Greece Trip: Joanina (4.15.24)

The food in Greece was luscious, day after day.  We spent April 15, 2024, in Joanina, a sizable city west of Meteora, almost on the border of Albania.  After a busy day of sightseeing, we relaxed on the patio of a restaurant and had another rich meal that almost always included tomatoes, onions, olive oil, and garlic.

The location of Joanina is marked directly to the left (west) of the red pin, which marks Meteora.

The sights of Joanina include a castle from the 400 years of Turkish domination, and the island in the lake where Ali Pasha, a renegade Turkish overlord, was murdered by Turkish emissaries sent by the sultan from Constantinople (Istanbul).  

We took a boat filled with happy partyers to an island in the lake.

We wandered past cafes and shops selling baklava and Turkish knives to the summer home of Ali Pasha.  In the early 1800s, after 400 years of Ottoman Turkish rule, Ali Pasha's soldiers deserted him to fight for Greek independence.  Ali Pasha had challenged the sultan, from his far-off fiefdom in western Greece.  The sultan sent emissaries to kill him and, when Ali Pasha retreated from his castle to his summer home on the island, the emissaries followed him and killed him with a shot through the floor into his upstairs sitting room.

After staring, with appropriate horror, at the bullet hole in the floor by which Ali Pasha was shot, we wandered around the small museum, with treasures from Ottoman days.  

Throughout our time in Greece, I was impressed, again and again, with how much of Oriental art and culture there was in Greece.  No wonder, with 400 years of Turkish occupation!  The museum included an exhibit of elaborately decorated guns and knives and swords.  The Turks were warriors.

There were also displays of Turkish clothes and jewelry.