Meteora Monastery Madness

We spent 3 nights in Meteora. Meteora is home to an other worldly array of sandstone karsts or pillars rising from the plains and on which many Byzantine monasteries were built around the 12th century. Only 6 are still active and it is possible to visit them. It is hard to imagine how they were built as there were no roads nor steps until the 20th century. One can do the circuit but it was absolutely mad traffic wise with huge tour buses, cars, cyclists and walkers all sharing the narrow winding roads. In the end we visited one monastery (inhabited by nuns) because we were able to find a park.
We did some nice walks to various viewpoints around town and also up amongst some of the monasteries, again when we were able to park.
Kalamaka, the town at the base of the pillars was quite a nice little town and we found a cheery taverna around the corner from our accommodation where we ate some lovely homestyle meals. It rained most days, and it wasn't just a light shower; it was rain of mission beach wet season volumes! We've found that a hairdryer helps dry our saturated walking shoes.
Not far out of town there was a nice little museum and cave complex where an archeological dig had been conducted over recent years. In the dig they were able to find evidence of human occupation going back 130,000 years. There were tools, jewellry, burial accompaniments and cooking implements from successive epochs on display.Read more