Day 210 Sun 13 May 2007 Meteora to Monodendri, (Vikos Gorge) Greece

Meteora, which of course is on the world heritage list is a collection of 14C byzantine monasteries perched impossibly on top of gigantic granite pinnacles. Why anyone would scale the sheer cliffs let alone struggle to build elaborate monasteries on the top of them is confounding. There are six still in use reached by precarious stairways although the road winding around the base of the pinnacles makes it a bit easier than the original way of rope ladders or being hauled up in a net. Once at the top the monasteries are surprisingly elaborate with beautiful gardens and well maintained buildings which have been fully modernised. The churches have beautiful and horrific frescoes, those outside the altar area depicting hell and damnation as well as various tortures being applied to saints (eg their heads being sawn in two, disembowelment and legs being chopped off. One poor chap is attached to a wheel and rotated over gruesome spikes. However once you are inside the sacristy (not sure of our ecclesiastical architectural nomenclature here) its all sweetness and light. There are beautiful carvings and ornate gilded panels with vistas of paradise.

After visiting three or four we decide its time to head off to Ioannina via some lovely mountain roads. Its late afternoon when we get to there so after getting lost driving round the old town where the laneways are a finger nails thickness wider than the car, we find a restaurant by the lake for a very pleasant late lunch. Then its back on the road towards the Vikos gorge and tiny village of Monodrendi. Getting lost in the lanes we find a monastery overlooking what claims to be the world’s deepest gorge plunging 900m.(they obviously haven’t been to Tiger Leaping Gorge or up the Karakoram). Anyway it the early evening its very still and beautiful.