Uzbekistan | Bukhara | Ismael Samani Mausoleum

From Komil’s Guesthouse I wandered over to Ismael Samani’s Mausoleum on the western edge of town ( N39°46'37.10' / E64°24'2.59', three quarters of a mile from the center of town, the center being for our purposes the square between the Kalon Mosque and the Mir-i-Arab Madrassa). The mausoleum is the oldest building in Bukhara and one of the oldest buildings in Inner Asia. The foundations of the Magok-i-Attari Mosque in Bukhara, originally part of a pre-Islamic Zoroastrian or perhaps even Buddhist temple, may be older, but the original building was destroyed by fire in 937. It was rebuilt in the 12th century, only to be heavily damaged during on the Mongol Assault On The City in the spring of 1220. Apparently only the eleventh-century southern-facing facade has survived intact down to the present day. The Ismael Samani Mausoleum dates from probably the first decade of the the tenth century—it was already completed when Ismael, who consolidated the power of the Samanid Dynasty and made Bukhara its capital, died in 907—and survived the later Mongol onslaught with little if any damage. Thus it is one of two pre-Mongol invasion structures in Bukhara—the other being the Kalon Minaret—which have survived basically undamaged down to the present day. Don’t worry, I will have more to say on the Magok-i-Attari Mosque and the Kalon Minaret in good time; for the moment I will focus on the Ismael Samani Mausoleum.

The mausoleum is a near-perfect cube topped by a dome, measuring 35 feet on each side, with four identical facades which incline inward just slightly. The structure incorporates pre-Islamic Sogdian elements, such as the heavy three-quarter inset columns built into each corner, and Sassanian features like the four small ovoid domes at the corners of the roof, while at the same time introducing new designs, such as the so-called chortak system of supporting the dome. “The problem of setting the dome over a square chamber,” reckons architectural history Edgar Knobloch, “is here carried beyond the simple solution of Parthian and Sassanian times. Consisting of three supporting arches which curve down from the crown of the arch to the walls, the squinch carries the thrust of the dome downward—rather like a Gothic flying buttress.” These new architectural features might well be the product of advances in geometry and mathematics by al-Khorezmi (the Father of Algebra, (780-850) and other leading lights of the intellectual florescence in Mawarannahr and Khorezm in the ninth and tenth centuries.  

What is most readily apparent to the casual observer, however, is the complex brickwork designs on the outer faces of the six and a half foot-thick walls and the corner columns. These have no real precedent in any other surviving Inner Asian buildings, and it would be hard to find their match in any subsequent brick monuments. The extruding bricks in the walls also creates shadows which change the appearance of the designs as the sun moves moves across the sky. On overcast days, when the sun casts no shadows, the building assumes yet another aspect. 

Accounts of the mausoleum over the years mention various tombs inside the mausoleum, including those of Ismael himself, his father Ahmed, his nephew Nasr, and others, but at the moment there only one coffin present. It is not clear if this is Ismael’s tomb, or if it is, whether his body is still inside. 

The Ismael Samani Mausoleum was in its earliest days in the middle of a vast cemetery. Historians believe that it was half-buried in sand and gravel by the time the Mongols arrived in the 1220 and thus escaped their notice. Since it was in the middle of a cemetery it may have also been protected from the fires which ravaged most of the wooden structures and destroyed even the brick buildings in the main part of the city. The building was still nearly buried in sand and debris when it was discovered by a Russian archeologist in 1934. The graves in the surrounded graveyard were later relocated or covered over and the area was turned into Kirov Park, which in addition to the mausoleum and another historic building, the Chasma Ayub, or Spring of Job, he of Afflictions notoriety, now features a ferris wheel and other fairground attractions. 

Ismael Samani Mausoleum 

 Ismael Samani Mausoleum 

 Ismael Samani Mausoleum 

Ismael Samani Mausoleum 

 Brickwork designs on the corner columns

 Small ovoid domes on the corners may harken back to Sassanian designs

 Dome of the mausoleum

 Window with brickwork grill

 Window with brickwork grill

 Tomb inside the mausoleum, perhaps that of Amir Ismael (r. 892 - 907)

Another view of the Mausoleum

Mongolia | Gov-Altai Aimag | Camel Trip | Tsenkher Gov | Solongo

The second day we continued south through the Tsenkher Gov. There was no wind at all and quite warm. Indeed in the afternoon it got downright hot and soon even the flies came out and started bothering our camels. This was not at all what I was expecting. During previous camel trips in the Gobi during the first two weeks of October I had experienced numerous days of frigid temperatures and ferocious winds. Now I began to worry that our goat meat might spoil in the heat. Brother Duit and Sukhee allowed that it had been an unusually warm autumn so far. Whether it had anything to do with Global Warming they did not know. 

Continuing across the Tsenkher Gov

At 6:30 in the evening we camped for the night, having covered 36.2 kilometers (22.5 miles) that day. The sky was clear when I turned in, but at about two in the morning I woke up and noticed that it had clouded over completely and not a single star was visible. Also the temperature was falling and the wind was rising. When I got up at six to start the fire I flung on my winter deel which I had not worn yet on this trip but was using as a blanket over my sleeping bag. By 7:22 when the sun rose it was 20º F and the wind was blowing steadily at about 30 to 40 miles an hour. The sky was pewter gray with ragged black clouds scudding overhead. The weather seemed to affect the mood of the camels, who bawled and snorted and several times jumped up while they were being loaded, scattering our gear in all directions. Finally by nine we were back on the trail, everyone wearing their winter deels except for Sister Dulya, who opted for insulated pants and a stylish ski jacket. Since the pack camels seemed still unruly Sukhee said he would walk his camel for the first couple kilometers and lead the two pack camels by hand. Brother Duit, Sister Dulya, and Solongo followed on their camels and I brought up the rear. 

Solongo, left, on her white camel

As usual in the morning I let my camel slow down until the others were a hundred meters or so ahead and began to recite mantras—in the case the familiar OM MANI PADME HUM—while counting them off on my mala. I always did this for the first hour or so on trail as a way of settling into the day. We were passing through ridges of black, crumbly slate and soon the others were out of sight. The wind had picked up considerably, now blowing maybe sixty miles per hour, and it had gotten even colder. The ragged strips of clouds streaming overhead seemed to mirror the black shale underfoot. Ravens wheeled overhead, gliding with the wind and then tacking into it. My camel seemed nervous and kept tossing its head left and right, every so often turning around to give me a baleful look. Then something startled my camel and it leaped forward five or six paces before I could get it under control again. A bit farther on it stopped in its tracks and refused to move until I beat it repeatedly on its hind flanks with my lead rope. 

Coming around a high outcrop of black shale I noticed Sister Dulya and Brother Duit standing by their camels. At their feet sat Solongo. She was hunched over with her head hanging down. When I reached them Sister Dulya explained that Solongo’s camel, the only white one in the bunch, had thrown her and that she had fallen on her head and shoulder. Dulya tried to talk to her but she just kept mumbling that she could not move her right arm. We wrestled her out of her winter deel and Brother Duit carefully felt her arm and shoulder. Nothing seemed to be broken, but her arm was completely immobile. Also, she had a nasty bump on the back of head, but the skin was not broken. We rigged up a sling from Sister Dulya’s long wool scarf, put Solongo’s arm in it, and then tried to get her to stand up. She said her head was spinning and at first she could not get up, but finally we managed to get her to her feet. 

Sukhee had gone on ahead with the pack animals and was already out of sight when Solongo’s camel threw her. Apparently he was unaware that anything had happened. Brother Duit said we should try to catch up with him as soon as possible, since he had all of our food, water, and camping gear. We might have to camp for the day and allow Solongo to rest. Solongo would ride his camel and he would ride the Solongo’s white camel, which still seemed spooked. He made the white camel kneel and swung himself on. The camel got to its feet normally, but as soon as it was standing it went completely berserk again. Camels are normally such placid creatures that it is always a shock to see how out of control they can get when they finally freak out. The camel began bucking like a bull in a rodeo, all four feet off the ground as it twisted and contorted itself in mid-air. Brother Duit didn’t have a chance. The camel bucked him off and he went flying through the air like a rag doll, finally coming to rest on a heap of sharp shale shards.   When he stood up his face and the front of his deel was covered with blood. It was an eerie reenactment of what had happened to his Brother Tsogoo on My Last Camel Trip. After throwing Brother Duit off the white camel had trotted off at full speed and soon disappeared between the black ridges. WIthout even pausing to wipe the blood off his face Brother Duit leaped on his own camel and went off in pursuit of the white camel. 

That left Sister Duit, Solongo, and myself. We were standing in an completely exposed area in sixty mile an hour winds. And there was not a stick of firewood anywhere in the immediate area. About a half mile away I notice some high cliffs with some saksaul bushes at their base. There I thought we might be able to get out of the wind, get a fire going, and get some hot tea into Solongo. Tea is my solution for just about every problem. Solongo wasn’t talking, but when we asked if she could walk to the cliffs she nodded yes. Sister Dulya and I walked our camels. To have any kind of accident and have another camel run off would be a real disaster at this point. 

Among the boulders at the base the cliff we were out of the worse of the wind. Soon I had brewed up a pot of Puerh tea and we lunched on sausage and fried bread. Solongo still could not move her arm at all, but at least she was soon able to talk. She said she had no idea what had gotten into her camel. Like the rest of the camels it had seemed a bit nervous that morning. Then for no apparent reason it just freaked out completely. She said she had landed first on her shoulder and then her head had bounced off a large chunk of slate. Her head still throbbed. We threw out a camel blanket for her and let her lie down to rest. Soon she appeared to be asleep.

Sister Dulya, never one to waste a moment, get out a needle and heavy black thread and began repairing the various rips and tears that had already appeared in some of our duffle bags. I went off and sat by myself. I could not help but wonder if this problem with the white camel was not somehow my fault. Originally the white camel had been meant for me. When Tsogoo had first told us that he had rounded up seven camels for our trip, I had half-jokingly asked if he had gotten a white camel for me. He replied that no, all seven of them were standard brown camels. Too bad, I said, I usually ride white camels. 

My white camel, right of center, from an earlier camel trip

On one of My First Trip Camel Trips I had been doing research on the notorious bandit and warlord Dambijantsan, who was also known as “The Two White Camel Lama” because of his habit of always riding a white camel and leading one white pack camel. The local camel men, who I had questioned extensively about Dambijantsan, had given me a white camel to ride, explaining that since I was so interesting in Dambijantsan I should ride a white camel also. This become a kind of tradition for me, and on several subsequent camel trips I had also ridden white camels. Camel men had even called me “One White Camel Don.” It was no big deal, however, and when Tsogoo saId he had seven brown camels for us I certainly did not tell him to get me a white camel. When he showed up with the camels at our starting point of Zakhyn Us, however, he had six brown camels and one white camel. He explained that he had gone out and rounded up the white camel just for me. It had not yet been ridden that year and was a bit wild, so I should let his daughter Solongo, who he knew was very experienced with camels, ride it the first day or two. 

By the third day, today, I had forgotten all about the white camel business and Solongo had ridden the white camel as usual. Then it had thrown her off and now she was hurt. The white camel should never have been on the trip in the first place. There is a legend that anything connected with Dambijantsan turns out badly—the so-called “Curse of Dambijantsan,” and sitting there by myself among the rocks at the base of the cliff with a black raven wheeling and cawing overhead—there is another legend that the spirit of Dambijantsan to this day rides on the winds of the Gobi in the corporeal form of a raven—I could not help but wonder if the Curse had struck again. 

Solongo’s white camel 

An hour or so later Brother Duit came back. He had been unable to track down the white camel. And now Sukhee was far out ahead of us somewhere, unaware that anything had happened. First Brother Duit would have to go get him and bring him and our supplies back to where we were now. Brother Duit and Sukhee and the pack camels did not return for another two hours. They then decided they would go again and together try to find the white camel. Three hours later they returned. The white camel was gone and would probably return by itself to Tsogoo’s herd about seventy kilometers to the north. It had however thrown off its saddle and they did find that. Solongo said she was able to ride so we decided to continue on. Sukhee put her saddle over the top of the load on one of the pack camels and she climbed aboard, her arm still in a sling. We had only traveled four kilometers that morning before the accident. Starting again we soon crossed a low pass in the slate hills and came out onto the Nomin Gov, the fourth of the govs we would travel through. We rode until the sun went down and managed to cover another 18.1 kilometers before camping.

Sister Dulya did the cooking that night. Solongo sat on a corner of the carpet with her arm in a sling. Finally she told us a little more about the accident. She said that after landing on her shoulder she sat up, only to discover that she was unable to breath. She had of course had the wind knocked out of her, a common occurrence for those playing the rougher sports, but one which had never happened to her before. Unable to draw a breath she had the sudden premonition that she was about to die. “It was so strange,” she said. “I was thinking, I am so young, I have hardly lived. There are so many things I have never done and have never experienced. And now I never will. How strange life is, and how strangely it ends! I am going to die here in the desert, in this empty place surrounded by black hills. Who could have imagined my life would end like this? Then I started to see everything that would have happened if only I had lived. Everything I could have been, everything I could have done, passed before my eyes. Then I started to black out.” At that point she fell backwards. Lying on her back she suddenly discovered that she could breath again. After a couple shallow breaths she was able to take a deep breath, and she realized that she might not die after all. We asked her about what she had seen, what she could be and what she could do if only she had the chance, but she said she did not want to talk about it. She was silent the rest of the evening. 

Solongo, all smiles before the accident

Italy | Venice | St. Mark’s Basilica | Four Horses

Of all the treasures looted by Doge Enrico Dandolo and the Venetians during the sack of Constantinople in 1204 perhaps the most famous are the four horses now on display in St. Mark’s Basilica Museum in Venice. Where these horses were originally made and by whom is a matter of great scholarly debate. I intend to investigate this matter in due course. For the moment suffice it to say that they eventually ended up on top of one of the gates of the immense stadium in Constantinople known as the Hippodrome. After being seized by the Venetians in 1204 they stood for centuries on the facade of St. Mark’s Basilica. When Napoleon Bonaparte seized Venice in 1797 he had them carted off the Paris, a fittingly prize for what he considered to be the new center of world civilization. After the Little General met his Waterloo they were returned to Venice and placed back on the facade of St. Mark’s. Air pollution from industries on the mainland, however, wrecked havoc on the copper statues. In the 1970s copies were made and placed on the facade. The originals are now in the museum on the second floor of the basilica, just behind the facade. 

Artist’s rendering of the Hippodrome in Constantinople. It seated about 100,000 people. The four horses were probably atop the center gate at the upper right of the photo. The Hippodrome is gone but many of the monuments in the center can still be seen today (click on photos for enlargements).

Artist’s rendering of the gate, center, with the horses atop

The area where the Hippodrome stood is now occupied by Sultanahmet Square. The photo was taken roughly where the gate stood that supported the horses. The obelisk in the middle of the photo can be seen in the artist’s rendering above.

St. Mark’s Basilica

Facade of St. Mark’s Basilica

Horses on the loggia of St. Mark’s Basilica

Another view of the horses on the loggia of St. Mark’s Basilica

The horses of St. Mark’s Basilica

The horses of St. Mark’s Basilica

The horses of St. Mark’s Basilica

The horses of St. Mark’s Basilica

The original horses now the Basilica museum. Not my photo. If you take photos in the museum you are thrown into the cell that legendary lover Casanova once occupied in the dungeon of the nearby Ducal Palace.

Horse’s view of St. Mark’s Square

Horse’s view of St. Mark’s Square

Horse’s view of the Ducal Palace. Casanova was once locked up here. He was under arrest for being a world-class cad and an insufferable douchebag.

St. Mark atop his basilica

St. Mark: “Oh Lord, what have I wrought?”

St. Mark’s at twilight

Cyprus | Paphos | Moon | Aphrodite

Carnival begins in Venice on Jan. 27 but people start celebrating early. When I saw the first people in masks in Campo St. Bartholomew I hurried back to my hotel room and booked the next flight to Athens via Istanbul. Took the 7:32 am water bus to the airport the next morning. The Visa Flap with Turkey is over. All they did was raise the prices. Before an electronic visa was $20; now they are $70. I had a five hour layover in Istanbul so I took the Metro downtown to change money. The exchange rates in Venice are nothing short of larcenous. On Divan Yolu in Istanbul there are at least a dozen currency exchanges all competing against one another. Asking at half a dozen places the best offer I got for $1000 was 810 Euros. This was very close to the official exchange rate on the internet. The best offer I had in Venice was 750 Euros for $1000. And in Venice you have to present your passport and fill out a form which even asks for your address in the States. Like I have an address in the States! On Divan Yolu, of course, no one asks to see anything but your money.

I was going to stroll around the Sultanahmet area for awhile, but it was raining and a chill wind was blowing off the Sea of Marmara. I was wearing only a Mongolian cashmere sweater and no hat. So I took the Metro back to the airport and spent the rest of the layover in the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, which as business lounges go is quite luxurious. Unlimited baklava! Actually I am flying economy, since on Turkish Airlines you can buy an exit row seat and the extra space was all I needed. But I am a Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles Elite Gold Card holder so I get to use the Business Lounge even when flying economy. This is just one of the perks. Also priority check-in, priority boarding, and in Istanbul a special express lane through immigration, which is really handy. I have flown over 200,000 miles on Turkish Airlines the last four years, which is how I got the Gold Card. Those round-trip Ulaanbaatar-Istanbul miles—the equivalent of half-way around the world—add up fast.

Arrived in Athens around 9:00 pm local time. My portmanteau came out first on the luggage carousel—another Gold Card perk!—and I caught the Metro downtown.  Back once again at my Favorite Hotel literally in the shadow of the Acropolis. This place is a bit of a mystery. I would proffer that it was the best location of any hotel in Athens. The back entrance to the Acropolis is only a couple hundred feet away. A few hundred feet in the opposite direction is a square lined with restaurants. Monastery Square, a big shopping hub, is only a ten minute walk away. But this hotel always seems to have rooms. Admittedly the place is a bit down at the heels and the rooms are tiny. Couples might find them a bit cramped, unless they intend to spend their entire stay in bed, but for misanthropes like myself there is no problem. And the bathroom is even tinier; it also serves as a shower. There is a shower drain in the floor. But the luggage platform and the dresser have gorgeous white marble tops that many people would die for. I like to think it is the same marble they used for the Parthenon.

Next morning I took the Metro back out to the airport and caught the flight to Cyprus. In Larnaka flowers are in bloom, there are oranges and lemons on the trees, and the famous pink flamingos are back in the lake by the side of the road from the airport. I stopped by my Armenian tailor to have new shirts made. He has my measurements on file but he took them again to see if there were any changes. It turns out my waistline is four inches less than three years ago. And I have been consciously eating more in an attempt to keep my weight up to fighting trim. To no avail, it appears. It is a constant struggle to keep body and soul together. 

The following morning I took the bus to Paphos, at the western end of Cyprus Island. Paphos is, of course, the birthplace of Aphrodite. While in Paphos I hope to celebrate the Super Blue Full Blood Moon happening on January 31. Fasten your seat belts, people, it’s going to be a wild ride!

My hotel in Paphos

Italy | Venice | We Crociferi

From Kastraki I took the train to Athens, where I once again stayed at my Favorite Hotel in the city. I could not resist climbing the Hill of the Muses again for another view of the Acropolis and the Parthenon.

The Acropolis, topped by the Parthenon (click on photos for enlargements)

The Parthenon. Unfortunately it always seems to be under repair.

The Acropolis at night, from the balcony of my hotel. The Parthenon is not visible from this angle.

Then took an early morning flight to Istanbul. Would have loved to stop for some mutton kebabs at the take-out place next to my Favorite Hotel in Istanbul, but of course I cannot enter Turkey because of the recent Visa Snafu. So I caught a connecting flight to Venice. The plane left Ataturk Airport in Istanbul at 5:36 p.m. It was dark at ground level when we took off, but we emerged from the low, heavy cloud cover just in time to see the sun sinking halfway below the horizon, now banded with fiery reddish-orange light that gradually faded into a dome of deep cobalt blue. For the next hour or so we chased the sun westward. Several times it reappeared above the horizon only to sink again. We finally lost the race with the sun and arrived at the predictably named Marco Polo Airport in total darkness at 5:50 local time, for a flight of two hours and fourteen minutes. There is no line at Immigration and my portmanteau is the second piece of luggage to emerge on the conveyor belt.

Marco Polo Airport has undergone major remodeling since I was here last. A fifteen minute walk on a new sky-bridge ends at the dock where water-buses now leave for the island of Murano and Venice itself.  From the water-bus it is impossible to make out anything in the dark and the fog. After about thirty minutes the lights of Murano Island water-bus stop appear out of the gloom. A half dozen people get off and we continue on another fifteen minutes to the  Fondamente Nuove stop on the north side of Venice itself. I am the only person getting off. Most passengers are continuing on to the hotels around St. Mark’s Square, on the south side of Venice, which offer more convenient access the city’s more famous sights. During the day numerous water buses to the airport, outlying islands, and other parts of Venice itself all converge here, and the walkway, lined with ticket vendors and attendant kiosks selling selling water, snacks, and souvenirs is usually bustling with transients. Now the Fondamente Nuove is eerily quiet. I look up and down the 800-yard long fog-shrouded walkway and do not see a single person; it appears as if the city is  deserted. 

I veer off Fondamente Nuove onto Salizzada dei Specchieri (street of the looking-glass makers), which is also suspiciously, forbiddingly empty. After a hundred yards or the eight massive  Corinthian columns that make the facade of the Church of the Gesuiti (Jesuits) rear up out of the gloom on my left. Above the entablature carried by the columns statues of the twelve apostles and assorted angels appear out of the fog. I get the discombobulating feeling that they are gazing down in judgment at the lone wanderer on the street below. Not that I am the first to be put off by these statues. W. D. Howells (1837–1920), erstwhile editor of the “Atlantic Monthly” and author of Venetian Life (1866), observed that “the sight of those theatrical angels, with their shameless, unfinished backs, flying off the top of the rococo façade of the church of the Jesuits, has always been a spectacle to fill me with despondency and foreboding.” A later observer, James Lees-Milne, in his Venetian Evenings, noted: “To my mind these statues look more like lost souls about to throw themselves in despair to the bottomless pit, only prevented from doing so by the rusted iron bands which tie their loose limbs together and keep them in.” By now a surprisingly chilly and uncomfortably damp wind is gusting through the street, adding to my discomfiture. The tee-shirt and Mongolian cashmere sweater I had donned that morning in Athens are clearly inadequate.

The Salizzada dei Specchieri opens out into the Campo dei Gesuiti, a long narrow square likewise empty. On the left side of the square, abutting the Church of the Gesuiti, stands an immense white-walled five story building that was once a Jesuit monastery. It has been transformed into both living quarters for students and a hotel for the public. Veering off the square and through a portal I emerge into a huge courtyard lined by a colonnaded passageway. In the courtyard and passageway are huddled groups of people, presumably students, the first humans I have seen since arriving at the Fondamente Nuove. Lady Gaga booms from the sound system of a cafe off to the side, accompanied by a buzz of conversation and laughter. I am back among the living. 

The receptionist assigns me to a room on the fifth floor. You have to use your key card to use the elevator. After passing through three unmarked doors and wandering down several long corridors I finally locate my room in an isolated cul-de-sac. I cannot help but wonder if I have been purposely exiled to this out of way corner of the huge building, away from the younger and more livelier residents. If so, this suites me fine. The last thing I need is some noisy college students next door. According its website the We Crociferi has shared dormitory-style rooms, private rooms with bath, studio rooms, and small apartments complete with kitchens. It is not clear how many of these units it hosts, but the entire facility has 255 beds, all of them singles. The website is quick to point out that these single beds cannot be joined together. Perhaps this is a residual holdover from its days as a Jesuit monastery, and now an attempt to maintain some degree of propriety among the college students who stay here. Some on-line reviews, apparently from adult couples, grouse about the lack of any double beds in the rooms. Why these people find such a problem with a single bed is beyond me. If they want to couple they can do so on a single bed. I have done it more times than I can count. Then they can retire to separate single beds. Or they can just remain in the single bed, which may result in even greater intimacy, since you simply cannot roll over to your own side of the bed after coupling is completed. In any case, my room has three single beds, only one of which I will be using. As far as I know I will not be doing any coupling in Venice.

Room decor is minimalist; gray concrete floors with no carpets or rugs, and whitewashed brick walls. In keeping with its function as student quarters a built-in formica topped desk extends the entire length of the front wall. Study lamps on flex-arms light the desk area, there are no less than eight—eight!—electrical outlets, and the overhead lights are more than adequate. Actually this functional work space, often so sadly lacking in even much more expensive hotels, is the real reason I am staying at the We Crociferi.  As a bonus my room, although isolated, looks directly down on the Campo dei Gesuiti  and has a great view out over the roof tops of Venice, with the dome-topped 182-foot campanile, or bell tower, of the church of Madonna dell’Orto soaring up off in the distance.

The We Crociferi on the right, in daylight

One of three courtyard at the We Crociferi

Courtyard at the We Crociferi

Courtyard at the We Crociferi

Courtyard at the We Crociferi

Arcade at the We Cruciferi

The Church of the Gesuiti, to the left of the We Crociferi. The angels on the facade are less dread-inspiring in the daylight

182-foot campanile, or bell tower, of the church of Madonna dell’Orto visible over the rooftops of Venice

Greece | Thessaly | Meteora | Kastraki

I am staying in the village of Kastraki, which is almost but not quite coterminous with the much larger town of Kalambaka. My hotel is .9 of a mile from the Kalambaka train station. I had intended to walk but just as I started off a downpour ensued. I had already gotten drenched walking to the train station in Thessaloniki but had pretty much dried my clothes with my body heat on the train. I did not want to get soaked again so I took a cab. My hotel, a small guesthouse, actually, is like many such places around here run by a couple who live on the premises. The on-line reviews said they “treat you like family,” which I definitely do not consider a recommendation. I prefer anonymous places with receptionists like those in “American Horror Story: Hotel.” It was one of the cheapest places in the village, however, so I thought I would take my chances with the dreaded “family treatment.” It turned out my fears were ungrounded. After checking in I came and went like a ghost and never saw the owners again for four days. 

The spires and peaks of Meteora loom over Kastraki. I am staying here because the village offers better access on foot to most of the Meteora monasteries than does Kalambaka. It is also much more quiet and laid back than bustling Kalambaka, which caters in large part to big tour groups. Indeed, zoning laws forbid buildings of more than two stories in Kastraki and any new buildings must be made from traditional local materials. This is an apparent attempt to keep out large hotels and maintain Kastraki’s ambience as a traditional Greek village.

On-lines guides rave about the cuisine in Kastraki and there does seem to be an inordinate amount of restaurants for a small village, but the tourist season has peaked and most now appear closed for the winter, even though it is only the last week of November. The one place I do find open at mid-afternoon serves only the most generic Greek grub at ridiculously inflated prices (the house wine, produced locally, is not bad at all, quality-wise, but at €5 a half-liter a little overpriced). Fortunately the village boasts of a fine little bakery with excellent spinach and cheese pies and chocolate croissants. These sluiced down with a bottle of local red wine (€4.00 for three-fourths of a liter) make a sufficient repast, even after a long day’s hiking on the roads and trails out of town.

Kastraki from Great Meteora Monastery (click on photos for enlargements)

Another view of Kastraki

Another view of Kastraki

Another view of Kastraki

Another view of Kastraki

Another view of Kastraki

Small church in Kastraki

Massif behind Kastraki. The cliff face is dotted with caves and fissures that were once inhabited by solitary meditators, anchorites, recluses, and misanthropes.

Another view of the massif

Another view of the massif

Another view of the massif. If you look closely you can just make out the ruins of a hermitage in the exact center of the photo.

Church in Kastraki

Upper Kastraki

Valley above Kastraki