Greece 2010 - July 18th - Meteora

With a long day ahead of us, we set out early and began the hike.  We planned on walking to all monasteries.  We got to visit five of the six, and only missed out on the last one because our opening hour information was not valid.

This is the day where we snapped the most pictures of the entire trip - by far - so I'm going to take the liberty of exploding your bandwidth limit here.

We started out on the Kalambaka side, with Aghia Trias.  We reached it by hiking North through the woods from the tip of the village.

Aghia Trias.

Approaching the monastery.

The little tree that could.

Their winch and net, used to haul up cargo and monks back in the day.

Front of the main building.

Secondary building.

The little cable car the residents use nowadays.

We then reached nearby Aghios Stefanos using the road.

Aghios Stefanos.

Inner courtyard.

Same courtyard, different angle.

So many candles burn here that they have a (holy) fume hood!

Outside the katholikon.

Garden.

Garden with the actual chapel of Saint Stefanos, if I recall correctly.

Afterwards, we took to the woods (more like the thorny, pant-intruding bushes) and made for Roussanou.

Entrance to Roussanou.

Inner courtyard, with part of the garden.

Overhanging structure, kind of like a covered balcony.

Hidden elevator, with older ladder.

Time-sharing of a furry implement.

Solicitation.

At that point, both Varlaam and Megalo Meteoro are pretty close.  We reached Varlaam first - it is the most modern-looking of the monasteries we visited.

Varlaam and its access path.

Gosh darn, time to get rid of those pantaloons!

Making your way up, you can see their winch platform, which is still in use.

Plaza of sorts.  You can see the modern treatment of the stone.

Inner hallway.

Feeling adventurous, we took a path through the woods to Megalo Meteoro.  This turned out to be quite arduous - the path is narrow and steep, not very well-maintained, and thorny plants abound.

Megalo Meteoro from afar.

Main entryway.  This place is pretty big, mega indeed.

The old wood workshop.

Stairwell leading up from the main alleyway.

Another angle into the ossuary.

Pot in the old kitchen.

Old table set.

Part of the sprawling structure of the monastery; it really is quite large.

Private courtyard.

Public courtyard with gardens and a water source.

Path to more museums.

Lastly, on our way back down to Kastraki (through the bushes again), we were able to photograph Aghios Nikolaos Anapafsas from afar.

Aghios Nikolaos Anapafsas.

Aghios Nikolaos Anapafsas.

Panorama taken that morning.