Devin's Travels: Delphi and Meteora

We arrived in Delphi at about 11pm so all we did was walk a little ways down the street, find the a close hotel and settled down for the night. In the morning we enjoyed a decent breakfast before heading to the ancient site of Delphi which was the centre of the universe for the ancient Greeks. Here was also the Delphic Oracle which was the most important oracle in the ancient Greek world.

Arriving at the site we first toured around the ruins of the city outside which started with a street flanked by treasuries, statues and other donations to the god Apollo who the city was dedicated to. Most of the treasuries and statues were only ruins that we could see the foundations of but one treasury, the Athenian Treasury has been restored and is quite stunning. From the street flanked by treasuries we emerged at the Temple of Apollo which was the largest building at the site although now only a few columns remain. After the Temple of Apollo we continued to climb until we reached the theatre which provided its patrons with spectacular views over the city. After the theatre we continued to climb through the woods for a couple of minutes before we came out at the stadium, a really long track with seats built one on side of it where Greek athletes would come to compete.

After walking back down to the base of the ancient city we proceeded to enter the museum. The museum was extremely well set up and first talked about how large the Greek empire was before showing recovered statues and wall carvings from the site. Wandering around the museum was just as fascinating as the ancient site as things were described fairly well and the statues were amazing works of art to look at. From the museum we returned to the city of Delphi where we wandered around its picturesque streets and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and using the internet before enjoying dinner from a spot with a great view.

The next morning we awoke fairly early in order to catch a bus out of Delphi to Meteora, our next destination. Practically the entire day was spent riding buses because even though the two sites were only 300 kms apart we had to take 4 different buses to get there. As a result we didn't arrive in Kalambaka (the town right at the foot of Meteora) until the early evening so we only got to enjoy dinner there and not much else.

Awakening in Kalambaka we quickly had breakfast and went out to catch a bus which would take us the 4 kms or so to Meteora. Meteora is really a unique place as it is an area where several monasteries are built on top of rock pillars jutting up from the edge of a plain. Currently there are 6 monasteries which are still functioning and tourists are allowed to visit so our plan was to spend the day walking between these amazing monasteries. Today staircases cut into the cliff faces and bridges are used to climb up to the monasteries but in the ancient times wooden ladders were used and in some times monks were even hauled up in nets. The first monastery that we visited was also the largest and called The Holy Monastery of Great Meteoron. Inside this monastery there are a couple of small museums as well as great views of the area and a small church. Most of the rest of the monastery was off limits to visitors but that didn't matter too much as there was still lots to see.

After the first monastery we continued to the Holy Monastery of Varlaam is the second largest monastery and also quite spectacular. From there we continued to the Holy Monastery of Rousanou which was pretty small and just contained a small church and a couple of small rooms for the monks to sleep in. While we were here it started to rain quite heavily so we ended up enjoying our picnic lunch from one of the balconies and enjoying the view of the area while the rain pounded away. Once the rain stopped we made our way to the Monastery of Holy Trinity which is probably the most famous monastery in Meteora as it was used in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only. This monastery also gave the impression of being fairly remote as the rock pillar it stood on was completely separated from nearby cliffs so no bridge could be built to span its gaps. Finally I continued on to the Holy Monastery of St Stephen while the girls (Lianne and Naomi, an American girl we were spending the day with) went back to Kalambaka. This monastery seemed huge from the exterior and had an excellent location but you couldn't see much once inside it so it was kind of a let down. After this last monastery I also returned to Kalambaka to meet up with the girls and to relax for an hour before dinner. The site of Meteora was truly magnificent and although the monasteries were also fantastic I thought the most amazing part was how they were all built on huge pillars of rock, completely cut off from everything surrounding them.

The next day we got up and made our way to the bus station where we quickly got on a bus to Ioannina where we were stopping off shortly before heading into the Vikos-Aoos national park. But more about that next time.