The Nunnery and Monasteries at Meteora

 Hi everyone. It's another end of the work week already.  As I mentioned last Friday, I want to finish up my photos from Meteora, Greece and show you some photos at the actual the monasteries/nunnery.  I'm linking today's post up to Nicole's Friday Face Off  and Gillena's Friday Lunch Break. And this should be it for trip photos, at least those for Greece at Friday Face Off and Friday Linch Break. I might have a photo or 2 in some future post if it relates to the post topic. 😏-grin.

In case you missed the post or are interested in viewing last week's post, you can find it here: Meteora Part 1.

Today I'll show you some  views after climbing up and visiting  a couple of the religious centers. First is the nunnery, and then one of the monasteries.  Photos weren't allowed inside any of the religious centers, even though we were able to visit areas within them.

Let's start with the nunnery. I showed this photo last week, but just to give you a view of the building for perspective.

    I mentioned last week how women were required to wear skirts to enter any of these religious buildings. This is an unflattering photo, but here's yours truly and one of my traveling companions at the nunnery. There you were given skirts to put on and not charged to use them. At the monasteries they charged you  a small fee (I think 1 or 2 Euros) to use a skirt. We had large scarves that we brought along,  and  we wrapped them around our jeans. I don't have any photos of us in our scarves, but I have one at the Nunnery in our lent skirts.

     This is also my face for Friday Face off. 

You can see we just wrapped them around our jeans.

These next 2 photos show the area at the outside of the nunnery.  As I mentioned, no photos were allowed inside at all.  You can see some stairs and the path that took us up to and then away from the building. There was even a little bridge you had to walk over, but when you looked down from the bridge you could see the beautiful little garden area. Visitors weren't allowed to go down into the garden.

Here's a much more flattering (maybe grin) photo of us taken from one of the outdoor patios in the nunnery.

And I thought you might get a kick out of the public bathroom at the nunnery. 

The lady in the next stall and I had a good laugh about it.

Most places had more complete toilets or at least toilets with bowls, but this one was so unique I had to take a photo of it.

This monastery was our next stop. The sign was tucked away behind some trees as we walked  in. 

Here's the view of looking from down below. I also showed this photo last week.

This monastery had a lovely outdoor patio-like area. Not for sitting though, even though in the gazebo (which is in a later photo)  you could sit for a bit.

And there were some views too. In this first one you can see all the cars in just one parking lot. Each monastery has their own parking area because the buildings are spread out. This wasn’t the main lot but at least offered extra parking. 

Eeks. I'm not a fan of heights, and so I'm glad there were wooden bars on this window.

You might remember the little basket on the pulley I showed you last week. This is where those baskets come and go out.

More of the lovely patio.

This was the largest brewing barrel I have ever seen.

And this is a cool way to recycle part of a pot. It's so pretty too.

Another patio view.

     This monastery had a small museum where photos were allowed. There was some interesting information about it's history, and then some artifacts which I though were interesting. It was hard to photograph  many of the pieces though between the lights and the glass over them. But here's a couple including an old illuminated manuscript and some lovely ancient stitching that is so well done it looks like it was made with a machine. (But of course isn't.)

I apologize for the long post, but it's time to move on so I decided to squeeze it all in one post .

That is it for me today, and my last Friday Greece post. Have a super weekend ahead. 

Back to Greece in Photos

 Hi everyone. Happy Friday. We've almost made it through another week, and it time again to join Nicole's Friday Face Off   and Gillena's  Friday Lunch Break .

     I'm getting close to being done with my Greece photos, but I don't believe I ever shared photos from Meteora. I hope you don't mind if I share a few more because I went away 5 months ago and I can't imagine people aren't sick of posts about my trip. 😏 However, Meteora was a really interesting place and at least as far as my travels have taken me, quite unique.

     Meteora is an area north of the city of Trikala (in inland Western/Central Greece) where there are 6 ancient monasteries and one nunnery that are perched on these high pillar like rocks. These religious sites were built in between the 13th-14th centuries.  I read online that there used to be 24 monasteries, but  you'll see in some of my photos how precariously perched some of these buildings are. I'm surprised so many have existed this long. You can visit these places when they are open (each has their own time schedules), but you need to climb a lot of stairs to get up to them.

This is the start of the stairs at the Nunnery which was the first place we visited. You can see the building up on top of the hill behind the trees.

These next 3 photos show a few of the monasteries. Sorry I can't name them.

This next photo is the view looking down into the valley from the Nunnery. The second photo includes my face for Friday Face Off, but some of the view is blocked by my head. 😏

If you look carefully in this next photo you can see the stairs winding upward. 

     We didn't visit all of the monasteries. I think it could be done in a day, but parking was  limited especially by noontime when it was actually pretty crowded. Plus it takes a bit of time to visit each place, and we weren't running up the stairs and racing  through each that we did visit. I will say that reading how there might be 150 (or more) stairs up to reach a monastery was a bit intimidating, but the climbs never seemed as bad as what we thought they would be. 

       I love how one of the monasteries we visited had this pulley systems. They used it to transport supplies.

Here's a few more views.

This last photo for today is of Agios Stephanos, which is the only monastery with no stairs to climb. 

      Next week I'll share some views in the monasteries (at least where photos were allowed). But here's a few travel hints if you ever go to Greece and decide to visit Meteora. First of all, get there early as it was less crowded before noon than after noon. Secondly, wear comfortable walking shoes. Women are required to wear a skirt when entering, but you can rent one for a couple of Euros at each place. (The nunnery lends you one for free.) You can cheat like we did though. We each brought large scarves and wrapped them around our pants. That was all we needed to enter. And finally, there is no food available. We ended up leaving mid-afternoon because we were hungry. If you really want to visit all of the monasteries, I'd suggest you bring some snacks or even a bag lunch with you.

     That's all for me today. Have a great start to your weekend. 

Friday Again-Back to Greece

Hi everyone. The  week is once again winding down. I feel like it was just last Friday, and already it is July 19. But today we don't have so much humidity at my house, which should mean the longest heat wave recorded in New Hampshire is over, at least for now. Hurrah! 😀 It's so nice having the windows open and even needing a sweatshirt this morning. 

I'm linking up today to Nicole's Friday Face Off and Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.

Today I'm taking you back to Greece with some more photos from the Delphi archaeological site. I'll start with a couple of faces, me in the forefront. It was warm hiking the hill, and I should have left my jacket and scarf in the car.

     I'm  glad so many pieces of this place ( as well as other places) have survived as much as they have. I've said it before and I'll repeat it, but I wish I could travel back in time for just a few minutes to see what things were like when places like Delphi were into their prime. I am sure those times would seem really strange if I could do that, just like I am sure if someone from ancient Greece could travel to our present they would find our world really strange too.

     But can you imagine what it was like when so many pieces from these places were complete and probably even quite colorful? I have a  friend who is a retired archaeologist. Even though her specialty wasn't ancient Greece, I wish she could have been there with me because she could probably shed a lot more light on these ruins. I only know what the signs said. 

     I've also said this before, but I was fascinated by the walls and stone walkways. Looks how closely these fit together. It must have taken a talented mason to do that.

Delphi is the center of the world according to ancient Greeks. This is supposedly the point where Zeus's 2 stones (he threw one in each direction) met. 

     I believe this next photo is of the Castalian Spring. It is where visitors to ancient Delphi stopped to drink and wash. We were told to stop and take a sip as it would bring us good fortunes and luck.

    I love the story of how we found out about the spring. We visited a shop that specialized in Greek handicrafts. When we walked in, my friend Deb, who knows a tiny bit of Greek, said hello to the owner. He replied back in Greek, and when he did, she laughed and said that was more than she could follow.  He laughed and said in very good English "You sound like my wife. She thinks that because she can say opa she speaks Greek."

    And that point a woman stuck her head out from around the corner. Her reply in English was "Are you talking about me again?"  

      Ha ha. We found out his wife was Boston, and so we spent a lot of time talking about many things in the shop. They were great salespeople too.  The shop was full of beautifully crafted actually made in Greece items. When they found out I had bees, the wife went into their kitchen and came out with some very very dark and rich tasting honey for me to try. She says they get it from over 8,000 feet up in the mountains.  Not only did I get a few lovely souvenirs for myself, but I learned a lot about the area. These are the kind of moments I think really enriches travel.

  

     And one  last photo from Delphi. Here's our rental car up against a cliff side that ran a long the road.

Have a super start to your weekend! And of course, a great rest of or all of your Friday too.