I had never heard of either the monasteries of Meteora, or the gianormous rocks that puzzle geologists even today. But the most compelling aspect of this treacherous and pious hike was how the monks and nuns built this place on the rooftops of these expanding monoliths.
The monasteries were built about 800 yrs ago by monks who wanted to escape their ‘modern’ conditions. You could still see the early scaffolding in some of the caves within the rocks, and this morning, there were rock climbers taking on the challenge of the frightening rock walls. In the beginning, there were 20 working monasteries with nuns and monks living on site - today, only 6 remain. We went to see the monastery of St. Stefan. The climb was rocky and hot. We climbed about 125 stairs and then reached the courtyard… from which we climbed some more LOL.
It was the night before this excursion that I found out I lost my best companion, Kaney dog. Thus, I was in no mood for viewing anything, even less for climbing. I kept crying under my sunglasses and tried to stay away from people as much as possible. But there was something about the exertion of climbing that helped me stay focused, and in the moment. When we reached the top, I headed for the monastery.
In the Greek orthodox tradition (in which I was raised until about 10 yrs old) there are altars outside the church area where one can light candles for the dead, or for the living. We had seen a few other monasteries on this trip and, at first, I didn’t want to light anything because I didn’t really feel connected to either the religion, or the site. But there was something about Meteora that allowed me to feel spiritual enough to light a candle - one for the living, and one for the very recently passed away. Maybe it was the height and enormity of the work and sacrifice it took these people to build this monastery… maybe it was the quite gardens or the friendly priests… or maybe I just really needed to light a candle. Whatever it was, I felt… reassured… about the care and peace of my loving companion. I was glad for both the sunglasses, and the space that my tour mates allowed me, to stand in front of the altar with a candle in my hand and remember…
Feeling a little better, we left Meteora and headed back for Athens… this will be our last night with some of our tour friends and then we head out on a cruise to Turkey.
Last night with new friends :)
My last night with Ken and Silvia was great! For 3 people from different corners of the world, we got on fabulously well. We met at the hotel and jumped on the Metro (subway) to make our way downtown Athens where we could visit another ancient site (The Agora) and have some dinner and drinks.
The Metro in Athens is very clean and fast. It wasn’t difficult for us to make our way downtown, to the heart of the old city, The Plaka. Ken had originally planned to use his ticket for the both of us to get into the archeological site, however, when we got there we found out only one of us could go in. Ken insisted that I have the ticket as he had already visited the site, and I got to walk around the ruins of the Agora with my camera and the sun setting :) Thanks Ken, again :)
Once I came out of the ruins we began our hunt for a good place to eat. Greek food is terribly bland and we were bored to death of Mousaka and Souvlaki LOL Ken was looking for curry, Silvia was looking for something fresh and different, and I was looking for something vegetarian LOL - So we hiked up and down the streets of Athens with waiters and restaurants hosts enticing us (fairly aggressively) on every corner, to come into their restaurants and taste their ‘good’ food. And then, there came a light at the end of our tunnel - JAPANESE!! It was perfect :) everyone ate what they wanted and we all shared a pot of green tea, and a pitcher of Saki LOL. All in all a great night, spent with new friends who will now wait for pics and emails upon our return to our own homes and loved ones. Thanks Silvia and Ken for a great night in a fabulous and very ancient city :)
Now, on to Turkey! Hopefully, the men will be better looking, the food will be better tasting, and the wait staff will have some clue as to how to split a cheque LMAO
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