Trips throughout Greece

Athens - Pireaus - Cape Sounion - Poros - Santorini - Zakynthos - Rhodes - Mikonos - Delos - Corinth - Theater of Epidauro - Nafplio - Mycenae - Delphi - Arahova - Ioannina - Vikos Gorges - Meteora - Messenia and Peloponnesus

The bus trip from Ioannina to Kalambaka is not boring at all. It starts with spectaculars views over the lake and the Ioannina basin. The road continues through mountainous and green spots very impressive in hundreds or kilometres practically uninhabited. After two hours the bus arrives into a postcard village called Metsovo , where some passengers got down. Stone houses, a precious and wide square and huge mountains around. The village is in the middle of nowhere. The bus left Metsovo and drove us along similar roads towards Kalambaka.

We reached Kalambaka in the evening and we got a correct hotel very quickly, as all the hotels were empty due to low season. We asked about car rentals and we got the surprise that there weren't any in the village. They told us that we could visit Meteora in a taxi, but we preferred to move at our own flow. I don't know which option would have been the cheapest. So in the next morning we took a bus to Trikala, a town 20 km. far, to search for a car rental and return to Kalambaka again, as it is the starting point to go to Meteora.

Map of Meteora

Kalambaka seemed to us a peaceful and comfortable place. It is located at the feet or some rocks that indicate that Meteora is very close. In the morning the fog covered the summits and gave them an enigmatic air.
Meteora is compelling, indescribable. I can explain you many things but you have to see that yourselves to understand what I mean. It is a landscape drawn with gigantic rocks in different and fantastic shapes whose summits are crowned by the famous monasteries called Meteora ("hung from the air").

The rocky towers are situated between the mass mountain of Pindo and the plain of Thessalia. The water that runs down from the mountains have smoothed the valley, leaving the resistant vertical rocks unaltered,
Certain hermits started to live here in the 11th century, in a search for loneliness. In the 14th century many of the hermitages became monasteries because the Serb criminals frequented the zone. Saint Atanasius, coming from the Mount Athos founded the Great Meteora monastery in a place of difficult access.

Other monasteries followed the example and they reached a peak during the 15th and 16th centuries, when they summed 24. Afterwards it started a period of decadence and nowadays many monks have escaped from the tourists to Mount Athos . Only 5 of the monasteries are inhabited. In the past the unique possibility to gain access to them was with a hand-ladder or through something like a net tied to ropes that allowed to be elevated. Today there are stairs and a road that links the monasteries.

You feel impressed when you imagine how they managed to build them in so a difficult place and above all how they dared to go up. The travellers of the past said that the ropes only were changed when they broke...
The views as you arrive by car increase progressively the impact. The first monastery you find is Saint Nicolas. Afterwards the road rounds the rock which keeps on its summit the monastery of Roussanou.

We followed until the two main monasteries : Great Meteora and Varlaam. In the Great Meteora you have to ascend through stairs excavated in the rock to reach the platform where the monastery was built, at a height of 500 m. The monastery conserves several rooms, the church or the refectory, constructed between 14th and 16th centuries. The visit tries to show how the monks' life is. They have strict timetables for tourists to avoid interfering with the monks' lives.

Of course that there is a viewpoint in the terrace with unequalled views of the rocks and the monastery of Varlaam. The monastery of Varlaam is very similar and it can be visited. In both monasteries there are shops selling thousands of souvenirs.

We returned to our car. We had to stop in every bend and walk over the huge rocky blocks of mild shapes to reach the edge and contemplate the amazing and marvellous panoramas. Indeed the landscape in front of us could be included in those described by Tolkien in "the Lord of the Rings". The colourful autumn, the light mist and the environment caused a feeling that you are observing something unreal, a picture.

We ate in Kalambaka, we returned to Trikala and we took a bus towards Athens . The visit of Meteora lasted for half day or even more. From Athens there is a distance of 5 or 6 h. by road.
In this page I have to mention a place that I have signalled through the text briefly: Mount Athos or the Sacred Mountain. Meteora and Mount Athos are the main orthodox religious centres of Greece, but the second one is the most important. In Mount Athos there are many more monasteries and monks, but the access is very restrictive and only men with previous appointment are accepted, and they must fulfil some requisites. The monasteries seem to be immense, colourful and fortified against the pirates in the past. Therefore to enter it you have to search for peace and meditation, a different and unique experience of travelling to a century ago. There are also cruises around the peninsula, but I suppose that it is like desiring to see a treasure but to see the chest instead. This place is located in Macedonia, near Thessaloniki (northern Greece). It was a pity to miss this region.