016: Meteora Monasteries Visit and Family Skiing on a Budget in Greece

There’s no sailing in this blog but we did get to explore the snow-capped mountains that we could see from our boat in Lefkas Marina.

We hired a car and headed for the hills – an easy journey as there were hardly any cars on the road, so we wound our way through tunnels to Metsovo, a small, alpine-like village with cobbled streets and cute houses.

We spoilt ourselves by getting a room in a homely hotel with great people and treated ourselves tp takeaways and baths every night! It was probably about four months since any of us had had a bath – that’s one of the things you really miss on a boat – you have a shower but no bath.

We headed for the famous monasteries at Meteora – a UNESCO World Heritage Site which consists of six monasteries built on top of massive stone pillars well away from civilization.

If you’re female you have to borrow one of their fashionable skirts to cover up the lower part of your body out of modesty and respect. The kids were spooked a bit by the collection of skulls and bones but thought the monastery was really impressive.

We had to wind through little paths and cut through the rock tunnels to get to the monasteries – I wouldn’t say the kids enjoyed all the walking but they certainly got their weekly exercise in that day!

The next morning we had a traditional rustic breakfast with Kalamta olives and spinach pie then tried to find information on skiing – but there wasn’t much at all. We finally worked out that there were some small slopes further up the mountains – they didn’t take cards so we scraped up just enough cash for ski hire and lift pass.

It’s quite a struggle for a young child to learn how to ski because it’s really tiring on their muscles, so just before our youngest was ready to give up we switched to the toboggans – then situation completely changed – in fact it became quite competitive between parents and kids!

The next day we discovered that there were bigger ski lifts higher up the mountains in Anilio ski resort – a 30 minutes drive from Metsovo – with freshly groomed snow. Some liveavord friends – Julie and Simon were also in the area and offered to help teach the kids as Simon was a qualified ski instructor!

There weren’t many people at the resort and we almost had the place to ourselves – a bit like booking a private ski slope.

Our youngest had another go and was much better learning from someone other than his parents. So, it finally clicked with him and he also learned how to use the button lift by himself.

By the end of the second day we were skiing as a family but had to say goodbye to Simon and Julie as they were heading off. We were so grateful for their help that day.

The next day we couldn’t resist and came back again – trying the smaller slopes and practicing what they’d learned before getting on the chair lift to the top of the mountain to try more challenging slopes! The view from the top was spectacular and we could see all the way to the Pindos mountain range.

We saw the tracks of big brown bears in the freshly fallen snow and our youngest worried about getting eaten but then thought that Mon and Dad getting eaten would be awesome.

We like taking risks and stepping outside our comfort zone so we went for it, and skied all the way down, then for a bit of excitement we created some jumps too.

Once our youngest had his confidence, there was no stopping him and we hardly saw him after that.

It felt like we were a part of Greek elite society in the resort but the price was very reasonable – 25 euros for all day ski hire and adult lift pass and for kids it was 15 euros.. and no queues at all. Greece isn’t a place you’d normally think about skiing but we’d recommend it. It’s fantastic for the kids, they don’t have to queue and they can just go up and down on their own as often as they like.

The Corinth canal is closed because some rocks fell into it and we don’t know whether we can easily get to Athens via the southern route, so we’re not really sure where we’re gonna end up in the next blog but we’ll definitely be sailing again!

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