observe our surroundings. I took lots of pictures though, and did as many fast sketches as I could, so in the weeks and months to come I hope I'll be able to fill in the gaps. Now I look back at our stay in Edessa as a particularly quiet and lovely few days -- and although I didn't draw the famous waterfalls, I'll try to paint them to show you.
Pine tree and a view toward the lower town, with orchards and vineyards.
What an amazing adventure! So interesting to read about the first part of your journey and view your beautiful landscapes and photos. So glad you enjoyed and shared!
Correct me anytime, Kostas! I wish we lived close to each other and could talk all the time. I really want to improve my (very limited) Greek. I know some basic words and basic grammar, enough to be polite and endear myself a little bit to locals, but not enough to have any sort of conversation. My ancient Greek study was eons ago and not helpful, so I've done two years of Duolingo lessons every single day, without gaining much real knowledge of how to speak. Our landlords in the last place we stayed, in Athens, were keen to teach me and, like you, were very knowledgeable about grammar! But I wasn't there long enough to benefit from it.