Tuesday 22 May Campervan day four

And now for something completely different . . . Meteora. 

The facts - this place is a series of high rock pinnacles. In the late 14th century, monasteries were built upon 26 of them. Six of these monastaries remain today.

The fantasy - we met an old man walking his little dog at the entrance of one of the monastaries. He was a born and bred local, and even he described this place as where you might find fairies riding their unicorns. 

We drove into Meteora in the late morning, and as soon as we turned the corner of the first massive rock formation, we knew that we were in a very different place. We came across the first monastery a very short way in. We climbed the steep path and stairs up to the door, and on the way we spotted a terrapin, a snake and a very strange caterpillar train, consisting of about eight large hairy caterpillars moving very fast, nose to tail, up a rock face. Ascending the final staircase to the monastery proper, we were admitted by a rather taciturn, very un-monklike large man (Hagrid sprung to mind). The monastery was carved into and built from the rock, in a series of unusually shaped, almost organic feeling rooms. The woodwork was old and beautiful, the rock was used as walls and simply plastered over. The views from tiny windows and generous platforms and balconies were breathtaking.

The most impressive room by far was the chapel itself, with its amazing, hand-painted scenes on every surface. Two themes predominated (and were recurrent throughout all the four monastaries we visited). The first consisted of vivid scenes of the judgement of sinners and their descent into hell, where they were consumed by a huge serpent and various other animals, especially fish, tortured in various ways by Satan’s imps, and finally, those that survived descended through progressively darker and darker cells to the desparing pits at the very bottom, at floor level. From above, saints sat in heaven and regarded them with mournful eyes. The second recurrent theme was that of the torture of the early Christian martyrs by Romans and pagans. The scenes depicted were eye wateringly graphic. There were beatings, dismemberings, skinnings, burnings, crushings, stonings, boiling alives, clubbing, stretchings, feeding to wild animals - we just stood and stared. And after a while, we emerged from these rooms back out into the simply stunning scenery of the area outside.

We stopped by the biggest of the monasteries and had a picnic lunch overlooking one of the most amazing and bizarre views we have encountered to date. The buildings sit on top of these sheer rock faces, often hanging over the edges. I wonder just how on earth they built these places, almost 600 years ago?

We visited another three monastaries during the day, all with these amazing paintings in the chapels. Most did not allow photos in the chapels - some were not as strict as others so I did manage to get some. The last one we visited was a nunnery rather than monastary, so I thought maybe the scenes on their chapel may be a bit gentler? Not a bit of it - they were just as graphic as the rest. Here I purchased my stone reminder of Meteora, from a young nun who was sitting patiently inscribing beautifully detailed pictures of the area onto small white stones.

We left Meteora late in the day, and completed half of our drive back to Athens, stopping for the night at a beachside resort campground near the town of Stylida. Left with memories of a unique and almost indescribable place. 

Meteora - the first monastary we came to.

Same monastary from directly below 

In carpark, next monastary in background

Terrapin in monastary grounds - the old man told us they were experiencing a population explosion, as they used to be eaten by native vulture type birds, but when poison was put down to kill the wolves that were eating the farmer's goats, the birds got wiped out too.

A caterpillar train

Glimpse of next monastary

It could be Fairyland, couldn't it?

Chapel in the rock

One of the painted chapels

One of the many torture scenes depicted in the chapels

Romy with the amazing rock formations of Meteora

How did they build these places???

Stairway up to one of the monastaries