Aziz Aga Bridge

This afternoon we took a drive on our way back to the village from Grevena to the Aziz Aga bridge which was built by the Ali Pasha as part of the caravan route that ran through the area. It is the highest single arched bridge in Greece, reaching 53 ft at its highest point and has a span of 92 feet and is 246 ft long. It's about half an hour from the village in the middle of fields with a small river flowing beneath it. Peaceful. We stood there and tried to imagine the caravans passing over this bridge hundreds of years ago on their way to or from Constantinople or Thessaloniki, hours and hours of walking behind them and hours more ahead. Quite different from our journey through the tunnels that's for sure!

30 Tunnels to the Beach

Thirty tunnels, a handful of bridges and two hours later we were at the beach on the coast of Epirus, something that a few years ago would have been unimaginable. That drive used to be 4-5 hours of white-knuckled, cliff-hugging roads where every pass of a truck was a life-threatening risk. Now, you speed through on a double laned highway literally through the mountains. Yet, as amazingly quick and (safer) as it is, a part of me misses the breathtaking beauty and the sleepy villages the old road wound through. Now, you only see snippets of scenery between tunnels as you race through at 130 km/h. That's progress, I guess...we're all in a hurry to get from point A to B, and we forget to enjoy the journey between the two.

We're here!

Yup! I'm officially excited now! We arrived on Thursday and two nights in Athens at Tom and Sandra's house (Yanni's godparents). On Friday the three of us took the subway downtown to see the Acropolis up close while Gus went to deal with our car situation. The first one they gave us was way to small to carry us and our luggage so he had to try and find another, larger one. We spent a beautiful day walking to the top of the acropolis to see the Parthenon up close and then visited the new museum which was breathtaking! It was hot but with a refreshing breeze, so it was more than bearable. On Saturday we made the six hour drive up north to Kipourio (Gus' village) and made it thankfully without having to fill up on gas. The trucks that deliver gas to the gas stations have been on strike for a few days. We passed only two during the six hour drive that were pumping gas and both of them had huge lineups, with cars at the end of the lines being pushed by their drivers! We'll be here now until the 12th.