Apologies to Yannis for the title. I have just come back from a ten day
adventure in Greece. I had one of the best beers of my life there; not
because the Greeks are particularly skilfull at making beer, but because
they are very skilful at making mountain trails that make test you and
tire you, so that by the end of the day you just dream about surviving
long enough to get to the taverna (Greek pub/restaurant).
I travelled with a German IAC friend, Birte Luebbert, who now lives in
Germany, to Thessaloniki first, in the north, and we then took a 6-hour
bus ride to the city of Ioannina, before getting another bus into the
Zagoria region. This part of Greece bears little similarities with the
south. It’s mostly green, mountainous, and there are few tourists.
Furthermore it is only a few miles from the Albanian border, and there
is a frontier feeling about the place.
