Thessaloniki to Trikala: Day 1 (10/19/19)
Lucky that I got up super early this morning to catch my bus becuase it turned out that where I bought the ticket yesterday (like 40 euro by the way, super expensive for a 3 hour bus) is not actually where I go to get on the bus. That would be 4 km (2 mi) away, so i had to flag down a taxi and just cough up the money to make it in time. The driver took a look at my ticket, glanced at the clock, and then put the pedal to the floor. Pretty sure he spend 90% of the drive egregiously speeding and weaving between cars but by god he got me to the bus station in time! So I couldn’t be too mad about the equally egregious price he charged.
I found my bus and rode about 3 hours to Trikala, a relatively small rural town of about 130,000 people that sits just south of Meteora and will be serving as my home / base of operations for the next few days. I got off a little too early and had to walk a ways to my hostel but I honestly didn’t care, I got off at the right town and that’s a win in my book! I checked into my room at Nomads Rooms, an old hostel by the look of it. They didn’t even have a computerized check in, it was all done on a pad of paper and in cash!
It was still fairly early so I went out for a walk around town even though I knew it was going to be a hella hot day. I wandered up to the Castle of Trikala where there were quite a few teenage couples skipping school to snog away in the afternoon heat. The castle ground offered a good view of the city so I sat down to eat the pulled-porklunch I bought yesterday before being told off by a park worker. There were a lot of hand gestures and pointing, but I did eventually find a place where I was allowed to eat a few hundred feet downhill. The area was rather … occupied by couples however and absolutely swarming with bees that wanted a taste of my lunch and me so I ate as fast as I could.
Surviving that, I wandered around the catle grounds for a but before heading downhill to the Old Town and then back uphill behind the castle to check out the tallest point in town and the zoo. A solid hike, absolutely boiling out in the sun, but a welcome escape from the crowds around the castle. The zoo was closed so I just went back through the old town and took a walk around the north side of town until 6pm when I got back to the hostel (turns out I wandered a bit farther than I thought) and chatted with my two roommates; both are motorcyclists from Denmark and L.A. respectively. The guy from Denmark, Alan, is on his way out of Greece towards Istanbul, Turkey which is my next destination too! We exchanged numbers in case we want to meet up and do some hiking near Istanbul!
I still had leftovers from lunch and some bread from Thessaloniki that I rounded off for dinner. I’m still amazed how cheap it is to eat here in Greece, a whole day of food is the equivalent 5 or 6 dollars.
