Day 38

Kaliméra,

We have had a spectacular day today. We visited Meteora, just a few minutes away from the village of Kalabaka.

Many millions of years ago this area was under the sea. The Earth changed, there was a huge earthquake, and this area rose out of the sea bed to form mountains made of sandstone. The wind and the rain shaped these mountains into spectacular pillars of stone. They have a very smooth surface, and are almost cylindrical in shape. In

some of the pillars the softer parts eroded to form natural caves.

A thousand years ago some monks started to live in the caves as hermits. They were escaping persecution by the Ottomans, and just wanted to be left alone to practice their religion in the eyes of God.

Quite how they climbed up to these caves is a mystery, they must have had to free climb, and they would certainly have been cold in the winter.

More monks started to arrive, seeking a safe refuge from the increasing number of attacks on Greece by the Turks. Some of these monks banded together and started to build a monastery on top of one of these very high pillars. Even though they only started building a small building at first, everything required to build it hard to be carried to the top. There were no machines, no lifts, no stairs, no

animals such as horses or donkeys to help.. A lot of items were pulled to the top using a pulley system.

As the years went on the monastaries were added to and made bigger and bigger. Eventually there were twenty five monastaries. Today there are just six. Some were abandoned. Some were destroyed by German bombing during World War II.

Word of the monastaries has spread, and today they are visited by thousands of tourists like us each year. At a charge of €3 each to visit a monastery, they are making good money to pay for the upkeep. Unfortunately the hoards of tourists bring noise and disruption, and as a result only a handful of monks remain. Most have moved elsewhere in search of peace and solitude.

There is a very strict dress code to visit a monastery. No one can wear singlets or shorts, not even men. Women must wear a skirt that covers the knees; ladies cannot wear jeans or trousers.

There are bridges, cable cars, and electric winches to get materials to the monastery these days. But even today it can be a challenge to get some materials across.

An interesting site we saw was a roomful of human bones, with skulls stacked up on a set of shelves. Our guide explained that in Greece cremation is not possible. If you want to have your loved ones cremated, you have to organise for the body to be shipped to Romania or Bulgaria, cremated there, then the ashes returned.

In Greece bodies are buried for five years. Then they are exhumed, the remains washed with special wine, leaving only the bones. The bones are then stored in metal drawers which the family can visit

whenever they want. Or in the case of the monks, store on a shelf.

The area has a number of stone towers that do not have monastaries on top. Climbers are free to climb these. We saw a number of people climbing high, right the top and then standing and enjoying the view. They looked like a little trail of ants climbing up. We were scared just looking at them doing it.

Buzzy Bee really enjoyed his day out. He got some more shots for his portfolio, and had lots of people make a fuss over him and call him “cute”. No one called him a Teddy Bear.

The weather was spectacular and we got lots of pictures. The camera certainly got a workout.

We had a very good day, and then dinner on the rooftop of our favourite café.

Love to you all from Grandma and Koro and Buzzy Bee. XXX OOO.