February 19, 2026 – McKinney Gypsy Caravan

We had breakfast at the hotel we were at for just one night. I had booked a family room, but they actually gave us two whole hotel rooms with connecting doors, so Norah got her whole own hotel room. Breakfast was good there, too. Better than American continental… but still just some random items-but plenty.

There was a view of the Acropolis from the breakfast room.

We gathered our things and walked down the block to the Enterprise rental car spot and spent 40 minutes to get the keys to the car. While we were waiting we got to watch a guy on a motorcycle wreck on the corner…luckily he was OK.

After getting the keys, we were off on our way. I had to drive out of Athens, of course 🙂

This is our rental. Small 4 door hybrid with what feels like a lawn mower engine, but it gets great fuel mileage! Norah was super pumped about her crank windows in the back seat. haha

The drive north was a couple of hours of towns and mountains and it was a pretty drive with little towns and sites along the way.

Our first destination was the Holy Monastery of Hosios Loukas. A world heritage site from the 11th century on the side of Mt. Helicon.

We went under the church to the burial crypt where there are amazing frescos- the best preserved of the Byzantine era in Greece.

Inside the main church- the first in Greece with the square cross and dome design- there are amazing mosaics – very much like the ones in St. Mark’s in Venice. Wikipedia says these are from the “Macedonian Renaissance” but when I try to wiki that term, it just shows photos of the Hosios Loukas monastery. lol

The monastery site was built where a hermit called St. Lukas lived in the late 900s. His bones are still in the second church on the site on display.

The monastery was very prosperous because it was said that the body of St Lukas leached perfumed oil that could heal and people would travel to the site and sleep under and around the tomb for healing. (Sounds like a scam to me… some monk was running a scam for sure lol)

After the monastery, we were back on the road north to try to reach the ancient site of Delphi before it closed at 3:30pm.

We arrived around 2:30 with last entry to the ruins at 2:50 and last entry to the museum at 3:10… so we had to hustle. No big deal…just hiking up a mountain in twenty minutes. ha

The site of Delphi was considered the center of the ancient world and was where the great Oracle of Delphi, a priestess, offered wisdom and advised on all major decisions for kings and leaders as well as normal everyday people who travelled there.

The first major site on the way up to the other sites was the Agora. This would have been right outside the sanctuary walls and where travelers could have purchased statues or offerings to the gods to leave at the site.

Next up the pathway we came to the Athenian Treasury. Built to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Marathon in 390BC over the Persian invasion. (This is also where the term Marathon comes from for a race. The legend is that a soldier ran the full distance from Marathon to Athens after the battle – uttered the Greek word for “We won” and promptly collapsed and died. So now we run a marathon in his honor.

Looking out from Mt. Parnassus at the surrounding area. If you look closely, you can see the Temple of Athena and the gymnasium below- but those sites are currently closed due to a rock fall.

This is the site where a 30 foot tall Sphinx of Naxos stood. It was a grandiose offering to the Oracle in 560BC from the people of the island of Naxos. A giant winged sphinx with the head of a woman carved from Naxian marble. An inscription on the base says that the people of Naxos were honored with “promanteia” or the privilege of priority at receiving an Oracle if they were to visit Delphi. (the Sphinx itself is below in photos from the museum)

In the Temple of Apollo is where the Oracle would have been. She would have been in a closed off space with- as legend has it – a deep fissure was formed in the base of the temple. This was where Apollo slay the python and cast him into the depths… and the Oracle would inhale the vapors from this fissure and would give advice and foresight. Two theories exist on if the vapors truly were hydrocarbons from the Earth. (This is a volcanic area and certain vapors like ethane would cause extreme visions and hallucinations) – or if access was restricted because they were burning cannabis, oleander or other herbs to induce hallucinations and expanded reality.

From here, Norah and I had to wave Kegan on up the hill to see the rest. We were huffing and puffing and he still had some steam. So he headed on up to the last site to see the Stadium that hosted the famous Pythian games every 4 years. He photographed it for us 🙂

The stadium could seat 6500 spectators. The Pythian games were second only to the Olympic games in importance.

The Sphinx of Naxos I wrote about above.

The silver bull that was discovered – a hammered and forged silver and gold bull as an offering that was given at the site. Only pieces of the metal have been recovered- it would have been a wood core, covered in a malleable material like clay and then hammered silver and gold covering the entire sculpture creating an illusion of a solid metal bull.

One of the most famous and oldest ancient bronze sculptures that survives today. The Charioteer from 470 BC. It is one piece of a much larger sculpture with horses which were all likely melted down throughout history, but this piece survived because it was found under a rockfall in the 1800s.

Selfies after the musuem. We climbed, we saw, we made it just in time. ha

It was back on the road towards our hotel. We decided to stop for snacks a couple hours in at a grocery store in what was likely the last big town before we headed up into the mountains again for the night.

We found one spot still open for dinner. It was very good!

We sat right in front of the wood fire and it was so cozy on a cold mountain night just above freezing by 1 degree.

Kegan had the Casserde Beef in a clay pot. We noticed the local shop was selling these clay pots, so it must be a specialty of this area.

Our hotel room for the evening was the Evora Suites. It was a beautifully remodeled or newly built building with a jacuzzi tub and balcony overlooking the mountains.

I typed up the blog while Norah enjoyed the jacuzzi, we cracked open a bottle of “house wine” George the taxi driver bought us as a gift from a side of the road stand. It was good for $5 wine! But I promptly fell asleep and slept until 8:30am! ha We knew we would sleep in because breakfast was only served 9am-11am here and we had a fairly slow day planned.

View from our balcony in the morning when we could actually enjoy the mountains around.

The breakfast spread was very nice! Especially considering we may have been the only guests for the night! ha

Back on the road for more driving – almost ALL driving- to see more of the mountainous northern Greek areas. Lots of landscape photos today.

Lots of tunnels through the mountains. A couple of them were 3 kms long!

We stumbled on this amazing stone bridge over the Portaikos river at Pyli, built in the 1500s during the Ottoman era and until the 1930s its was the only connection between the plains and the Pindus moutain villages.

We spotted these giant mountain rocks in the distance and were like, whoa…what is THAT? Turns out it was Meteora- a famous site we were supposed to visit tomorrow… but since we took a different road towards our hotel, we ended up right through here… and since the Ioannina sites we were SUPPOSED to see today close at 3:30 and we were likely going to arrive to town around 3pm, we decided to detour into Meteora today and see the Ioannina sites tomorrow morning.

The caves in Meteora have been inhabited for 50,000 years. There are caves with proof of Neanderthal to human transitions as well as Ice age to iron age transitions.

Monks were living in the caverns as early as 800AD, but when the invading Turks attacks increased, the monks were looking for more protection. They created homes on top of rocks with ladders that could be removed to give themselves more protection. Eventually stone steps were added after a couple hundred years that today make the monasteries more accessible. There were 24 monasteries here at one time- only 6 remain today, most from the 1300s to 1500s.