Just as we were settling in last night it began to rain quite hard. Usually we end up talking about the weather quite a bit when we are traveling, but so far this trip the weather has been almost perfect. We have had two strong rains and they were both at night. The temperatures have been consistently in the low 70’s and the overnight temperatures have been in the mid-50’s. It really doesn’t get any better than that. I hope I didn’t just jinx it.
Nikos had really recommended we go to the island for the day. He said it is quite beautiful and it had a very good museum on it. We got off to a late start partially because it was still spitting a little rain so Ton decided to cuddle up under the blankets for an extra hour. Then we ran into an Austrian-Taiwanese couple and ended up chatting with them for about 45 minutes. Ton and Jane really connected, and it turns out her husband is a Knaus motorhome dealer. They had a brand new motorhome that is the next generation of François our motorhome. He gave me a tour and it was interesting to see the improvements they have made in the interior. Unfortunately they were moving on, but we exchanged information and we promised that if we passed thru southeast Austria we would swing by and see them. Hopefully, our paths will cross again.
It was a short walk to the ferry dock, but the town was really crowded due to the May Day holiday. Police had some of the roads blocked off to accommodate the extra pedestrian traffic. Luckily we showed up on the dock just as one ferry pulled away, and another arrived so we were heading over to the island right away.
The island was originally settled by monks, and for the first few hundred years it was inhabited primarily by the monks who lived in multiple monasteries on the island. Around 1600 a small fishing village began to grow on one end of the island. Today the village is devoted primarily to tourism, though some fishing is still done.
The island is also closely associated with the story of Ali Pasha and has an excellent museum about him. Ali Pasha was the ruler of a large part of Greece and most of Albania from the 1780’s. He was a romantic character of his age and admired and written about by Lord Byron and Alexander Dumas. They both wrote about him as a fascinating “Oriental Despot.” Originally starting as a bandit he fought to gain control of much of Albania and was eventually appointed Pasha for Albania by the Ottoman Sultan in the 1770’s. The Ottoman empire was beginning its decline in this era and so Ali effectively went to war with the Pasha who ruled Ioannina and conquered the town in 1787.
Ali was a cruel ruler who committed many atrocities, but also embraced local culture. He moved to Ioannina, and changed the official language in court from Turkish to Greek. He supported the construction of Christian churches as well as Mosques, and towards the end of his life he only paid for the construction of Christian churches despite being a Muslim. Some say this was the influence of his Greek wife.
He maintained a large army consisting of both Greek and Albanian troops led by both Christian and Moslem Generals. The Ottoman empire had a very loose control over Ali Pasha and he conducted his own foreign policy and even maintained embassies from western European countries to the point where he without permission from Istanbul joined forces with the French to fight the Venetians, and the British to fight the Russians. His down fall came in the 1820’s when the Christians in Greece and the Moslems in Albania both independently revolted against Ottoman rule. He suddenly found himself without an army as his Greek generals joined the Greek independence movement and his Albanian generals joined the Albanian independence movement. He was isolated in Ioannina when an Ottoman army arrived and laid siege to the town. He was eventually captured and held prison on Ioannina island until his execution in 1822.
After the museum we enjoyed a stroll around the island. The island was having a bloom of wildflowers and was really beautiful, the bees were humming everywhere and it smelled like spring.
We checked out a couple of the old monasteries, but they were closed. After walking completely around the island over a couple of hours with frequent stops for pictures we were back in the village.
Things were getting crowded on the island so we decided to head back to the town and have a quick look to see if we missed anything yesterday. When we arrived the town was even more crowded with holiday crowds so we headed back to François for an early evening.
