Wait! Don’t start yet! Put some –appropriate- music on first!

Have you ever experienced the feeling that you are in a foreign land without having passed the borders of your country?

This was exactly my thought after the route through the plains of Thessaly, when I saw the towering gray-black rocks of Meteora. This place is not like Greece, at least the Greece I had seen so far. It looks like a scene from Game of Thrones or The Lord of the Rings, where these tall rocks like mythical creatures, have taken root, as if spells have been thrown over them to rise there inaccessible over the centuries.

Even more impressive sounded to me when I learned how these rocks have been actually formed. Then I began to imagine that I am on the sea bottom (without water) because 30 million years ago the sea that covered the area began to decline, taking with it and stacking rocks on the seabed, which over the years have been stabilized.

Only a picture of these eerie Meteora rocks and monasteries, almost “hanging” on their edges, surrounded by thick fog, was enough to feel awe in this mystical paradise. Really it seems perfectly logical to me that monks chose this “home” to build monasteries and from the 11th century with ropes, nets or with their bare hands have established a tradition of centuries, “climbing”.

Today from about 24 monasteries that existed, only 7 are working, 6 of which 6 can be visited (San Nicolas Anapafsas, Megalo Meteoro, Varlaam, Roussanou, Trinity and St. Stephen). They have been declared as Preserved and Protected Monuments of humanity by UNESCO and are the largest monastic city of the country after Mount Athos.

To enjoy this breathtaking view, we climbed (with difficulty) about 140 steps. And each of them brought us closer to a world that we thought only exists in film blockbusters or our vivid imagination. In front of us spread God’s kingdom (or human’s kingdom?) in a vastness where the green gently was coming together with the blue of the sky. Nature in all its splendor. This magical moment when time stops and you have the feeling that in such beauty, of which you are part, you can do anything!

If you follow me on Instagram (@polinetta_) you might also noticed some of these photos that are always on my happy dreams…

À bientôt

      P.

Photos by Kostas Sar

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