After learning a ton about the Sanctuary of Delphi and taking dozens of breath-taking photos, we headed towards the second destination of the private tour: Meteora. The name speaks for itself. It means “suspended in the air” or “middle of the sky”. It is one of the largest complex of Greek Orthodox monasteries, built on top of sandstone rock pillars and are challenging to reach. According to the tour guide, there used to be 12 monasteries in Meteora, but only 6 of them made it to today, lucky to have survived the world wars. They used to be all occupied by monks, but recently, some of them were converted to convents or nunneries.
Early the following day, we left the hotel to visit the monasteries. The view was really spectacular! The monks used retractable ladders or nets to transport food from below to the monasteries on top of the sandstone pillars. First stop: the Monastery of St. Nicholas Anapausas built in the 16th century. It has a small church inside with beautiful paintings created by Theopanes of Crete in the 1500s.
See the tiny people climbing up the Great Meteoron? haha 😀 We also stopped on a perfect photo-op spot!
More twists and turns and finally, we entered the last monastery, the Holy Monastery of St. Stephen, which was taken over by nuns after the WWII. The monatery was lovely, but I have to say that I met the most serious (or perhaps solemn is the more appropriate word?) group of people in the world – the nuns. Of course, they let visitors in for a certain fee to help maintain the place. They also have a souvenir shop, where I bought a really nice hand-made necklace and my now-missing-ring.