Meterora to Thessaloniki

 October 5, 2023

Meterora  

We left the resort town of Kamena Vourla early in the morning.  We climbed up mountain ranges that suddenly had pine trees that seemed like the North Woods back in Wisconsin.  Then we came down to a large valley that was very well developed with agriculture.  Perhaps this is because of the Pinios River.  We arrived in the city of Kalambaka the area of the Meteora.

 Meteora is beside the Pindos Mountains, in the western region of Thessaly, these unique and enormous columns of rock rise precipitously from the ground. But their unusual form is not easy to explain geologically. They are not volcanic plugs of hard igneous rock typical elsewhere, but the rocks are composed of a mixture of sandstone and conglomerate.  Here is the second most famous grouping of Orthodox Monasteries in Greece, second only to Mount Athos.  The word "Meteora" in Greek means suspended in air.

We drove up one of the Meteora where tourists can visit an active monastery.  We visited the Convent of St Stephen where 40 Orthodox nuns live.  Their chapel was filled with amazing icons.  We could see other monasteries perched on other meteora from this point.  One  had a cable car pulley for one person transport to the monastery.  We stopped along the way to take pictures and we could see individual climbers scaling the huge rock pillars.  We return to the city of Kalambaka to visit an icon making shop.  We got a demonstration of how the icons are produced with various layers of paint and gold leaf.  Lunch stop was in Kalambaka.  We had Greek Salads of course.  Who can enough of the fresh olives and feta cheese.  

Meteora Monastery

We visit the Convent of St Stephen

Pilgrims entering Convent of St Stephen

Convent Courtyard

Kalambaka in Pinios River Valley

Climbers are scaling this rock!

Meteora  

Suspended in Air (Meterora)

Icon making Shop

Greek Orthodox Icons

Thessaloniki

Mt Olympus in the distance.

Green fields of Central Greece

Rivers flowing to the Gulf of Thessaloniki

Gulf of Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki.  Greece's 2nd Largest City

It's all Greek to me.

The Holiday Inn

The city's port, the Port of Thessaloniki, is one of the largest ports in the Aegean and as a free port, it functions as a major gateway to the Balkans.

As we descended through mountain ranges, we approached Thessaloniki through as many as six highway tunnels.  Once in Thessaloniki, we stayed at Holiday Inn.  Our group had Mass there in a conference room and after that we were served supper.  Fr Randy joined Sylvia and I at our supper table.  It was a very nice personal visit.