Meteora is a region of Greece which is known for having mountains – giant sandstone boulders, really – upon which monasteries have been built over the centuries. There are now about half-a-dozen monasteries (including a two convents) built on these rocks. In centuries past, some of them were accessible only by rope ladder. Nowadays, there are stone stairs carved or built into the sides of the mountains, and most are accessible by some form of road. If not, there is usually a cable-car of some sort which is able to bring supplies across the mountains to the monastery. It’s a uniquely beautiful and spectacularly scenic sight. In fact, it is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
View from hotel balcony in Kalabaca
Thomi and I stayed Friday night in Kalabaca (or Kalambaka), a town just at the base of the Meteora Mountains. We got a ride from Ioannina from Thomi’s coworker Thanos, who was on his way back to Athens. We had an enjoyable ride into town, it was a couple of hours, but they passed quickly in friendly conversation. Thomi and I were pretty excited when we arrived in our room at Hotel King. The guy at the front desk, Dan, was very helpful and gave us a map of the area, detailing how to get to the monasteries, the hiking paths, bus routes, distances, times, etc. And from the balcony of our room, we could even see one of the monasteries, illuminated a little bit in the night. It was beautiful.
Morning view from Hotel
Where she mows, nobody knows.
In the morning, we got up took a few more pics from our balcony. We got a kick out of watching an older woman next door who was mowing her lawn in her nightrobe. She also had some of the largest chickens I’ve ever seen in her yard.
Bell tower of Byzantine Church
We left the hotel, and – following Dan’s suggestion from the night before – headed through town to visit a Byzantine Church, ‘Kimisis tis Theotokou’ (Virgin Mary’s Dormition) which was built in the 11th century. From there, we took the trail up the mountain to the nearest monastery, which I believe was called the Monastery of St. Nikolaos Anapafsas.
We took our time on the way up – the hike wasn’t super-long, but the vertical climb was quite steep. Also, somehow, every couple of steps, the view got exponentially more incredible! Suffice to say we took a LOT of pictures.
Pulley at St. Nikolaos
After hiking for a while we came to a flat sidewalk area leading to a set of stairs going directly up the rock face and leading to the monastery. As we were ascending these stairs, we could look out across to a few of the other monasteries. In addition, we could see one of the cable cars working. I thought, initially that it was from the nearby nunnery, Agios Stefanos, which I found a little scandalous – imagine the clandestine meetings that could have been occurring via cable car! I saw later, however, that it was only going from the parking lot near the road to get supplies to the monastery. In fact, inside the monastery was the pulley system which had been used for centuries to lift supplies up the side of the cliffs. I don’t think it is used anymore, but looks pretty cool!
Agios Stephanos Monastery – Now a Convent
After we visited the first monastery and descended the stairs back to the sidewalk area, we had to go up the mountain on the other side to the parking lot and then along the ridge before dropping a bit to go up to Agios Stefanos. By then, we’d walked several kilometers and it was getting on in the afternoon. We were beginning to worry about time.
Entrance to Megalo Meteoron Monastery
We definitely wanted to see the Megalo Meteora Monastery, or the Holy Monastery of Grand Meteoron, which is the largest of them all. However, it was about 4 kilometers from where we were, along the ridge road. The convent where we had just arrived closed in about 20 minutes, and the Megalo Meteora closed an hour after that. We decided to call a cab. Thomi had gotten the number from a guy on the way up to the church when we were still in town. He came and picked us up after about 15 minutes (just enough time to see the convent at quick-speed) and gave us a ride to the biggest monastery. Basically, it’s on the other end of the group of monasteries from where we were, so this meant that on the taxi ride we were able to pass the other monasteries we had been viewing all morning. After the taxi dropped us off, we still had to descend into the valley by Megalo and then ascend another set of stairs built into the stone before reaching the actual monastery.
Varlaan Monastery from Megalo Meteoron
It was well worth it, however. This monastery was by far the biggest. It was also set up to show how it had operated in the past. It had an old storage room and carpentry shop with tools from the past. And the view from here was spectacular. The Varlaam Monastery was in clear view and made for some great photo ops!
Photo from Taxi
As it was getting late by then and we had to catch a bus to Trikala that evening, we were going to call the taxi driver again when we left, but just as we were reaching the exit (having been shooed out by monks at the close of the day along with all of the other tourists), we managed to catch a ride down the mountain in a taxi with a couple of other ladies. Very convenient. As soon as we arrived back in town, we stopped at a restaurant for some food. Slouvaki for Thomi and chicken kebab for me. We hadn’t eaten anything except a croissant each in the morning. Not quite enough food (we’d planned to stop for coffee, but the chance just never arose…) – we were starving!
Moasteries seen from Agios Nikolaos Anapafsas
We headed back to the hotel to collect our bags and managed to make it to the bus station in time to catch a bus to Trikala to stay with Thomi’s aunt and uncle for the night. It had been an exhausting day, but it was so rewarding. We were both pretty proud of ourselves for making it up the mountain, the hike had been a blast, and the views had been well worth it!