Day 5: Of magnificent mountains and monasteries at Meteora

A gentle wake up this morning. Time to do some washing before heading up into the mountains immediately behind the hotel Divani in Kalambaka to visit some monasteries. the pilgrims in the lobby were looking quite "wired"as they grabbed the last seconds of wi fi before we hit the road. 

The road is narrow and very winding and the views are nothing short of breathtaking. Our first stop was by the roadside to view the smallest of the monasteries from a distance. It is apparently only one room and there is only ONE monk who lives in this monastery. Takes the notion of solitude to new heights if you will pardon the pun.

Our first visit today was to the monastery of Varlaam. This was built in the 1350s and is named for its founder. Talk about stairs... for a brief moment I could have been forgiven for thinking that I was back in Paris. Melina our guide sprung on us last night the joyous news that the ladies had to wear skirts when entering the monasteries... Now those of you who know me well know that that is not likely to happen on a good day, and certainly a skirt is not likely to be one of the items that makes it into my pilgrim luggage. So, fortunately each of the monasteries provides wrap around pieces of very fetching fabric for us gals to wear. Now there was a bit of frivolity going on around this and a certain Deacon we are travelling with was even seen to smirk at the fact that we gals had to don such fetching attire. But the photo will attest to the fun! After a few shots of the breathtaking scenery and the courtyard area it was off to explore the place. It is a rule in the monasteries that you cannot take pics inside the churches and so unfortunately I don’t have a photographic record of the actual artwork except for this one set in the entrance way to the chapel… but WOW... etched in my brain forever is the artwork on the walls. It appears there were two different artist schools, one from Crete and one from Macedonia. The Cretan school used much darker shades in their work, with inky blues and deep crimsons. That is what the narthex of the chapel is decorated with. The actual chapel itself, which is very small, is vibrant with more gold and brighter colours in the clothes and more definition in the faces. In addition some of the halos around the place were even in relief and they drew the eye to them. There were some saints represented in this way but most of them were Jesus or the Virgin Mary.

Having done the chapel we saw the net that the monks used to raise and lower supplies and people to and from the monastery and in addition we saw a massive old barrel... It looked like a 5 metre long 4 metre high wine barrel but it is what they used to store the water in for the monastery. Amazing. After a brief stop in the souvenir shop… (feels like a Disney theme park attraction where you have to exit through the gift shop!) it was back down all those stairs, leaving the skirts that we had grown so fond of and making our way to the bus to head off to our next monastery.. the Monastery of Saint Stephen

This monastery sustained some terrible damage during world war II and so very little of it is in the original condition, but has been rebuilt. The views of Kalambaka and down the valley form here are just breathtaking. The skirt thing was happening AGAIN as this pic will testify to and then we visited the chapel. Here of course the iconography is bright and new and the colours are spectacular. This chapel has women saints painted on one side and men saints on the other side and the icon of Christ on the dome. The iconostasis is just beautiful. Melina confirmed what I had suspected... that the figure of Christ is used in the domes of the churches to represent God, because, being incorporeal, no image of God the father is used in iconography because icons can only be drawn of “embodied” characters. It’s nice… bit like the Jewish understanding of no images of G_d.

One more stop for some breathtaking valley views and then it was back to the town. Some of the group got out of the bus in town while others of us went back to the hotel to leave our stuff before walking back down to the town to have a bite to eat. Melina had recommended a traditional Greek restaurant where an elderly woman cooks large pots of food and you walk in to the kitchen and choose your meal and it is served to your plate right there. I had Greek lamb and eggplant with potato and white beans. It was so yummmm. A few of the girls headed back to the hotel via the souvenir shops and the most evil looking cake shop I have ever see. A tiny sample of lady finger baklava was in order, before back to blog and get ready for Mass. It has been a slower paced day, one which has given us a chance to play catch-up and have some time for reflecting on the awe-inspiring experience that this pilgrimage has been thus far.