Road Trip Back in Time

So I’m sitting in my hotel room, at the base of Meteora. My balcony looks out onto the massive rocks, “suspended in air.” I’ve had a day filled with moments of wonder and awe and I am certain that it’s just the beginning.

Too early this morning, I departed Athens on a tour coach bus, reminiscent of the Greek movie, “My Life in Ruins” We drove for hours through the mountains of Greece and gratefully rolled into Delphi around noon. I had no idea of the mountain ranges throughout the country, and was definitely not prepared for the stunning beauty of the landscape and the stark contrast to the island panorama of my previous days. Delphi was mind-numbing. I find it incredibly difficult to wrap my head around antiquity and I’m often left staring, gaping mouth, at the remnants of a time of legends. The remains of the Sanctuary of Delphi are impressive, to say the least, and one can grasp the life that would have existed - from the bathing pool, to the theatre stadium, to the temple where the Oracle of Delphi was delivered. In addition to the history, standing more than 1,000 meters high, in the mountains, was also quite spectacular.

We left Delphi, not quite finished absorbing it all, and made our way a few more hours to Kalambaka. Our coach zig-zagged all the way down the mountain and we had plenty of opportunity to see the groves of olive trees, covering the earth like a green blanket. We passed fig trees, lemon trees, cyprus trees, and pistachio trees too. Don’t forget the magenta colored flowering trees and bushes that seem somehow unnatural in their brightness. We stopped to see the Statue of Leonides at Thermopylae - this commemorates the huge Persian invasion back in 480 B.C. on the ground where the Spartans fought to save their land. We also stopped to see how replicas of Byzantine art is made, in the style of the ancient monasteries. This was in preparation for Meteora - tomorrow’s gem.

Meteora has apparently been a stronghold of the Greek Orthodox religion since the 11th Century, and is basically a rock forest that rises from the Thessalian plain between two mountain ranges. The monks of Meteora have been guardians of the sacred place for hundreds of years - they have a saying that when up on top of the rocks of Meteora, you can feel Heaven but a wing’s beat away.

Of the 21 monasteries that once stood on the rocks of Meteora, six still function today and tomorrow we will visit two of them. Glimpsing the castles in the sky as our coach rolled into the tiny town below, I could already feel a mysterious harmony, a contradiction between loneliness and majesty, waiting to be discovered.

Delphi






Leonides and Meteora