Greece 4: The strange mountains of Meteora and their monasteries

    The route to my next destination took me north, right over the mountain that housed Delphi.  I was expecting a steep drop on the other side, but it was surprisingly very flat and beautiful farmland.  The farmland quickly turned into the first real forest that I have seen in Greece.  The path eventually declined and I passed through more farmlands, with many fields filled with sunflowers.

    The destination was a town called Kastraki, a town near Meteora, a collection of unusually shaped mountains that shoot right up from the ground and are home to six still functioning monasteries.  There reportedly was up to twenty four monasteries at some point.  In addition to the six still functioning, there is one that my hotel informed me was only visited to maintain once a week and is not open to the public.

    I picked the hotel because of its reviews and view of Meteora.  Unfortunately, it was located up a single, winding road.  When I first drove in, I worried about what would happen if you were to run into someone on that same road.

    All I did in town that first night was have dinner.  It was fried courgettes with a sort of concoction to spoon on top, along with the first time I tried souvlaki, the Greek equivalent of a kebab.  I took the following pictures from my balcony.  Aside from these pictures, it was so hot and humid, that I never sat out there.

    I left the next day around eleven for a circular hike that would visit three of the functioning monasteries and would walk me past the one that didn't take visitors.  The six monasteries all have different days of operations, so one of these was having a day of rest.  I walked directly from the hotel to the beginning of the trail.

High up, in a crack in a mountain, was a ton of clothing on clotheslines.  They looked to be knotted to them.

Near the beginning of the trail, I caught sight of the first monastery that I would visit.

A second one in the distance.

    Not long into the hike, I came upon the first stop, the Holy Monastery of Saint Nicholas Anapafsas.  There was a stair path along with a winding driveway.  Each monastery had an admission of three euro.  This particular monastery was fairly small, with about four inside rooms, along with a covered and uncovered balcony, with a bell tower up top.  There were not too many visitors, but a fellow photographer struck up a conversation with me.  He is Greek and was visiting with friends from America.  He, himself, lived about an hour away, but he hadn't visited Meteora for many, many years.  He explained that they use sunflowers in their fuel and that he is involved with conservation.  The breeze from the top balcony was absolutely wonderful on what was a very hot day, reaching about ninety three degrees and humid.

This...doesn't look safe to me.

I continued the trail, which meant that I had to follow the road for a short bit before it turned off into a forest path.

You could see the remains of walls on a few perched cliffs.

This would be the second monastery that I would visit.

The path divided, and I took the rightmost trail to the Monastery of Varlaam.  This was much larger than the first one, and with much more people.  It had a small museum in the lower level and a fairly large area to walk around on the top level.

From a top level, you could see the Great Meteron Monastery.

    I returned to where the path divided, and continued up the untraveled side, which led me directly to the Great Meteoron Monastery.  I had brought two water bottled with me and was down to my last half a bottle.  I was starting to get worried, as I still had three quarters of the hike still left to go.  Although this monastery was closed(as I was informed by my hotel), the sign indicated that it should have been open.  Many people were coming down just to be turned away by the closed door.  I followed the path up until I reached the parking lot.  There were 4-5 vendors selling jewelry and knick knacks.  Drivers kept coming and turning around or parking and trying to walk down.  Luckily for me, there was a food truck.  I refilled my water.  

    I followed the road for about thirty seconds and then had to hop up onto a dirt trail.  I needn't have worried, as the first quarter of the trail that I had already done was straight up, and the rest of the trip would be at a slow and easy decline.  I encountered two to three families on the way up, but I had the rest of the hike to myself.  At first I was along the mountains, but ended up in a valley and then a forest, before exiting right near my hotel.  This is what I saw.

The always closed monastery.

    I left the hotel for dinner at a different spot, unoriginally named Stefanos Meteora Tavern.  I picked them because they had some items on the menu that I had not found elsewhere.  They had a dish called Imam Bayildi, which was an eggplant and onions in a sauce, along with bouyiourdi, which was melted feta cheese, with peppers and tomato.  Both were excellent.