Meteora Monasteries | Kalambaka, Greece

Take a train about five hours north by northwest from Athens, and the tracks eventually run out in a little town called Kalambaka. What’s in Kalambaka? Not much. A train station mostly. But about 3.5 km away, built high above on the sandstone cliffs -and sometimes into them- are the towering Orthodox Monasteries of Meteora. Meteora translates to “rocks from space” er, wait no that's not right....“in the heavens above” or something to that effect, it depends who you ask. It’s easy to see the name is very fitting.

Humans have been living in the cliffs and caves in this area since Wooly Mammoths were walking around, but about 1,200 years ago, a group of monks decided to hang out and live at the top of these pillars. You can imagine that you had to be pretty devoted, and pretty hermity, to want to join this type of community, so really only hardcore monks showed up. Eventually over the next 500 years, basic monasteries were established. Some of them 1,800 feet up. They look a little bit like Hogwarts or something you might see in Lord of the Rings.

The difficulty in reaching these places was intentional and making the journey was somewhat a badge of honor…and somewhat crazy. For instance supplies, and humans, often had to be hoisted up the cliffs in cargo nets. Nets that were only replaced after the “Good Lord felt necessary to break them.”

Over the years, 20 Monasteries were built. Six remain today. Those were all built sometime in the 14 and 1500s. To give you an idea, that’s about as old as Machu Picchu in Peru. Some monks still live there, but the buildings are primarily tourist attractions now.

This isolation turned out to be a good thing as the Byzantine Empire came to a close. Think of it kind of like kids in a tree house. Whenever girls, or in this case invading Turks, would come by, you could just pull up your ladder and then boom! Guys only.

Luckily for two American tourists, they are a little more accessibly today. Being the off-season, the city bus running up the hill is not currently operating, so Sara and I decided to see everything on foot, and walked up on the original path paved by monks 500 years ago. As we approaced from below, I couldn't help but wonder if the monks ever tried something like this...

The buildings are truly impressive and filled with incredibly ornate Byzantine style art. (Most of which is in the church areas where pictures are not allowed). The natural landscape is breathtaking. Even if no one ever built anything anywhere close to here, the hike would still be amazing.

While I can’t imagine what would possess someone to voluntarily begin an undertaking of this magnitude, this is something we see again and again. From country to country and faith to faith, there seems to be a deep human desire to connect with a higher power and to build some sort of physical representation of that. Whatever their reasons were, I'm glad they built them.

From Kalambaka, with love,

Will + Sara