Aristi-crats: Last Two Days in Zagori

Right before we got to the Zagori region, Taylor cracked his phone screen and became obsessed with getting it repaired. So, despite my reservations that Greeks in some middle-of-nowhere commercial center could repair said phone, we had the hotel call a repair shop in Ioannina. The shop said they could have the new screen in two days, and to be there at 10 a.m. (Spoiler alert: This story does not end well.)

So Ioannina is maybe not on many tourist maps for a reason--it's not very picturesque. In fact, it was filthy, chaotic, and smelly. Read all you want about the beautiful lake and the fun student vibe, but also know that's a lie. Anyway, on the walk to the repair store we passed a little jewelry store with a woman in sitting in the back surrounded by beads and wires and tools, making necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. She was so nice and I ended up getting a mother-of-pearl pendant and also a little ring made of granite beads.

A statue on the way to the repair store, where we dropped off the phone. 

The guy at the store told us to come back in two hours, so we decided to go see the Ottoman-era castle, and I will admit the touristy part of the city was much nicer (though still probably not worth its own trip, sorry Ioannina). Before you enter the castle walls, you pass through a maze of streets filled with little cafes, and shops selling jewelry and copperware. The street art is also eye-catching.

Did you know Ioannina was under Ottoman rule from the 1400s to 1913? The fortification mostly dates from Ali Pasha's reign, and while it's now in ruins, I love seeing any kind of castle. 

Once you've passed through the walls, you find another maze of streets, full of houses with lush gardens. I even saw a pomegranate tree, which was a first for me! You know you're easy to please when you get excited about a new kind of fruit tree. 

Since the Ottomans were Muslim, there's also a mosque on the castle grounds, and right in front of it in a metal cage is the grave of Ali Pasha and also of his wife. 

It had been two hours, so it was time to head back to the repair store--where the guy said he needed another half hour. A half hour later, he told us he didn't have the right screen and it would take a few days to get it. Cue some American rage, and we were out of Ioannina about ten minutes later. 

After the drive back to Aristi from Taylor's least favorite city of all time, we decided to try another restaurant in town, the En Aristi. We had a grilled local cheese, eggplant with tomatoes and herbs, lamb souvlaki, and a giant T-bone. A cat also forcibly befriended us and formed an attachment to Taylor's hat, though it was happy to move on with the bribery of some lamb thrown at the nearby tree. 

For dessert, I had a local specialty called milk pie, which I did not expect to be piping hot (ouch), but it was really good--kind of like vanilla custard. 

On another walk around town, we found giant pumpkins growing in a home garden--as you can tell, I was very excited about the size of that gourd. 

Aristi is a sleepy little place, so we kicked around until we were hungry again and decided to drive to Vitsa, another village town, to try a restaurant that featured wild mushrooms (more than 20 kinds!). It's called Kanela and Garyfallo, and it was amazing. But first, more goats! And cows! And a turkey!

Since we eat dinner way earlier than anyone else on vacation, we had it to ourselves. And the menu looked so good that I literally wanted everything and took pictures to remember all the mushroomy glory. 

I started with a salad with boletus mushroom chips, green olive oil, mustard, and toasted hazelnuts, and then a cup of mushroom soup with sour cream. Taylor ordered a dish with morels in white wine and cream, which was a little sweet for my taste, and then we also had a wild mushroom and truffle risotto and a chicken and ouzo dish. The risotto was maybe the best truffle mushroom risotto I've ever had? And enough for about four people, so I had to endure the waiter's judgment when he saw how little I had managed to eat. They do seem to get very offended in Greece when you don't eat all the food ("you no like?"), but then you can't possibly eat all of the food because the portions are huge. 

For dessert, and based on my enthusiasm for all things mushrooms, the waiter brought me a (free!) dish of orange-candied chanterelles in sweetened sheep's milk yogurt. Taylor was appalled by it, but I ate every bite, because it was very good and one must be open to new culinary experiences. 

It was on the way back that I realized driving after dark in Zagori is a terrible, terrible mistake--the lack of any sort of light on the road combined with no guardrails or street signs means you're not sure if you're turning onto a road, or off the side of a mountain. We survived, but it felt like a close call. 

The next day we decided to try to go to Albania, though we'd read various things about needing separate car insurance and/or not being able to cross the border with a rental car at all. Unfortunately the border was all we saw, because the internet for once was full of truths and not lies. We got stamped out of Greece easily, but turned back at the Albanian border and spent about ten minutes in the no-man's land in between wondering if we were now country-less refugees. They did eventually let us turn around and leave.

Thwarted from all Albanian adventures, we instead drove to the town we could see across the gorge from Aristi--Papigo (also spelled Papitko and Papingo depending on the signs). Even though it was 11 am on a Tuesday, the town was deserted, with almost all the shops and restaurants closed. It was peaceful to wander around, even if we couldn't go buy things we didn't need that won't fit in the suitcase.

This is me angrily swatting at a bee...Taylor loves to take candid and unflattering pictures.

We did finally find a shop open, selling a little bit of everything, from yarn-woven keychains of Edward Scissorhands to old typewriters to empty cookie tins. The very best part, though, was the wall of homemade fruit liquors, all of which you could sample! So I did. The best were the raspberry, the cinnamon plum, and the wild apple, though some were fruits I've never heard of.

Look at those perfect grapes hanging on the vine...Greece is the land of fruit and sheep's milk.

To kill time before lunch, we also stopped into the only cafe open, and I had a dogberry liquor and a sheep's milk yogurt with rose petal jam. Both were amazing and I regret not asking if they sold the jam! It had actual petals in it.

Then we tried to go back to Papigo Towers for lunch, since I'd seen several other things I wanted to try on the menu, but the old man smoking outside said to go away and maybe come back at two. Since it was only noon, we gave up on lunch and went back to Aristi to wait for places to actually start serving. The old men in the picture below played cards for a total of about three hours...they were living their best life.

Finally, at 2 p.m. Taylor was able to order the roasted spit chicken he had been dreaming about, and I had a traditional cheese pie.

The rest of the afternoon was taken up with a pretty ferocious thunderstorm, and since eating is apparently our primary hobby, we were soon in the little hotel restaurant eating a local fried cheese with a cherry-tomato chutney and also a squash blossom risotto (which was complex and salty and delicious).

Because I am committed to strong bones, I had more sheep's yogurt for dessert, but this time sweetened with honey and with pastry strings on top.

Goodbye Zagori...next up Rome!