Meteora

Picture: Meteora
On Thursday our group took a day trip to Meteora, the second largest monastic society in Greece. We can't go to the biggest because they don't allow women. [Something about carrying 'the sin' or something] It was a horribly icky, rainy day; but we made the best of it. Meteora was once home to over twenty monasteries, but only six are on the World Heritage list. It is called Meteora [or "suspended in air"] because most of the monasteries are built on top of huge rock formations. We had to do some hiking to get to the top. In the rain. We went to Αγ. Στεφανου [St. Stephen's] first. It's the only cloister still working at Meteora. Then we went to the Grand Meteora which functions as a museum. We spent a lot of time there. Then we went St. Nicholas, which is one of the smaller ones. There was a beautiful view of the surrounding area, and we braved the rain to take some pictures. And then we found an open cafe and sat inside and had coffee and cocoa drinks.