The Monasteries of Meteora

After Delphi, we headed north through winding mountain roads and took a small detour to Thermopylae after coming back down to the Malian Gulf, part of the Aegean Sea. There's not much to see there except a statue of Leonidas , the Spartan king of "300" fame. Still cool to see the site where they kept the Persians at bay until a traitor sold them out.

We checked into a hotel at Kalambaka, at the base of the great monasteries of Meteora. They are perched high on rocky pinnacles and are one of the most spectacular sites in Greece. I visited here in 2010 and had to show them to Deanne.

We arrived in late afternoon and had enough time to go visit the outside of the monasteries along the road. It was a perfect time for pictures. We saw several dozen older Peugeot cars that were covered with sponsor labels.

Apparently there's an organization in France (Europ' Raid) that takes 90's era Peugeot 205s with 3 people in each car and then delivers school aids to Eastern Europe. They drive to 20 countries in 22 days.

The next morning we visited two monasteries and did a lot of hiking in the heat up and down the steps. It was surprisingly crowded for a Thursday, but then we realized it's a religious holiday in Greece and that's why there's so many buses and Greek families visiting today. Two monasteries later, we were churched out , so we skipped the convent we were going to visit. After all the heat and all the tours with all the people we were done for the day. But, it was amazing to see how these monks lived in the Byzantine era.

More photos and videos are here.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/H7RBQQ9oJnXLWL3PABaca lagi