Greece Trip: Meteorea (4.14.24)

We arrived in Athens on April 13, 2024, for a three week tour of Greece.  Straight from the airport, we drove three hours to Meteora, in northern Greece.  The red pin on the map marks the location of Meteora.

It is renowned for its mountain top monasteries, built during the 1100s to 1400s, when the Turks invaded Greece.  The monks fled from their traditional monasteries on Mt. Athos, in eastern Greece, to safer spots farther west.  Over the centuries, they built many monasteries in the Meteora area, of which eight survive today.  We visited three of them--the Grand, Vaarlum, and one other at which we saw groups of nuns.  We climbed hundreds of steps up the mountainside and savored the beautiful Greek Orthodox paintings and icons.

We stayed in a picturesque hotel in the middle of the mountains.  Our room was decorated with 1800s style Greek furnishings--dark, heavy bedframe and bureau, rose-colored walls and bedspread, with framed photos of serious, long-ago people.

At sunset, our hotel glowed orange in the fading sunlight.

Our hotel clerk recommended his friend's restaurant down the hill.  We sat outside on the patio, eating plates of beans in tomato sauce and stuffed eggplant.

For dessert, there was baklava with a bit of frozen yogurt.  I dutifully wore the neck brace prescribed after I cracked the vertebrae in my neck and chest after a fall over a retaining wall in my garden, while spreading compost to the top layer of plants on a steep hill.  I envy those sure-footed Swiss mountain goats.

We finished our stay in Meteora with a visit to the Natural History Museum, which had a display of raptors, with a terrifying video of huge raptors swooping down and carrying off rabbits, foxes, and even a sheep!  Dave and I stood, transfixed, and watched the video over and over.

There was also an exhibit on mushrooms from around the world.  It even told about the prehistoric man found buried in a glacier in the Alps, who had been eating mushrooms before he died. 

Mushrooms have been food for men for thousands of years. 

At the end of the display, we got to taste different varieties of mushrooms.  You have to be flexible and resolutely curious on trips, and you will never be disappointed!

We also watched the sunset from a mountain viewpoint, where we could see the sun setting behind the huge, strange cliffs.