Monday was the first day of Eastern Orthodox Christianity’s forty day Great Lent. In Greece this is a public and religious holiday known as Clean Monday. The faithful turned their thoughts and prayers to the church, and by coincidence we did too. It just so happened that we chose Monday to visit the grouping of monasteries outside the city of Kalabaka known as Meteora. The word Meteora you may notice shares roots with the English words meteor, and meteorology. According to Wikipedia Meteora can be translated as either “middle of the sky”, “suspended in the air” or “in the heavens above”. The name is apt because the holy sites are situated atop seemingly inaccessible, sheer faced rock formations that jut up hundreds of feet from the smoother ground below.
When we woke up in the morning we were astonished to step outside and see these rock formations clearly for the first time, which were no longer obscured by the darkness and downpour of the previous night. All day our views were far and wide despite occasional low hanging clouds of fog and a persistent soft drizzle. My mom was kind enough to drive all day, and after a breakfast stop for coffee and pastries, we followed the road past our hotel about a mile to the first monastery.
Today Meterora boasts six active monasteries, but throughout history more than twenty had been built. Our sight seeing took us to four monasteries, three run by monks, and one by nuns. The four monasteries we visited are all connected by a road that twists and turns, taking you higher and higher up to visit each successive site. A small parking lot sat below each monastery, but reaching the top required long winding ascents along stairs carved into the rock. It was arduous, but not as bad as the original method of ropes, ladders, and nets that were once employed by the monks.
Each monastery charges the same admission price of 5 euros and has the same sign stating the same dress code. No entry to men wearing shorts or short sleeved shirts. No entry to women wearing trousers, shorts, or short sleeved shirts. The Olson boys were conservative enough for entry, but the Olson women all had pants on. Luckily though, the monasteries have skirts available at the entrances, for liberal women like the Olsons, that could be tied on over their pants.
The first three monasteries were similar inside with the main sites being small chapels covered, literally from floor to ceiling, in elaborate religious paintings, and of course the high above views of the exotic landscape. There were a few other tourists in each of the first three monasteries as we looked around, but the general atmosphere was of quiet reverence.
The fourth and final monastery we visited was called the Great Meteoron. It was by far the largest and most crowded. However, this site had the best views, the largest and most intricate chapel, and it included two museums. Strangely one museum celebrated Greek military history while the other showed off various religious artifacts, mostly old manuscripts of the bible.
After visiting the monasteries, we came back to Kalabaka for a late lunch. The restaurant we stopped at was unusual in that it didn’t have a menu. When we walked inside, the owner, I presume, greeted us and asked if we wanted to see what there was to eat. We then followed her back to the kitchen where we saw big pots of various dishes simmering on the restaurants giant stove. The owner explained what each dish was, but we were having trouble deciding. It all looked so good we just made one order of everything and ate family style. Melissa said it was her favorite meal of the trip. For dessert we were treated with a dish called halva, a Greek Lenten staple. Halva is a dense, sweet, no bake dessert most memorable to me because of its crumbly dry texture.
After our gigantic late lunch, and exhausting day of climbing stairs, we returned to the hotel where most of us took a nap. We took the rest of the evening slow, having a light dinner, a couple glasses of wine, and prepared to leave for Santorini the next day.
