Meteora Monasteries
Greece, Kalambaka

The most unforgettable moment of your stay in Greece will be a visit to the monasteries of Meteor, built on the flat peaks of steep cliffs 600 years ago. This geological wonder of nature must be seen with your own eyes to believe in it. Rocks directed upward from the flat surface of the valley to the monastery of the Gods themselves are a rare geological phenomenon, an inexplicable quirk of the universe. Cut off the tops of the rocks since ancient times have become a haven of hermits. Then monastic communities arose here. Erected at an altitude of up to 300 meters, on the rocky peaks of amazing steepness that are found in the spurs of Pinda in Thessaly, they seem to be looking through the Pignos Valley at the expanses of ancient Hellas. Until 1920, rare visitors had to either climb here by tented stairs 30 meters high, or even more (these stairs were dragged upstairs), or even climb the rope, swinging at a breakneck height in a woven rope net. The supply of monasteries to this day is carried out using such nets. But after the First World War, when monasteries began to attract more and more tourists, a new road was paved here from Kalambaki. Most of the monasteries were male, but there are several female. To one of them, the Stefanos Monastery, you can only go over the bridge hanging over the abyss. Now, monasteries can be reached by serpentines of steps carved into the rocks and by rickety suspension bridges thrown across bottomless abysses. True, many monks, fearing the vain intrusions of worldly life into the ascetic monastic life, left their cells and today the Meteora monasteries are more museums than monastic communities.

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