METEORA (ΜΕΤΕΩΡΑ)

Say what you will about the UN, but UNESCO certainly knew what it was doing when it officially recognized Meteora as a World Heritage Site. In the 11th century, hermits began flocking (a paradox?) to this area in western Thessaly (central Greece), relatively confident they could find a small cave each to their own in the spectacular, towering, sedimentary rock formations which occupy an area of about 7 square kilometers just north of the modern towns of Kalambaka and Kastraki.

A particularly ambitious and gregarious hermit monk named Athanasios Meteoritis scrambled up the granddaddy of these sheer rock towers in the 14th century and organized the first formal monastic community there. On the top. No kidding.

It goes without saying that constructing churches on the tops of rocky missiles in pre-helicopter days is a testament to the faith of these ascetics. Few things say "Glory to God" more than impossible structures. But there was also a very practical reason for going to such lengths, for scaling rickety wooden ladders up hundreds of feet of sheer rock wall,



for hauling up EVERY SINGLE THING (rocks for building, dirt for gardens, even people) in nets that could break any time…


…a very practical reason indeed, namely escaping the invading Turks so that they might keep themselves and the Orthodox faith alive. Since that time, twenty-four such hermitages spread and flourished on many of the towers for over 600 years, and holy Meteora is one of the most important religious sites for Orthodox Christians in the world.

Today only eight monasteries remain, six of which are open to the public (and by "public," we mean busloads upon busloads of Yugoslavian high school kids…with rat tails).

Over two days (one rainy, one sunny), we walked all over the hills, climbed and descended hundreds upon hundreds of steps, crab-crawled down wet rock faces, visited each of the monasteries, and loved every minute of it. We wish we could show you pictures of the meticulously painted insides of all the churches (katholikons) in each of the monasteries, but picture-taking there was completely verboten.

A view from Moni Agiou Triados (Monastery of the Holy Trinity) of the stone footpath we walked up:
The way modern monks lift supplies (e.g. cement) to their sanctuaries in the sky:

The garden at Moni Agiou Varvaras (Holy Monastery of Santa Barbara), a convent:


E being christened (finally!) by the holy cat of Santa Barbara:

Since we're on the subject, we found this miracle of life on display at Athanasios' very own Moni Megalou Meteorou:

A monk in the mist:

Wet but happy:

After two days of gawking at phallic rock formations, we were very pleased to come across this:

VOLOS (BOΛOΣ)

Renowned as the place where Jason set sail to find the Golden Fleece with the agile Argonauts, Volos today is the fifth(or sixth) largest municipality in Greece and an important industrial and port city. It is also a lively and lovely place with hundreds of seaside tavernas, tsipouratikos, and cafes where people sit and talk and drink and smoke and eat and smoke and talk (and smoke) at all hours of the day, except for the frequent and regimented times when the whole town shuts down for resting (more on this later).

Although it's a big city by Greek standards (Athens takes that prize with over 6 million of Greece's 11 million smoky souls), the architecture and layout is on a human scale. The roads are narrow, the cars are TINY, and practically everyone lives in apartment buildings no more than about 5 stories high, like ours here:

Our apartment is perhaps tinier than most, consisting of one all-purpose bed/dining/living room

one kitchenlet

one bathroom

and a balcony

which I'm told is a requirement for apartments in all of Greece. It's in a great location, just 4 blocks from the seafront, and for our purposes it will work out famously.

We've settled in very well over these last two weeks, thanks in large part to Dr. George Nanos, our fabulous host at the University of Thessaly, and his graduate student Eleni, who have taken it upon themselves to make sure that we spend plenty of time getting to know Volos and the surrounding areas.

Our personal beach one afternoon in Afisos

Eating sweets in the mountain village of Milies with our parea (Eleni, us, Eleni's brother Nikos; Anna Maria, Nikos' Romanian girlfriend, is taking the picture)

Walking near Milies, to the chagrin of our anti-perambulating Greek friends

Sampling Volos' seaside specialties, like ghavros (shown below), tsipouro (distilled liquour made from wine grape mash and usually flavored with aniseed), and grilled sardines

Be assured, though, that despite what it looks like from the above photos, we are also working at the university postharvest lab and visiting farms and other research sites in the area. I'll fill you in with details of our official VIP purpose here in future posts. Also stay tuned for explorations of exciting culinary and cultural topics such as: spoon sweets, “are people fighting or are they just speaking Greek?”, the origin and importance of Greek's national drink the Nescafé “frappé,” tiny fried fishes, tiny cars, daily farmer's markets, the city-village connection, and much more!

Also, in case any of you were wondering what we've done with our girl,

she's in Idaho at “Kamp Karlson” taking lots of hikes, eating lots of treats and getting plenty of love.