May 18, 2025

May 18, 2025

Last night after dinner, we went back up into the needles of Meteora to watch the sun set. Fortunately we had enough scattered clouds that the sun was broken into rays making the stunning scenery even more captivating.

In the morning after breakfast we checked out of our hotel and drove just a few minutes to the sixth and last monastery, St Nicholas. It sits atop a low hill. We had to climb the whole way from the road far below. Once at the top it is hard to appreciate the verticality of the setting. Each monastery is more impressively viewed from afar.

For the third time Aimee was asked to wear a skirt. Aimee said this borrowed dress was the nicest. Being small it took very little time to tour, but it did have a nice deck for observing the valley below.

Back on the road we started our return to Athens. Halfway we stopped to checkout Thermopylae Pass. In ancient times it was a narrow strip of land between the sea and the coastal mountains. Any army marching on Athens would have to file through it. Since then the bay has silted up and the pass is now very wide.

Not surprisingly quite a few battles throughout the centuries have been fought here. But the most famous was the one in 480 BC when 300 Spartans made a heroic last stand here against Xerxes and his Persian army. The Persians went on to sack Athens. We watched a movie about the battle and then visited the monument to the Spartan king Leonidas who sacrificed his life here.

We then drove to the namesake hot springs. Thermopylae means Hot Gate. The sulfurous springs made locals think this was the gate to the hellish underworld of Hades.

We had lunch nearby on the water. We had some very good fried zucchini and then got back on the highway to Athens. Since it is Sunday we encounter very little traffic. We make a final stop to watch a high-stepping Changing of the Guard outside the Presidential Mansion in Athens.

Once checked in, Aimee and I did a little walk around the vicinity. We passed under a very pretty canopied lane of flowering Jacaranda trees ending at the Panatheneic Stadium. This ancient marble arena was rebuilt for the first modern Olympics in 1896. Every four years the Olympic flame is carried from here to the new host country.

We returned through the National Garden which was the backyard of the old Royal Palace. That building is now the Greek Parliament. It faces Syntagma (Constitution) Square. We finished passing the ruins of a Roman bath, and a new statue of Alexander the Great. In 338 BC Alexander and his father Phillip, King of Macedonia marched through Thermopylae conquering Athens and the rest of Greece.