Saturday 15 September - Volos - Mt Pelion excursion

Sunrise: Volos                7:09am

Sunset:                           7:37pm
Forecast:                        31 & partly cloudy      
Steps:                             11,912
I did some hand washing last night and everything was dry this morning when I woke up when the alarm went off at 6am.  After getting myself sorted out for the day, I went down to breakfast just after 7:15am and was surprised to see that I was the first one from our group there. I opted for a hot breakfast today. Eggs, tomato, sausage & mushrooms.

We departed at 9am for todays excursion. The little train of Pelion.

10am everyday (I think) the little train departs from Ano Lehonia Railway Station

 for the ascent on the slopes of Mt. Pelion.

The lovely timber seats. 

One of the views on the way up.

The five arched stone bridge of Kalorema.

The 60cm gauge line, is one of the narrowest in the world and home to the locomotive and it's 4 cars. It has a maximum speed of 20 km/h, stops at Ano Gatzea for 15 minutes and ends in Milies. 

 The trip takes approx 90 minutes.  Once at Milies, they take the engine off the carriages, go forward and then reverse back onto a 2nd track, past the carriages, until they can drive forward onto a 3rd track, where there is a turntable at the end. People then help turn the engine around, it then goes forward along the 3rd track and reverses back along the main track and hooks up to the carriages, ready to go down the mountain again.

Small village part way up the mountain.

Dimitri was waiting for us when we arrived at 12 noon, to take us up to Portoria for a look around and then onto Makrynista, where we had lunch.

Makrynitsa is known as the noble village, because it was mostly inhabited by wealthy people. This is why most of the houses in Makrinitsa are noble mansions, very richly decorated. The village is also known as the balcony of Pelion because of its amazing view due to its location (630m above the sea). The houses have decorated tall walls and window, work of the folk-artists of the region. All the climbing streets of Makrinitsa are stone paved

 and lead to a beautiful large square, shadowed by tall plane trees. The square has cafes, a lovely church dedicated to Agios Ioannis Prodromos and a carved marble fountain, built around 1809 and whose crystal clear waters are called Immortal Water. 

It is one of the "stone" villages. Either the building itself or the roof has to be made of stone.

The small village church

 

We had lunch sitting in front of the building on the right, above the laneway.

Stone roof tiles on one of the houses.

We departed there after lunch at 3:15 and were back at the hotel in Volos around 4.

We then all met again at 7:15, to walk to a local Taverna for our included dinner.

There was a red sunset but I didn't get a photo over water.

One small bottle of Greek 'tsipouro' was on the house

 and many small dishes of food followed.  I didn't take photos of the food before we ate but the following are of what was left over, that we couldn't finish off.

We finished up there around 9:30ish and walked back to the hotel.  A lovely night for a stroll.

We are doing an excursion to the Monasteries of Meteora tomorrow and I'm looking forward to that.

Night all.