Greece 2021

Saturday6November

Waking up in the small Airbnb, we have part of the first floor to ourselves.

And outside, Hallelujah, the Sun is there with the blue sky!

We will be able to revisit the monasteries as if we saw them for the first time.

Here we are at the top, ready to enjoy the superb views and the various massifs surrounding Meteora.

From left to right, the monastery of the Great Meteoron, that of Varlaam, Agios Nikolaos and Roussanou.

Views from afar are good. The view from the inside is even better, because you can do both at the same time. But alas, you will see very little here of the beautiful decorations and frescoes of the churches since photography is prohibited there... All Meteora monasteries were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1988.

Yesterday's fog has disappeared and that changes everything.

The entrance to the monastery is at the foot of the tower through the small black door which opens onto a tunnel.

Before passing into the monastery, a small oratory surrounded by offerings.

The view of the Varlaam monastery from the Great Meteoron.;

Before the steps were built, in 1923, food and even visitors passed through here from the ground using a rope and a net.

The landscape lives up to our expectations. "According to local mythology, rocks were sent from heaven to earth by Providence (hence their name "meteors") to allow ascetics to retreat and pray." © Wikipedia

The small town of Kastraki has managed to make a small place for itself between the mastodons and the forests with autumn colors.

The monastery of Varlaam seems to be an extension of the rocky peak.

Here we are in the enclosure of the Great Meteoron. Like all other monasteries, the monastery is of Orthodox Christian confession. It was founded in 1388 by Saint Athanasius who had fled the monasteries of Mount Athos then attacked by Turkish pirates.

The fresco on the wall of the inner courtyard representing some great Greek philosophers.

Sibyl and Saint Paul of Tarsus.

One of the philosophers best known to middle school students: Pythagoras and his theorem which he holds here in his hands.
The opportunity to practice deciphering Greek writing.
Finally, it's not that complicated, provided that you know all the Greek letters well. Which is not necessarily the case, but we know at least those that have entered our common language, like the symbol Pi (p), or alpha (a), beta (ß), gamma (?), delta (d), omega (?), iota (?), etc... Then you "just" have to recognize the symbol and its first letter to form the word...

??T?G???C (???a???a? in lowercase) therefore becomes:
? : Pi --> P
?/? : Upsilon --> y
? : Theta --> th
?/a : Alpha --> a
G/? : Gamma --> g
?/? : Omicron --> o
?/? : Rho --> r
?/a : Alpha --> a
C/? : Sigma --> s
--> Pythagoras!

Passage now into the monastery cellar.

Athanasius and Joasaph on the fresco outside the Catholicon. For the interior, you will have to come here to discover the other frescoes, photos being prohibited.  

We move on to the next monastery, Varlaam, where a basket is precisely joining the edifice.

At each monastery, the view changes but everything remains superb.

The Roussanou.

The Great Meteoron.

And to the incredible shapes of the rock formations is added the madness of men who want to challenge the immensities offered to us sometimes by mother nature. As proof, these 3 photos in zoom out on the individual devoid of vertigo...    

Now, it will be easier for you to find him in this photo.

Let's go into the monastery of Varlaam.

HA! He is still there!

One of the small rooms where photography is allowed...

Plunging view on the staircase which allows access to the monastery.

A huge 12,000-liter barrel is exhibited in one of the rooms of the monastery.

"The monastery is named after a monk who settled on the rocky peak in the middle of the 14th century and built a church and a cell there. After him, the site was abandoned. In 1517, two brothers, Theophanes and Nektarios Apsarades, from a powerful family of Ioannina, reoccupied the site and built the current monastery" © Wikipedia

A pretty cherry plum tree.

The room next to the Catholicon.

Portrait of a monk, whom we meet in the flesh a few moments later.  

The ceiling

View of the kiosk from the monastery and from the neighboring peak.

Arf! The little kitty doesn't want to pose in front of the big monastery!  

The panorama is crazy. It's not a movie set, all this is real...

Ha, the little cat has softened.  

Third monastery to explore, that of Roussanou.

The monastery which dates back to the 14th century is occupied by nuns.

Another mesmerizing view of the Meteora.  

Zoom on the monasteries of the Great Meteoron and Varlaam whose 300 meters separating them disappeared by the magic of the shot.

The monastery becomes but a frail skiff facing the stone giant.  

Yesterday's mist has just moved to settle on the mountains 30 kilometers from here.

The Great Meteoron and Varlaam.

Detail of Roussanou.

The Agía Triáda monastery.

The cable of the Agía Triáda monastery for the passage of the basket.

As for the other monasteries, it was only in 1925 that steps were dug to be able to access the top of the peak without going through the basket or ropes.

The beam that let down or up a rope.

The winch system to raise or lower guests or supplies.

The monastery dates from the year 1476.

The monasteries of Varlaam and Roussanou.

Behind the monastery, the entire top of the cliff is delimited by a small low wall, allowing to have a full view of all Kalambáka.

The cross visible from Kalambáka.

Restoration of the monastery.

We are out of the monastery on the road opposite from where the cable starts which joins the cabin positioned opposite at 160 meters...  

We now arrive at the last monastery, built in 1192.

Damn, it is 1:50 PM and the gate has been closed for 20 minutes! It will only reopen at 3:30 PM... Too bad, we will only see the outside. This will give us a good excuse to come back in a few years...  

Return to Kalambáka where the Meteora which seemed oversized now seem to have been miniaturized.   And it is on this view that we leave the region to reach Igoumenítsa where we can board a ferry that will take us to the island of Corfu.

On the road, stop in the very small village of Trigona for lunch.