Every time I looked up in Meteora Greece, I thought "the gods had a rock war." The mountainous stones sitting upright in the valley were like nothing I'd ever seen before. And the stones were the secondary reason we were here, the primary reason were the castle like monasteries atop six of them.
Somewhere around the 17th century, the monastic orders populating the caves in this land formalized their settlements into floating palaces in the sky. Most of the material hauled up by ropes over the period of decades. Today, a few monks and nuns still populated this magnificent structures but it is a thriving tourist business as well - although at 3 euro a visitor it's more of a boon for the town in the valley than the monasteries themselves.
Janine had heard of these and really wanted to make the four hour drive north from Athens to see these and hike between (some of) them. I, willing to go along with most of her odd impulses, agreed and was glad that I did. These buildings are designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites for a reason - although as I said in the opening, I was in awe of the landscape as much as edifices.
Today we have a LONG day of travel back to Athens - waiting at the port of Rafini for most of the afternoon - and then a 4 hour boat ride for our final adventure on the island of Naxos. That's where I am now and I can say for all the niceties of the more modern ferries, I miss being able to go on an open deck - I feel like I've been on a very nice bus for the past 3.5 hours.
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