Today is the last day of our land tour and we certainly ended it with a bang…a bang of huge rocks that is. ‘Til this day, people are unsure of how these mountainous rocks were formed, but Meteora used to be filled with water. One of the theory is that when this land dried out, many rocks congregated and dried together, thus forming the large structures and rock forest that exist there today. Nevertheless, the sight was just awesome. I loved the different striations and patterns on each structure, the different sizes and shapes…it was amazing. I wish we had a full’s day worth to explore the area…it definitely would be a blast to either rock climb or bungee jump off one of the cliffs….
We also visited 2 out of the available 7 monasteries that were built on top of these rocks (there were 24 monasteries originally). Going there brought me back to the old days of religion classes during high school and me poring over Greek Orthodox churches (I had to make a presentation on them and build/draw the floor plan for an ideal church….hehe). Anyhow, I loved how the mosaics were so…holy and majestic…with the vivid gold and colors. I can’t imagine how it was like back in the old days with the fresh paint and what not.
You might wonder how the monks and others got up and delivered things to/from the monastery with it being so high up. Turns out that they had built a pulley system where they threw the net over the cliff, fill it up with goods or people. How intelligent they were back then!
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| Can you see the window-like open space on top? It's where the monks threw over their rope and net so that supplies and people can travel to and from the villages at the bottom of those huge boulders!! |
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| Round and round I go around the pulley |
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| Lindsey and I with part of Meteora in the background |
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