Meteora
Greece
Holy Mother of Christ!
We've been expecting you, Mr. Bond
I read it almost as often as I muttered it.
Because this place is as devout as it is divine.
Picture the majesty of Yosemite, mixed with the theatricality of Sigiriya, the verticality of Cinque Terre, and the spirituality of Luang Prabang, and you’re still not remotely close to the unique experience that greets you at Meteora.
After driving through a mountainscape not unlike Switzerland, you emerge at the plain of the Pineios river, where a series of huge, unworldly rock columns sprout up theatrically. And poised implausibly atop these columns sit Meteora’s floating monasteries.
The sight will have you too uttering unholy blasphemies.
You might even imagine a prototypical Bond villain hiding out in his lair up there, aloft and inaccessible. As indeed evil weapons smuggler Aristotle Kristatos did in ‘For Your Eyes Only’.
Roger Moore heroically scaled his way up to Agios Triada the hard way, using just his bare hands, rope, a few pitons and his shoelaces. If you feel a bit queasy watching it on YouTube, you’ll feel even more light-headed on set.
007 was merely adapting the original fourteenth-century access method. Building materials, provisions and monks were all winched up by hand suspended in baskets, the rope's frailty forgiven 'when the Lord let them break'.
These days, the monasteries have the luxury of steps. Plenty of them. Some have small bridges conveniently spanning the chasm. The staff even have a natty phone-box-on-wires contraption to bridge the gap without breaking sweat. Nevertheless, as you make the ascent, you’ll still feel near-Bond levels of heroism. Particularly at the aforementioned Holy Trinity, where the steps first descend into the abyss, then climb up, around and at times through the rock.
Otherworldy
The monasteries that greet you atop each column are petite and picture-postcard perfect, complete with well-tended rose gardens and a vegetable patch. It’s all bizarrely tame, considering their wild relationship with the laws of gravity.
Almost abstract
Each monastery wraps around a small sacred chapel, heady with incense, painted icons and religious intensity. Closeted inside, wall to wall with devout figures affirming their faith, the feeling of focus, fervour and freedom from the modern world is complete and cathartic. You can begin to feel you’re already halfway to heaven.
But you don’t have to be remotely religious to feel spiritual up there. ‘Meteora’ loosely translates from Greek as ‘floating on air’. And that’s exactly how this place leaves you feeling. You will find intense serenity of the secular kind perched on any terrace or well-chosen viewpoint, often a short, if precarious, scramble from the road.
Up there, the vista is panoramic, with the procession of rock pillars poking up like gigantic crocodile’s teeth. From many vantage points, you can see multiple monasteries at once, creating the illusion they’re just a short hop apart.
I don’t advocate trying the hop any more than I recommend looking down.
But I do strongly encourage the lost art of switching off. Without the clutter of your messages, concerns, sense of time, self-importance, agenda, social media, step counter, or body clock, the everyday evaporates away, replaced by a more exalted perspective; sheer awe and wonder, that’s all too absent from our daily grind.
For all the feeling is uplifting, it’s funny how confidence in your basic ability to remain upright dissipates irrationally when perched so near the edge. Even while securely grounded on my painting stool, my subconscious kept throwing me the odd concentration-breaking wobble.
But the perspective and peace more than make up for the peril.
Until, that is, you encounter the dedicated dallier’s arch enemy - the coach party. And in Meteora, there’s never just one. They travel in convoy.
Tours of the floating monasteries are heavily promoted. Many involve the utter insanity and inhumanity of a day trip from Athens. It’s not entirely the fault of the coaches themselves, but the cycle of containment and discharge releases the worst behaviour in their swarms of visitors. In a frenzy of follow the leader, loud conversations and selfie sticks, the factory-farmed tourists throng, shuffle, blockade, snap, then depart, just as slowly as they arrived.
It never ceases to amaze me that, confronted with such a stunning view, the average tourist is only interested in photographing themselves standing in the way of it!
Lofty isolation
As I've frequently commented, never day trip and never join a tour. Particularly in Meteora, which is incredibly easy and rewarding to explore on your own, by car, on foot (OK, not that easy), or electric bike (my preference).
Right in your backyard
Meteora certainly warrants time to properly take it in and let the floating do its magic. Particularly when you consider it took around 60 million years to create.
Whether the landscape or the moaseries, you'll find yourself constantly thinking, 'how did all this get here?'
The short answer, in three words, is pressure, weather and seclusion.
There are detailed geological explanations for the rock formations, but I prefer simply to think of toothpaste.
The columns are gigantic versions of those unwanted bits that splurge out from the mouth of your toothpaste tube, as the side-effect of excessive squeezing. Except in this case, the toothpaste is softish riverbed aggregate and the pressure came courtesy of the sea, which about sixty million years ago lapped at Meteora.
Weather did the rest of the work. Wind and rain sculpted the meteoric columns into shape, etched their grooved texture and provided the conditions for greenery to creep up them.
Appropriately enough, the word ‘meteorology’ shares the same lofty Greek derivation as Meteora. I'll never accuse it of being dull again.
On a perfect cloudless day, from my vantage up on high, I was treated to a dramatic thunderstorm that appeared from out of nowhere and rumbled slowly and ominously down the valley. Cascades of rainwater ran off the tops and down the rock faces, carving the vertical striations deeper.
It was a sight worth getting wet for. And it made the landscape make sense.
From an engineering perspective, nothing makes sense of the monasteries, though. Indeed, that's precisely their modern-day appeal.
Of course, the original creators' motivation was little to do with appeal.
The luxury of a bridge
The hermit monks who first inhabited the columns weren’t there for the views. They were drawn by the isolation, ascetic lifestyle and the chance to live several hundred metres closer to God.
They were followed, in the 14th century, by Orthodox monks from Greece’s most significant religious site, Mount Athos, who sought refuge from religious persecution and the encroaching Ottoman Empire.
From their inaccessible heights, with ropes and ladders safely pulled up, the monks were in full control of who paid them a visit.
Which makes it both incredible and ironic that nowadays they welcome 2½ million visitors a year. Equivalent to that far more familiar and accessible citadel, the Tower of London.
The charmingly low-key village of Kastraki nestles at the base of the columns, almost oblivious to the marvel sprouting up, literally in its backyard.
From that cosy vantage, looking up at the rocks at night, you can just make out one or two lonely lights suspended in the blackness. This best brought home to me the sense of isolation.
Last rays
Whatever your religious beliefs, you can't help but experience Meteora in disbelief.
It suspends reality, clears your mind, lifts your spirit and creates the space for new ideas to float.
As somewhere to escape the distractions of the world, engage in contemplation and worship in awe something far greater than you, Meteora's power is universally uplifting.
A Few Links and Practicalities
(Just sharing the love. I absolutely don’t get paid for these.)
Meteora is a fairly easy 3 hour drive east from Preveza, or west from Thessaloniki. It's a longer hike from Athens.
I recommend the village of Kastraki for its somewhat no-frills vibe and its position nestled right into the rocks. The town of Kalabamka is more of a town, for better and worse.
There are a few boutique-ish guest house options, albeit for the money their rooms are more B&B in size.
Mones www.mones.gr does an epic breakfast buffet and views, albeit its smart, but tiny rooms look the other way
Check out these other options too; Tsikeli, Doupiani House (for the view) or The Storyteller House (in Kalabamka).
To complement the perfectly good tavernas, I adopted Senses restaurant (at the Tsikeli hotel) for fancier, non-Greek options.
There's great walking if that's your thing and sensational rock climbing (obviously).
www.meteoraebike.com will rent you an e-bike. Without electrical assistance, the cycling's distinctly hardcore.
Otherwise, despite what the tour industry would have you believe, it's really easy to drive and park at each of the monasteries.
There are six intact, inhabited monasteries, plus traces of 18 more. You do the math on how long you need. As a dallier and painter, I enjoyed pacing myself to one, plus its surrounding vistas, per day. But three full days is probably about right.
You don't need to see all the monasteries, but each has its differences and I enjoyed sampling and comparing them all.
Gran Meteoron is - surprise, surprise - the largest, and the one everyone visits
Varlaam seems to sneak into just about every photo you take and there's as much reward looking at it, and scaling your way up to it as there is when you get there
Saint Nicholas Anapausas is the smallest and lowest, but shouldn't be overlooked
Roussanou has the prime spot, right on the bend. The views from it are just as good as the many views of it.
Holy Trinity (Agios Triada) has the most Bond-like appearance and approach.
Saint Stephen (Agios Stefanos) is the most accessible, with no steps. As one of only two nunneries, I found it had more empathy and charm than the others, particularly in its rose garden.
If you're used to the Greek island vibe and climate, epitomised by Symi, it's interesting to experience the heart of the mainland. Early June is the perfect time, still having the nip of spring, along with the searing sun of summer and the strong likelihood of an unseasonal shower.
Don’t miss;
The peace
The drama
The floating