Nisaki

So, off of Ioannina there lies an island which is called "Nisaki." You might be thinking that this is a nice name. I mostly think it's funny that they named the island "little island." I mean, it's a bit literal, isn't it? I feel like this isn't a good naming pattern to follow. Next thing you know, they'll be naming mountain ranges "large mountain range" and "medium sized mountain range" and lakes "big lake" and "little lake". And then where will we be?

Anyways, Catharine and I went there via ferry, and spent a day wandering and buying souvenirs and having picnic lunches. It was quite nice and idyllic. Nisaki contains many, many monasteries. They were generally very pretty and very closed, so we didn't actually go in to any of them, but they were nice from the outside.

Painting from the outside of a church. Considering the state of repair that it is in, I'm going to assume that this church hasn't been in use in the recent past- most of the churches I have been to are kept in very good repair.

The village on Nisi! It was a nice place, though very small. Ioannina is generally known for its silver production, and the island is full of very many cheap silver shops. This was nice, in that I bought many Christmas gifts while here, but also vaguely irritating, since you get attacked by anxious shop owners trying to convince you to look at their wares. Seriously. To get away, it is sometimes necessary to run a bit. Or feign total incomprehension.

On the plus side, I've been told that my face of total incomprehension has improved greatly over the past three months. I'm now able to not react at all when people speak to me, even in languages that I actually understand.

Since Catharine and I were feeling like stretching our legs, we took the path that goes around the outside of the island and enjoyed the nice views of the lake and the mountains. It was also very windy on this day.

This is inside the enclosure where Ali Pasha was killed. Next to this building is the building where he was actually shot, which is now a museum. Apparently they still have the bullet riddled wooden floors and stuff. Unfortunately, this museum was closed, which was tragic. Perhaps because it was off-season.

And that, my friends, is the end of my fall break. After this, we returned to Athens, which was nice, since by this time Catharine and I were willing to go back to our apartments, sleep in real beds, and shower. Also to change clothes. And stop living out of backpacks. And not eat gyros for a really long time. It was an adventure, and I'm glad we stayed in Greece.

Ioannina- I'm Running Out of Captions

So, after we returned from Metsovo we went back to Ioannina and continued to explore. This is a view of Ioannina from partway across Lake Pamvotis- it's a nice place. As always, Catharine and I found cats.

The other mosque in the Frourio! I have forgotten its name as well.

Interesting statues on the water front.

And the view out towards the Pindos mountains.

This was one of our last days of fall break, and it was interesting because it was the first day when our modern Greek absolutely failed us. This was unusual- between Catharine and I, we usually were able to communicate in any situation that we found ourselves in. It was definitely an accent issue- we were buying tickets, and while the man at the counter could understand us, his responses might as well have been gibberish. Or some language with which I am absolutely unfamiliar. When we got back to Athens, we asked Leda, our professor, why this was the case- she confirmed that it was because of the peculiarities of the northern Greek accents, and told us that there is in fact a linguistic barrier somewhere between Athens and Thessaloniki. It was interesting.

Ali Pasha: An Interesting Person Who Came to a Bad End

So, one of Ioannina's claims to fame is Ali Pasha, an Albanian ruler (in power from 1787-1822) who had his court in Ioannina. This guy was crazy. He basically was loyal to whoever could help him at the time, and I think his goal was to have some Albanian-Greek empire. Or something. I am going to direct you to the wikipedia page, because it seems to be more or less accurate and I don't feel like typing out the whole story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Pasha
So, much of the Frourio of Ioannina is taken up with ruins (or non-ruins) from the time of Ali Pasha, though there also are remains from the Byzantine period.
A mosque! This is one of two mosques in the Frourio, and I am sorry to say that I have absolutely forgotten what it is called. Sometime when I have my guidebook or my notes with me I will edit this out.
I believe that these are the ruins of Ali Pasha's harem.
The view out over Lake Pamvotis towards the Pindos mountains. Nice, isn't it?

The tomb of Ali Pasha. Note- I did not actually climb inside the tomb to take this picture. While I have been called on to scale some fences over the course of this semester, I haven't started tomb-robbing. Yet.

Ioannina- A City in Epirus

So, after we were done with Meteora/Kalambaka/Kastraki, we made our way across large swaths of Central Greece to Ioannina, the capital city of Epirus and the eighth largest city in Greece. Ioannina, as far as I can tell, is known for several things. One is its abundance of silver workers, two is its baclava, and three, perhaps the most interesting, is Ali Pasha.

Don't worry, you'll hear plenty more about him.

So, Ioannina is a nice place. But, as Catharine and I realized early on, our energy at this point was rather waning (perhaps from all the sleeping (or not sleeping- it was really cold) in tents) and we had a lot of time in which we didn't really need to do all that much, so we decided we were going to take it easy. Wander around a lot. Eat baclava. Etc.

So, on day one we decided to tackle the Frourio, which is the old part of the city. It's surrounded by walls.
That's the Frourio.
So is this. Note the twisty entrance way. That's so they could fight off invaders better or something.
Flowers!
Anyways, so the Frourio is actually sort of a normal neighborhood, and while it has some interesting things (like a mosque that you're going to see a few posts from now) it really is just like the old part of many Greek towns. The nifty part of the Frourio is the Its Kale, or the inner citadel. It has a lot of interesting ruins from a bunch of different periods and lovely views of Lake Pamvotis and the surrounding Pindos mountains.