Fri Oct 11, 2024
Hi All! We stayed in the same country again today. Lame! Lol. We were docked in the town of Volos in Greece. We took a tour to the Volos museum and to the hilltop village of Makrinitsa.
Volos is a coastal port city on the Greek mainland between Athens and Thessaloniki. It has a population of 86,000. Modern Volos is built on the area of the ancient cities of Demetrias, Pagasae and Iolcos.
Iolcuswas known in mythology as the homeland of the hero Jason, who boarded the ship Argoaccompanied by the Argonautsand sailed in quest of the Golden Fleece to Colchis. He did that as a test from his uncle to see if he could be king. He did get the Golden Fleece and became king.
However the craziest part of the story is that Jason met a woman there who was a witch named Madeira and fell in love with her. He married her and had several children with her. But Jason cheated on his wife Madeira and when he did she killed all their children. Ouch!
The first part of the tour went to the Volos museum. This is one of the oldest areas of Greece (from 7,000 BC) so they had lots of artifacts from back in that day that were basic clay pots and these cool little figurines of the local people. They also showed some of the basic jewelry they made back then. Did you know way back then they painted their roofs? Very cool!
We then went to the hilltop village of Makrinitsa. It was a very quaint place with just one road in. Legend has it that this is where Greek gods went for summer vacation. Since the 12th century AD, no one lived here but the Gods. So what changed that brought people up here?
First, pirates started raiding the coast so it was not safe to be on the coast. Also, the Ottoman Empire started moving west and they were Muslims and the Greeks were Christians. So people from all over came to live up here to both practice their own religion and not pay taxes to the Muslims.
They first started by building monasteries and then built villages around them. Now it’s the most populated place in the area.
And Makrinitsa means village far off (since it’s the last village of the mountain). And the other cool thing about this area is that they can be on the beach in the morning and ski in the afternoon. Wild!
After the tour we came back and chilled and had our afternoon snack of popcorn. We then got ready early since tonight they did the “Block Party” before dinner. It’s where everyone comes out in the hall to meet their “neighbors”. We went and met some really nice neighbors!
I’ll post another update after dinner. TGIF to all!
The Wandering Italian 