Greece - Meteora

I had seen pictures and TV-video’s about Meteora and it was on my bucket list for a long time. Having seen quite a lot of different countries and sights I only can say that this extraordinary place now is one of my top ten places.

Meteora combines unique natural rocks with unimaginable human efforts. Meteora (from the Greek adjective meteoros - which means "elevated above the earth"), refers to the group of isolated rock pinnacles and to monasteries built on them. The height of these rocks varies from 300 more than 600 meters.

The rock pillars of Meteora - also called “the rock forest of Greece” - tower hundreds of meters above the plain of Thessaly and the towns of Kalampaka and Kastraki. In the dark grey rock masses vertical grooves are carved out by rainwater that seeped down along the rock walls. The horizontal lines are much older and were created by waves hitting the rocks when the plain of Thessaly was the bottom of a sea.

Millions of years ago, the pillars were part of the rocky bottom of that sea. A series of powerful earthquakes pushed the entire region out of the sea, creating a plateau with countless fractures in the thick sandstone layer. Weathering of the broken sandstone by water, wind and strong temperature changes then created the towering outcrops

The natural sandstone towers of Meteora were first used as a religious refuge when the hermit Barnabas retreated to a cave in 985. Around 1350 Nelios, prior of the Stagaik monastery, built the first small church. Soon afterwards the monk Athanasios, from Mount Athos, founded the monastery Megalo Meteoro on one of the many rock formations.

It is still not quite clear how the first hermits reached the top of the steep cliffs. Probably they slammed hooks in the rock and lifted building materials. Monasteries could be reached by rermovable ladders and later windlasses were used to haul monks in nets.

There followed 23 more monasteries, most of which fell into disrepair at the end of the 18th century. In the twenties of the 20th century stairs were cut into the rocks to make the remaining six monasteries (Agios Nikolaos Anapafsas, Roussanou, Varlaam, Megalo Meteoro, Agios Stefanos, Agia Triada) more accessible. Now monks and nuns live there again.

Since 1988 the six monasteries are listed as a cultural UNESCO World Heritage Site.