The Long Way Around

What a windy day in the city! I'm not talking a light breeze or even a gust. It must have been about 50mph wind today. Metal not secured on peoples' rooves were flapping about and dust was forming into swirling tornadoes all over the place. I believe I've acquired a layer of dirt all over me.

After securing my train ticket to Athens, I wandered around to find a grocery store for some snacks later on which would suffice for dinner on the train. In all my walking of Kalampaka, I couldn't find any take away food or sandwiches. They must be somewhere, but nowhere I could find them. I decided not to lug the food around all day, as I needed to check out of the hotel at 11:30am, and I wanted to see a few more of the sites in town.

After a long stroll, I finally found the Holy Maria church in the far NE corner of town on the highest and steepest hill possible. I was still quite sore from yesterday's hiking around Meteora.

In the afternoon I had hoped to make my way along a foot path to the last two monasteries on spires. At the start the path was pretty easy to follow. It wound just at the edge of the city between the last few houses and the base of the spires. Most of the time it felt like I was in someone's backyard and at one point crossed an area with cables running up the spires for reception to the homes below. This is where the trail dumped back into a street in town. I hadn't expected this at all. I backtracked thinking I must have missed an obvious turn. There were no signs along the path and when I tried another version, it quickly ended into the mountainside. Already feeling pretty whooped from yesterday and not feeling like I had enough time to get there and back, I gave up and headed to a cafe near the hotel. I figured that if I'd seen 3 monasteries, I'd probably seen enough to suffice for all 5 of the 6 that were open.

Cooled down from an icy Coke, I walked a quick 10 minutes to another site the hotel had suggested not missing and then headed down into town to grab some food for dinner. I picked out some fresh wheat bread for 1E, some tzatsiki, cheese and tahini (ground sesame seeds--like thin, oily peanut butter).

The train ride was excessively late--about 1.5 hours. To exit the station I had to go down 25 some stairs and then back up 25 stairs. To get to the Metro I had to go up probably another 50 stairs, around the corner of the building and then up 5 stairs and down another 40. Mind you, none of these stairs had elevators or escalators. Fortunately the next tram came in 3 minutes. After this, finding my stop and the hostel was easy. This station had escalators all the way out to the street level and the hostel was literally right around the corner. At about 11:30pm I was checked in and then made a small wracket trying to dump my self into the bed. What a tiring day!

A Taste of Kalampaka

Breakfast awaited downstairs of freshly hard boiled eggs, bread, cheese, cherry jam, juice and coffee. I packed my skirt, the required dress for women when visiting these monasteries. Filled with good things, I headed off toward the rocky spires of Meteora.

Somehow it failed to dawn on me that choosing to walk to the various monasteries would mean walking up steep hills all day. I didn't realize this until I was half way through Kastraki, the nearby town 1km from Kalampaka. Nevertheless, it was a sunny day with a lovely breeze to keep me mostly cool on my strenuous walk.

Roussanou, the first monastery, was a quiet place to begin with a few nuns inside minding the ticket booth and the souvenir shop filled with handmade beeswax candles, golden icons and books about the spiritual history of Meteora. Past 5 short doors (just tall enough for me to walk through without bending down) to what I guessed were living quarters was the finely decorated and preserved chapel. From floor to ceiling, every bit of plaster was covered with iconic paintings of biblical characters and Greek martyrs.

The second stop was Varlaam, quite a bit larger than Roussanou. Quite a bit of construction was going on here with jackhammering and scaffolding. Originally there were 20 some spires with monasteries. Today there are only 6. Much like the first, Varlaam was filled with iconic paintings, old wooden tables/chairs and relics from as early as the 14th century.

My last stop was to the highest and largest monastery Megalou Meteora. Though all signs indicated these were working monasteries, this one was filled with an extensive amount of Greek war memorabilia. Some were even listed as martyrs who died for their country as confessing Christians. I found it odd that these two should be mixed so intrinsically. The old refectory had long wooden tables set up for a typical monks' meal and the center of the room was filled with 4'x6' paintings of Greek war heroes. Far down in the basement of the monastery was the Ecclesiastical Museum where old icons from the 14, 16 and 18th centuries were kept with various scrolls, bibles, music books and vestments. Strangely, the older pieces were in far better condition than the more recent ones.

Finally the time came to return from the high places and think about getting some food. About 1/3 of the way down my feet started to ache and 3/4 of the way they were throbbing.

This still left the 2km walk back to the hotel. I had planned to stop for dinner in
Kastraki, but every place I checked was closed up tight at 5pm. Perhaps it was too early for dinner. I stopped in to the hotel to rest my feet for a half hour and then headed to downtown Kalampaka to find food. The suggested place to dine by the hotel staff eluded me, so I stopped in at a bakery to grab dessert for later. I'm not sure what it's called, but it appears to be made of alternating layers of thin chocolate cake and cream filling topped with white frosting and a layer of orange/yellow goo that created a tangy, fruity flavor on top. I stopped at an expensive looking restaurant where it turns out for E10.25 I could explode myself on beef in red sauce (with that same strange hint of sweet/spice as the lamb), lemon baked potatoes and rice with a glass of white wine. Absolutely delicious! So was the dessert by the way.