Monasteries in Meteora
Trip Start
Apr 04, 2007
1
42
115
Trip End
Oct 22, 2007
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Meteora,
Greece
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Most date from around the 13th and 14th century but are still operating of monasteries today despite the regular flow of tourists. They are based from the Greek Orthodox Church and have some unique architecture. The landscape as a whole was spectacular with rolling hills and sudden sharp pinnacles shooting up from the ground, dwarfing everything around them. The towns of Kalambaka and Meteora were full of white houses with red shingled roofs and the sound of birds and children playing.
Kalambaka
We had missed the morning bus to Meteora, so opted to walk up to the monasteries from Kalambaka. It was a good, steep trudge up but beautiful scenery. We stopped often for photos ops and enjoyed the fresh air.
We hit a three of the monasteries (there are about eight or so - some are closed on different days of the week) the Grand Monastery of Meteora was our second stop. It was very interesting to look around inside. The building and view were spectacular, the perfect place to contemplate the universe and enjoy the world around you. Each monastery contained a chapel area that was ornately decorated with fresco paintings on every inch of it. The frescoes in the outer room of the chapel were generally gory images of saints suffering excruciatingly painful death and dismemberment portrayed in colourful detail, while the inner chapel was images of angels and saints and more of Jesus and Mary standing around with some halos.
The Monastery of the Holy Trinity
At the Grand Monastery there were also a series of museums and a hallway full of modern art about recent wars Greece has been involved in (Balkans, WWII, etc) and a ossuary full of skulls of former monks. The Ecclesiastical museum also had some beautiful hand written manuscripts and scrolls dating all the way back to the ninth century, and some of the worlds earliest printed works of Plato and some other old dudes of similar importance for writing stuff.
The other monasteries we visited were much smaller and less touristed than the Grand one. They were all absolutely beautiful, with amazing views down the valley and the town.
We had a fun trek back to town as well, choosing to run off the main road and take a 'shortcut' through the bushes back to town as the main road would have taken us around all of the pinnacles that stood between us and town. The trip up to the saddle of the pinnacles was pretty easy, building up our confidence for it's impending and drastic fall. As we got close to the top there became the increasing presence of nettle bushes and decreasing presence of path. We reached the saddle without too much trouble... after that was another story.
Inner Sanctum
After ducking, falling, and scrambling our way through various forms of prickly, spiderweb coated bushes, we eventually found what looked like a dried up stream bed to follow down. The prickle bushes remained but with slightly more head room. No longer bent double, we managed to make better speed down the side towards town, eventually meeting up with our original path that we took up. Moods suddenly improved by the lack of nettles and Dan no longer bleeding from his head (particularly nasty nettle bush) we made our way back to town without incident if slightly drenched in sweat.
We finished off the evening by scoring a tub of uber cheap ice cream at the grocery store and eating most of it between the two of us. We've got another night in Meteora and a couple of more days in Greece before we leave for Norway and we're struggling to find the best way to fill our time. So many options and not quite, or too much time to use it to its best.
In short, we don't know where we will be tomorrow, but we'll let you know how it turns out in a few days.
All our best from Greece
Dan and Gabrielle
