[travel] Holy Meteora

[mattbell]

Thanks to the advice of a man I met on the bus in rural Thailand a couple of months ago, I checked out Meteora, Greece. Meteora is cluster of monasteries perched atop some extremely steep sandstone pillars. The monasteries meet just about all the aesthetic criteria I mentioned earlier with regard to what makes a beautiful city, with serious overachievement on the natural beauty criterion. It's the sort of thing that would spring out of the mind of Tolkien or a writer of romantic fairy tales.

Monks, seeking a quiet place to meditate free of worldly distractions, built stone buildings in places that no invaders or nosy townspeople could reach. 

Celibacy was enforced by gravity. 





One of the few rocks without a monastery on top:





















Inside the monks had the facilities to make food, wine, and other necessities.







At night:




I explored the area with a guy I met on the train.  He was even less afraid of heights slipping on wet moss than I was.




 

Comments

[veleda.livejournal.com]

wow. that is incredible. how do they get up there?

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Originally? I think the first monk to get up probably had a rope, a grappling hook, and a lot of bravery. Once the first one got up, he could use rope to bring up more monks, and later, supplies to build the monasteries. Each monastery eventually had a room with a large platform and a winch for easily bringing up people and supplies.

Apparently when the monasteries were first active, they wouldn't repair the rope, instead letting it break when God willed it to break.

Nowadays there's a stairway cut into the side of the rock of us lazy tourists.

[flamingnerd.livejournal.com]

good god these pictures pique my acrophobia!

[(Anonymous)]

isn't that where they filmed the ending of For Your Eyes Only?

*checks IMDB*

haha! victory. nice pictures :)

[aquestrian.livejournal.com]

I love this. Just, the whole concept of it. It's truly lovely.

[geheimnisnacht.livejournal.com]

I made it there last year; think it's my favorite natural landscape yet visited!