Vacation days in Greece

by Rufus B. Richardson

THESSALY

Thessaly is in a certain sense a land apart from the rest of Greece. It was so in antiquity. In spite of being the home of Jason, of Achilles, and of Alcestis, and in spite of the fact that “snowy Olympus,” the home of the Greek gods, looked down upon it, the stream of its history flowed apart. In the Persian war it was prevented by force from taking any honorable part; but in the Peloponnesian war, which called all the rest of Greece to arms and divided it into two camps, it willingly stood aloof. The same may be said of most of the smaller wars which followed the Peloponnesian war. Once only did it appear that it was going to take a part, and indeed a leading part, in the affairs of Greece. But the assassination of Jason of Pheræ, who seemed about to play the rôle afterward played by the Macedonians, sent Thessaly again on her separate way.

To-day also Thessaly is a land apart. When the Kingdom of Greece was established by the European Powers Thessaly was not included in it. After it had become a part of the kingdom in 1880 it again fell into the hands of the Turks in the disastrous war of 1897, living through two sad years of subjection which were not shared by the rest of Greece. It has also suffered isolation from the rest of Greece in that while the network of railroads constantly extending out from Athens has already taken in most of Peloponnesus, and even Ætolia, it has not yet been extended to Thessaly. To reach it one must make a voyage by sea.

But this very isolation has always been to the enthusiastic traveller an added charm. Inaccessibility adds interest. The usual approach is by steamer from Piræus, and requires, according to the timetable, twenty-four hours; but it actually varies from twenty-four to forty-eight hours, according to the weather and the amount of freight to be handled on the way. The journey in itself is so charming that one need not chafe at delay, and might well prefer this method of approach even after railroad communication has been established. Particularly fine is the long stretch between Eubœa and the mainland, where mountain succeeds mountain, with Thermopylæ thrown in.

The end of the journey is the finest part of it, if one has the good fortune to enter the great Bay of Volo, called in ancient times the Gulf of Pagasæ, by daylight and in the winter. Taking associations and everything into account, there are few finer sights in the world than that which here presents itself. In front of you is Olympus, majestic, towering above the low range that separates the territory of Volo from the great basin of Thessaly. So near does it seem that one hardly thinks of it as being beyond the northern border, over in Turkey. The long ridge of Pelion is close at hand on the right, with its twenty-four villages, covered on the occasion of one of my winter visits by twelve or fourteen feet of snow, so that they abandoned for a week all attempts at communicating with one another. What Pelion lacks in height it makes up in length, and its bulk is great. It seems a strange thought of Homer to make the giants pile Pelion upon Ossa, which is a shapely and rather sharp cone. Vergil seems to do even worse in making them put Olympus on the top of the pile. Can it be that both poets made the attempt to pile the mass of Olympus or Pelion on top of the pointed Ossa a part of the daring deed? Either Olympus or Pelion would be the natural base on which to pile up the other mountains. By turning around and looking astern one sees Parnassus, which in ordinary company would absorb attention, but is here dwarfed by the sight of Olympus. In such company Othrys, on our left, hardly counts at all.

The near view with its associations claims attention. Here in the middle of Volo is the site of Iolkos, from which the Argonauts sailed out through this very bay into the distant Euxine on their daring quest. To the left are the massive walls of Pagasæ, which in classical times controlled the region. To the right is the still later controller of the bay, Demetrias, founded by the Macedonian Demetrios Polyorketes to be with Chalkis and Corinth one of the “fetters of Greece.”

On my second visit to this region, which, by an unexpected chance, was only about a month after my first, having had occasion—a not unusual thing in Greece—to wait all the afternoon for a return steamer to Athens, I had a boatman named Leonidas, from Sparta, too, row me out to Demetrias, from which I got, as I then supposed, my last view on earth of Olympus. I then floated aimlessly about the bay until sunset, steeped in sunshine and mythological associations. I was so much “in the spirit” that I could almost see the centaurs prancing along the slopes of Pelion. Leonidas also seemed to enter into the spirit of the thing, and to become quite sympathetic, even if we did not or could not talk much. When I said to him, “Leonidas, do you know that the gods used to live around here?” he said, “Yes, yes,” with apparent enthusiasm. I suspected, however, afterward that his enthusiasm was only skin deep, and that his chief pleasure in the affair was that he was getting pay for a whole afternoon’s work without really doing much. I, on my part, was satisfied to squander on him the munificent sum of sixty cents for giving me the setting to such pleasant day-dreaming.

I am not going to recount my successive visits to Thessaly, but only to recall certain vivid impressions. I have twice entered it on the southwest, from Lamia over the passes of Othrys, and once on the northwest over the Zygos pass in the great Pindos range, and it is difficult to say which is the most impressive approach, one of these or the usual one through the Bay of Volo. Wherever you look down into the great basin from any part of the rim of mountains surrounding it, or look back at this rim from any part of the plain, you are impressed with the beauty of the plain and its surroundings.

On my first visit—how vivid are first impressions!—I came by the usual route with a companion who was in a hurry. He had an imperative engagement before him. We had a schedule to keep, and every hour was important. It was the only time that I have done Thessaly by schedule. Work on the Larisa Railroad was being pushed, and we unloaded so much material for that work at Chalkis that we did not get off until afternoon, and, at Stylidha, the port of Lamia, we kept unloading until after midnight. The result was that we did not reach Volo until the next morning, over twelve hours behind time. By a dash for the station we secured the first train, and reached Larisa at about ten o’clock. Thessaly has had since 1884 its own very good railroad system, starting from Volo and branching at Velestino, the ancient Pheræ, one branch going to Larisa and the other to Trikkala and beyond. This system connects the three principal cities, Volo, Larisa, and Trikkala, each of about fifteen thousand inhabitants, and brings the traveller near to all the interesting points of the land.

In order to carry out our schedule it was necessary for us to see the Vale of Tempe that day. Without losing a minute we engaged our carriage at the station, a mile from the town, and drove through the town, where we gathered a little stock of provisions while the driver changed horses. Of course, he had told us that our scheme was impossible, but we forced him along. In spite of mud (it was March, and Thessaly is always muddy at that time), we got through Tempe, and came back, reaching Larisa before nine o’clock in the evening. Without a full moon it would have been impossible to do Tempe that day. On that evening we caught for the first time the notes of the Greek frogs, Brek-ke-ke-kek-koak-koak, reproducing Aristophanes with the exception of a few sibilants.