May 17, 2025

May 17, 2025

To beat the tourist crowd we are up early for breakfast. Our table has a mountain view and we see sunshine again! That is good because we are going to be outdoors all day. To get energy for our hiking, after bacon and eggs, I try several of the Greek desserts. I especially like the Bougatsa, a flaky custard pie. The Halva and rice pudding are also tasty.

The Meteora area is a geological oddity. The end of the mountain range here has been eroded into dozens of needles with nearly vertical faces pockmarked with small caves. It would be a hiking destination for the geology alone. What makes this area a World Heritage site and tourist destination are the local monasteries. Early Christian hermit monks initially lived in these caves. Aimee and I walked to a nearby location before dinner to see one example. It is just a simple wooden platform built into the cave.

Next to it is the Monastery of St Anthony. It is a big upgrade with more permanent accommodations of tight-fitting masonry and wood walls, simple ladder access, and tiny locked door. Like Skellig Michael off the Irish coast it makes for a simple existence isolated from humanity.

In the Middle Ages the monks expanded and needed larger accommodations so they moved atop the needles. This also provided protection from the Ottoman Muslims who invaded, conquered and ruled Greece for 400+ years. There used to be 24 monasteries here, but today only six remain. We visited five today. We started with Varlaam, named after the first hermit to inhabit the site.

Access to these isolated locations used to be only by a rope on a wooden pulley. I wonder how many monks were lost to frayed ropes.

To promote tourism stone steps have been carved into the cliffs. To reach the monastery at the summit, a lot of stairs need to be climbed.

Each monastery has a small richly decorated church with barrel-vaulted ceilings completely covered in paintings of apostles and saints. Most have a large chandelier in the center, wooden chairs around the periphery and a wall called an iconostasis separating the nave from the sanctuary.

Most monasteries also have a small museum of religious artifacts including vestments, illustrated bibles, and artwork.

Many had some kind of winery. Humorously the wine barrels are enormous. We saw several wooden ones larger than 3000 gallons. I guess if I lived here, I would also probably feel the need for a lot of wine.

While touring the first couple monasteries was interesting, the highlight of the visits, is looking out at the scenery and finding a great view of the neighboring monasteries. The scenic overlooks are the big reward for climbing to the top of each pinnacle.

Next we visited St Stephens, followed by Holy Trinity, and Roussanou (aka St Barbara). Surprisingly two of the monasteries have been converted into nunneries. Their dress code is stricter, requiring Aimee to borrow a skirt for the visits. The longest climb was Holy Trinity, which James Bond scaled in the 1981 movie, For Your Eyes Only.

Needing a recharge from the exercise, we ate lunch in the little town of Kastraki. Besides a salad and meatballs with spaghetti, we had a Greek dish of Giant Beans. They tasted like an oversize butter bean.

After lunch we toured Grand Meteoron, the largest of the Meteora monasteries. Midafternoon, we drove back to our hotel to rest our weary legs. For dinner we went to the same restaurant as lunch. The wait staff knows us now and took good care of us. It seems a tradition of most Greek restaurants is a complementary dessert. Tonight was a miniature chocolate-covered ice cream bar.