Meteora

METEORA

This happened to be probably our most grueling day of travel in a long time. Although having the car gives us so much more freedom, it is a SMALL car, yes, it is. Grandma and the kids can tell you even better than I. I happen to fit into the driver’s seat of small cars like a glove. The back end, however, I don’t think is very glove-like. They have all been troopers and have learned little systems and mechanisms of coping, like rigging up the stroller with my bag and having a variety of small toys, writing instruments, and Mentos available at all times. The Mentos have been indispensable (small fruity or minty candies that Basil loves). This was a hard day because we had about 3 hours of driving split up on Evia and then another 3 ahead of us to get to our next destination: Kalambaka.

This town is situated at the foot of the rocks of Meteora, probably the most dramatic monastic site anywhere. Scientists believe it is from very extreme natural phenomena over huge spans of time that the very unusual rocks of Meteora were formed. From the wide, flat plain below, Kalambaka is nestled at the foot of sheer stones that rise straight up in the air. On top of these, monks fleeing persecutions during the Turkish occupation actually built monasteries. Who knows how the first monks got up there, but after that, people and materials were pulled up in a fishing net with a large pulley. You can still see the huge cog that the monks pushed while walking in a large circle to pull up the net. I believe they are still used to bring up materials, but now the government has built safe stairways up into the monasteries for visitors and pilgrims.

We found a hotel pretty easily by driving up into the town upon our arrival: Hotel Keftos, with a very sweet proprietor named Katerini. The kids, Grandma and I got some groceries and we had a very simple meal of olives stuffed with feta, local hard cheese, tomatoes, a fresh red pepper, Pringles(!) sliced ham and bread, with some chocolate at the end. This was a big luxury because outside chocolate-covered ice cream, the 2 times we’ve tried to buy some chocolate it has turned into a pool before we remembered to eat it.

I had a terrible night because our air conditioner was very weird and I was sweating laying on the bed. But it, too, passed away eventually. We got up in the morning, had some chocolate-stuffed croissants and ham for breakfast, and hit the road for the monasteries at a decent hour. You have to drive up into a mountain that stands behind the huge stones, which takes about 15 minutes. That morning, we had the choice of two different monasteries to visit: a small men’s monastery called Aghia Triada, and a larger women’s monastery called Agios Stephanos, where I had once stayed for almost a week.

We decided to start with Aghia Triada, because it had the difficult climb, whereas Agios Stephanos had a nice bridge and no stairs. The new way to Aghia Triada, built in the last few years, was very wide and safe. Nevertheless, no engineering could take away the extremity of access to that place. We had to climb way down a wide road of paving stones peppered with a few stairs here and there. At the bottom of the gap between the mountainside and the rock, we had to then begin the ascent up the huge stone. A good, safe staircase was partially built into the side, in places we could see where they had actually carved away part of the rock face to create a tunnel. Coming down, I think Emma counted something like 300 stairs. It was extreme exercise in the rising heat. We all paced ourselves and rested a lot along the way, but we all made it.

Above, we saw the pulley and net as well as the main chapel the monks use, covered with frescoes. We were able to re-fill our empty water bottles and chat with the young man minding the doorway before we headed back down.

We drove just a few minutes down to Agios Stephanos, where we had no exertion getting into the monastery which houses about 15 nuns. There was a nice gift shop here and a church decorated with perhaps the best contemporary icons we’ve seen yet on our trip. I was especially taken with the series depicting the days of creation in the narthex. And Christopher “read” us the life of St. Charalampos, whose relics lie here, by explaining the series of frescoes depicting his life.

The monastery also has a museum of icons and liturgical implements. It was pretty amazing to see an actual letter from one of the hierarchs to the monastery, written in the 15th century. Winding alongside a sweet rose garden where I think the nuns who have reposed are buried, one comes to a tiny chapel dedicated to St. Stephen. (The larger church is dedicated to St. Charalampos). Inside, the narthex is bare except for a stunning fresco of St. Stephen being martyred by stoning.

The chapel inside is rather dark and obviously old. One of the most striking things I’ve seen on our trip was the frescoes inside this chapel. One can clearly see, on both the walls and iconostasis, the icons several hundred years old, with eyes gouged out and faces scraped off. Of course this was a very common phenomenon from Muslim invaders, for whom imagery is anything but sacred. Most of the ancient icons we have, except in remote areas like St. Catherine’s monastery in Sinai, have suffered this kind of damage. But you don’t usually see it still in an actual working church. In this context, it drove home to me how devastating it must have been for the nuns who lived here and the people who worshipped here. I sat looking at a fresco of a martyrdom. There were two men depicted, one spearing and one stabbing another man, who lay on the ground unarmed, obviously a monk. This man being killed had his face scraped off, while the rest of his body, the painting of it, that is, remained intact. I wondered how someone could actually desecrate an icon this way, do again what was being done in the painting. Unreal.

I was able to reconnect with the nun who had helped me on my last visit there. It was so delightful to see her again. She was a novice then, and had been clothed as a nun about the same time I got married.

We went back down to the hotel for the Greek siesta, and everyone took one except me. Instead, I went down into town and found a vegetable shop and a bakery to get a few more groceries. Being able to use the refrigerator at the hotel made it much easier to save money on food. I also needed to call the folks back in Athens to see if we needed to hold a room for Fr. Nicholas and company. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to make it to Meteora, but were doing other exciting things instead.... like watching a Flogging Molly concert! Alright, not Fr. Nicholas, but his son and the other teenage boy. They had a great time at it. Fr. Nicholas was busy purchasing liturgical items for our dear St. Herman’s church, and came out within dollars of his budget. He was happy as a clam when I spoke with him about it.

We had planned to sleep a couple of hours then get up and go to the other side of Meteora, where there were 4 more monasteries to see. Christopher and Basil slept so long, we didn’t really have time. It was hot and hard not to keep sleeping. So Christopher and I decided to leave the kids with Grandma and just check out the way up the other side so we could have a good start in the morning. We expected the monasteries all to be closed by then.

The first one, St. Nicholas Apapfanas (or however it is spelled!) was indeed closed. The second, however, St. Barbara Roussanou, was open for another hour and a half. We did another pretty big stair climb, but it was only up and half as long as Agias Triada had been that morning.

I was surprised to find that the frescoes in the chapel were also done by St. Theopan the Cretan, one of my favorite painters. We spent quite some time in there marveling and praying. It was beautiful. After leaving the monastery, we took a short hike up into the forest and then went down, sitting on the steps at the bottom to talk more about the time I had had with Gerondas Chrosotomos on Zakynthos.

We went back to the hotel and gathered everyone to head into town for some dinner. We also got hooked up at the internet café and downloaded a blog. We had a marvelous dinner that night at a little taverna: souvlaki, local sausage, lamb, and chicken soup, which Emma had been craving. We passed a good night, switching up the bedrooms a bit with Emma and Christopher in one, and the rest of us in the other.

The next morning Basil stayed home with Grandma to pack up and relax while the 3 of us went up to the Great Meteora, the biggest monastery up there. After dropping them off and finally finding a parking place WAAAAAYYY behind all the tour busses then walking back up the hill, I decided I just shouldn’t do the huge climb down and then up again that day, due to tenderness in my leg from our climb the day before. So I sat and worked on Christopher’s laptop doing this blog with the most incredible view you can imagine, watching tourist from all over the world pose and take their pictures (the Japanese ladies, I think, were the most delightful!) while Christopher and Emma had a great visit to that most amazing place (I had been years before). Christopher was very impressed by their museum of folklore which had very old lithographs with pictures from WWII. Unfortunatley, Meteora was a front for the war with the Germans during park of it and the monasteries here were all badly bombed.

We checked out and headed out of town around noon, on our way to rendezvous with the others in Thessaloniki.