Day Seven -- Heading to Crete

Our goal today was to visit a couple more monasteries, stop at the Theopetra cave, return our rental car to Athens airport and board an overnight ferry to Crete. We joined several bus loads of tourists at Moni Megalou Meteoron (Grand Meteoron Monastery). It is the largest and oldest of the monasteries. There was so much to see: the kitchen, cellar, refectory, ossuary, Chapel and museum.  It was worth the climb. 

 

Back at our car we headed for Moni Agiou Nikolaou (Monastery of St. Nicholas). Along the way we saw one of the caves where hermit monks used to live.

 

We parked the car and began the intense ascent.  I had only gone two switchbacks when I realized that even if I could make it to the top it would render me useless for the rest of the day. 

 

Matt went up and I returned to the car. I was taking photos from down below when I saw Matt waving from the top. 

 

We left Meteora before 11 a.m. with plans to stop at the Theopetra cave. The guidebook said that for over 130,000 years humans have occupied this cave. We had to see it. Our GPS led us right up to the locked gate that says the cave is open every day of the week, except Monday. It is Thursday. Disappointed we headed towards Athens. At least we got a good view back of Meteora. 

 

For lunch we pulled off the highway at Thebes, birthplace of Dionysus. We had tried to see if we could find the ruins there but all information is spotty. We pulled over at the first restaurant we saw, which happened to be across from the Mycenaean ruins of the palace of Thebes. 

 

We learned that the museum closes at 3 p.m. and it was now 2:30.  So we ate lunch and got back on the road. It rained most of the way back to Athens. We returned the rental car and caught the first Metro train back to Athens. We were headed to the port at Piraeus to catch an overnight ferry on Minoan Lines to Heraklion, Crete. We got some strange looks with our luggage in tow but couldn't figure out why. After over an hour of standing up on the Metro we arrived at Piraeus, ready to find the cabin on our ferry and conk out. 

 

Matt found an agent that sells ferry tickets and went into to get directions. What he learned is that while we have been galavanting around the countryside of Greece all hell has been breaking loose in Athens and Thessaloniki. The Greek Parliament is to take a vote by midnight on Thursday whether they will pass an austerity budget and make further cuts to people's pensions. Air traffic controllers, bus drivers and ferry workers have all been on strike at different times over the last several days. Ferry workers are going on day four and travel is chaos. We were blissfully ignorant. We called our ferry company and they said the strike is scheduled to end on Friday night at midnight, if an agreement can be reached. If not, who knows. So we have no way to Crete and no hotel for the night. We turned on the international data we purchased for just such a challenge. Within a half hour we had plane tickets purchased for 11 p.m., a room reserved in Crete and our car rental re-negotiated...all from a cafe in Piraeus.  We got back on the Metro we had just gratefully left and started the long, horrible trek back to the airport. 

 

By now it was around 8 p.m. Athens airport seems to lack helpful signage. It took way longer than it should have for us to find our airline desk. We ate pre-made sandwiches (my least favorite) and found our gate. We left late in a packed airplane. We arrived late and baggage claim took forever. Matt's bag was the last bag off. It just felt like one of those days. We got a taxi to drive us to our hotel and on the way, there was lightning and then the heavens opened up into a heavy downpour. We arrived to our hotel wet and exhausted. The desk clerk told us they never get weather like this but it should clear up tomorrow. I hope so. We went back to bed, grateful that this day was over.