Meteora Kalambaka

We flew to Metéora today to see the Monasteries. The flight didn't take very long at all, less than an hour. We essentially followed a highway, the E 90 all the way there. It was an amazingly beautiful flight. We flew over Lake Ioannina and through a mountain pass where we followed a river and the highway to another narrow pass near a valley with Lake Aoos at the north end of it. From here we just followed the river ...

... it was forbidden to speak Greek. There are about 6 at various places down the rock formations.

Now the bus was not due for another 3 hours and I asked Ian what we were going to do until then and he thought that it would be nice to walk down the hill to the next monastry I did not think that was a good idea as it was sheer cliff face and buses where hurtling up the road taking it all up and I was scared I was going to get knocked off the edge ...

... room for 35 euros right in the centre of town. The woman on the counter barked orders at us Ian thought she was the headmistress and off we went to our room. We have just been having a look around and buying some supplies as we have no deodrant or cigarettes and we are buying the usual postcards to send. Its sunday and could not find a supermarket or mini market open so ended up in a pharmacy and saw some deodrant imagine my face when she ...

This morning we were picked up by our bus at the hotel, and taken to a central city redistribution point, where the various half-day, full-day & 2 & 3-day tours commenced from. Once on the right bus for our 2-day trip to see Delphi ruins, & Meteora monasteries, we made our way out of the sprawling Athens & into the countryside littered with cotton fields (7th largest producer in the world!) and olive plantations, amidst large & seemingly ...

... the day we also got to see the cool cable system/cart thing that they use to transport important people and goods across the huge gorge). We stood to take pictures, taking our time, then headed to the next monastery, but we got sidetracked taking pictures (again) on cliffs and rocks.

We finally made it to the second monastery and got to go inside this one. It was very cool inside. We got to see monks (they were ordering around the construction workers ...

... As it was around 11 am, we took the first one, hoping to see the monasteries before the lunch break. There are 6 main monasteries in the area, and I understood there are other smaller ones further away, and you can reach very close to them by car. As it was Sunday, and it was crowded by both local and foreign tourist cars and buses, we had to stop some 100-200 meters further away. The ...

... the lengths to which they went to isolate their monasteries from people centuries ago.  After seeing our desired share of 14th century monastery life we decided to hike the 5km back down and take in the surroundings as we went.  It did not disappoint. Tomorrow we head off for a little more (ok a lot more) hiking and attempt to climb Mt. Olympus and see of Zeus is home for a visit. Megan and Kevin

... one of the worst atrocities from the Germans during World War II. Several hundred innocent citizens of this little town were killed out of retaliation for an attack by resistance fighters hiding out in the mountains. Today's cheerful and bright town gives no evidence for this brutal moment in its history, but there are some memorials in the main plateia. We continued on along a side road toward the Chaironea valley, where the main road ...

... silver tableware, and much more that was taken from his tomb and the tomb of Alexander the Great's son who was buried next to him in another tomb. Then we drove through the Pindos Mountains (amid sheepherders and logging trucks to get to Kalambaka. It is hot---about 100 degrees today, but fortunately our room and car are air conditioned!

Having watched 300 not too long ago, this is a very exiciting part of the trip for me!
But Leonidas can only be seen towards the end of the trip. First we are off to visit the monastaries built on the rocks!








These were the first few ones that we seen. Even though they were much smaller scale, we still wonder how they managed to built it on ...