1/5 - 1/8
So we checked our maps, checked the times, bought a ticket to Larissa from Istanbul leaving at 16:30. We figured that if the bus arrived in Athens around midday we'd get to Larissa in the morning, find onward transport to Meteora and everything would be shiny. Didn't quite work as planned.
The border crossing took place around midnight and seemed to take forever, but apparently not long enough as we got off the bus around 5:30 to be greeted by a pitch black road in the middle of nowhere. Nearly everyone else had disembarked earlier in Thessaloniki, which in hindsight we really should have done. Some friendly fellow passengers pointed us in the direction of Larissa and we set off walking until we found a cafe that was open. After the sun came up we started looking for a bus stop. 3 hours and half a dozen requests for directions later we'd walked all the way through town to the other side and were waiting for a bus that might not exist on a day that is apparently holy. No-one was able to explain this in English, of course, we found that out much later.
Luckily a chatty Swedish truck driver picked us up and took us as far as Trikala's ring road, where Theseus and Konstantina took pity on us huddled under our umbrella and took us all the way to Kalambaka where we found food and shelter from the rain that quickly turned torrential.
The next day we were able to see the peaks of Meteora looming above us for the first time and it was properly awe-inspiring. We hiked up to the first monastery perched on a pinnacle and thought it deserted. A black-clad monk appeared just after we finished eating our lunch so we nonchalantly strolled out trying to look inconspicuous. The second monastery had a load of weird religious art with flesh-stripping, head-chopping and other painful acts being performed on the bodies of sad-faced saints. Decapitated heads apparently retain their haloes, though I'd guess not for long. The nun selling tickets at the third monastery spent a long time peering at Hozumi suspiciously, trying to work out if she was wearing a skirt over her trousers or not. She wasn't, but her coat was long enough to fool the nun. The fourth monastery was huge, and by that time we were all monasteried out.
The next day, climbing! A chance conversation with a hotel owner led to me hiring a guy to take me on a 150m 3-pitch climb. He wouldn't take me on anything too hard or let me lead, but it was an interesting experience. Lots of rope shenanigans that I didn't have time to understand.
The border crossing took place around midnight and seemed to take forever, but apparently not long enough as we got off the bus around 5:30 to be greeted by a pitch black road in the middle of nowhere. Nearly everyone else had disembarked earlier in Thessaloniki, which in hindsight we really should have done. Some friendly fellow passengers pointed us in the direction of Larissa and we set off walking until we found a cafe that was open. After the sun came up we started looking for a bus stop. 3 hours and half a dozen requests for directions later we'd walked all the way through town to the other side and were waiting for a bus that might not exist on a day that is apparently holy. No-one was able to explain this in English, of course, we found that out much later.
Luckily a chatty Swedish truck driver picked us up and took us as far as Trikala's ring road, where Theseus and Konstantina took pity on us huddled under our umbrella and took us all the way to Kalambaka where we found food and shelter from the rain that quickly turned torrential.
The next day we were able to see the peaks of Meteora looming above us for the first time and it was properly awe-inspiring. We hiked up to the first monastery perched on a pinnacle and thought it deserted. A black-clad monk appeared just after we finished eating our lunch so we nonchalantly strolled out trying to look inconspicuous. The second monastery had a load of weird religious art with flesh-stripping, head-chopping and other painful acts being performed on the bodies of sad-faced saints. Decapitated heads apparently retain their haloes, though I'd guess not for long. The nun selling tickets at the third monastery spent a long time peering at Hozumi suspiciously, trying to work out if she was wearing a skirt over her trousers or not. She wasn't, but her coat was long enough to fool the nun. The fourth monastery was huge, and by that time we were all monasteried out.
The first monastery is on the left pinnacle, with Kalambaka in the centre.
All the monasteries had winching mechanisms to haul up food and people(!) before the modern stairways were built. The original monks must have been expert climbers.
The tower on the right has the winch.
The sun finally came out at the end of our hike, giving everything a fairytale glow.
That's wot we climbed.
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