Soaking our cares away in the thermal river baths of Thermopile.
We spent three weeks here with these swirling thermal waters on our doorstep, rising early each morning and slowly awakening our bodies with a hot bath just as the Romans and the Turks would’ve done in ancient times.
Three weeks is a long time to be stationary for us, but we needed time to stop, a space in which to create, and by the end of our time there we knew every rock and nook of that river.
We bathed early in the morning before the sunlight burst through the mountaintops, we bathed in the evenings when the dusk would tint the rising steam purple, and we’d bathe late at night under the light of the stars, sipping limoncello and warming our bones against the freezing night air.
Our only company was the herd of goats which passed through daily, accompanied by their shepherd who would knock on our van demanding we give him either euros or potatoes. On the first day we gave him some potatoes, but after that we just hid in our van until he stopped shouting “𝘌𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘩! 𝘗𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘴!” and went away.
On our last day in Greece we discovered another hot spring tucked further into the mountains, and it would’ve been a romantic end to our time here had my purse not been stolen from the van in broad daylight.
We left the country with mixed emotions, weaving our way back North around the snow-dusted base of Mount Olympus. Greece had been a much-needed rest for us but it was missing that distinct essence of Balkanness here, and there was a place that was tugging at our heart strings and calling us with a force that was hard to resist.
In the midst of winter, we were heading back to North Macedonia.
