Classical Larissa Imperial Lárisa

... than expected due to us having to take the old roads, which as far as I was concered not a bad thing as they are by the sea and provide excellent scenary. I arrived at 7pm in the town and was greeted by my CS host. We ate a good meal and went to a party in the evening, and spent the proceeding days in this fashion. The city itself is quite lively. I stayed for three days and ventured further east to Volos.

A quiet start to the day, Katerina is all smiles when she sees I'm awake and rustles up coffee and the seasonal honey cakes. Today is the first day I've felt dopey and not so wide awake, so a quiet day is appreciated and I set about updating my journal, a long task. During journal updates a very bleary eyed Renos joins me but soon wakes up enough to start discussing English history, it amazes me to find I know an awful lot ...

... fried, shrimp grilled, so much fresh fish. The Tipero flowed, I had to make a decision, I had driven, I love Tipero, do I keep drinking, leave the car and get a taxi? In the end I decided to enjoy a small Tipero and a lot of food and stay sober to drive the car and avoid logistic nightmares. It's not such a hardship, Nikoleta does a deal with the owner, I am about to become the proud owner of treasure, a 1.5 litre water bottle filled with the local brew, this seems to be the ...

... that a lot of English people have lost touch with food and where it comes from. Renos and his mother are quite excited when the realise that I come from a background very much like their own, I tell stories of my grandparents rearing pigs and chickens in the garden, of my grandfathers vegetables. He finds out that I know about boiling a pigs head for food, the Greeks use it in a different way to the English but it is the same outcome. When we ...

... off in the car to find snow. On the news this morning I see that the road we travelled yesterday has now had heavy snow overnight, it is passable but only with chains. We end up in Pyli with enough snow to make us happy. I think Natasha misses the snow from the Ukraine, she was positively glowing once we got out into it. We head for a café, its at the bottom of a snow covered track, again I have Nikoleta hanging onto my arm, amazingly enough we all ...

There are alarms going off all over the place and gradually both of us surface, pack the car and leave for the port, it's raining, joy of joys the roads are slippery & I hadn't expected the additional risk factor of drivers on the road that had been out celebrating all night, quite an exciting adrenalin rush sort of journey to the port. We arrive at the port just in time for the 6.30am only to be told that all the small ferries have been cancelled due to ...

... several places, like the island of Santorini, the suroundings of the region of Larissa and Chalkidiki until we found a room at Agiokampos in the coast of Larissa in Aegean sea... The city of Larissa has really great night-life. A lot of nice bars and cafeterias offering all kinds of coffees and drings and a lot of taverns with excellent food...

... signals are harder to find than expected. My greek is super rusty, not that it was ever good by any means, but at least I could read the capital alphabet....I am cramming now, I already got lost this morning and the street signs are like math equations! All for now, I am super tired and will take today to get back on the horse. And eat. Well! Kalimera.

... or something like artichoke). The plate of rolls had been drowned in a gravy-like sauce that owed its flavor to lemons. This dish was named, "laxonadolmades." "Massaka" is baked in a deep pan, and it's a pie made of potatoes and meat (alternatively, it can be of eggplant and meat). One cool meal came in tomatoes and yellow peppers that had been hollowed out like Halloween pumpkins. They'd been stuffed with healthy rice then cooked in the ...

... arms. Other than that, Lambrini's personality is as bright and scatter-brained as a kid's. Sometimes, it's tough keeping her mind on one subject for long. I like people who are still kids. Though twenty, she has her philosophies: "I think having a dog keeps you a kid." She considers the stray dogs in town her friends. She says people often buy dogs, have them a while, get sick of them, and leave them on the streets to fend for themselves. She doesn't ...