Blog No 19 The Ancient Greek Monasteries of Meteora
Michele and I visited Greece in 2009 and enjoyed seeing important historical sites as well as staying several nights on the exquisite island of Santorini. But nothing satisfied me more than a short side trip we took by bus, traveling from Athens to Thessaly into north central Greece to visit Meteora and see the ancient Greek Orthodox monasteries laboriously constructed on top of sandstone pinnacles in the 14th century. They are now protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Center.
The region has been historically known for its caves (which we did not see) that were inhabited by ancient humans from the Middle Paleolithic through the Neolithic periods, some 130,000 years ago. During the 11th century hermits and ascetics began to settle in this this rugged, remote area, and eventually a total of 24 monasteries were built on monolithic sandstone pinnacles rising from the forest floor. The combination of Byzantine architecture built on inaccessible rocky pinnacles (Meteora means “suspended in air”) makes it a magic fairyland. The monks used rope ladders to ascend to the monastery which they could pull up behind them, making the citadel inaccessible.
During our day-long tour of the six monasteries that were still in use, we drove along a winding road through this enchanted land. The Holy Trinity Monastery sits on top of a 400-meter-high rocky prominence and gets attention as it was filmed in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only (1981).
From our hotel set in the countryside, we had a picturesque view of a massive rock dome formation, rising out the valley. When we looked through our binoculars, we could make out tiny specks crawling up the slope that turned out to be rock climbers.
All photos by author
Monastery built in a massive sandstone cliff
Rock climbers are shown with my telephoto lens
