Meteora and Delphi

We left Athens on Tuesday morning around 9:30 am, which was moved back graciously from 7:30, and headed to Meteora. All I knew about this place previous to being there was that it was beautiful and there were some monasteries up in the mountains. There is so much more to it than that. We got there, after driving through amazing countryside, mountains, and along a few lakes. Meteora is a city pushed up against an odd formation of mountains that the best geologists guess were formed by river corrosion thousands of years ago. These smooth rocks with many caves in their sides are jutting out everywhere, and on top of the tallest ones the monks built monasteries. At first I thought these monks were just crazy, but when we actually went up there, we realized why they built them there. It was an amazing view of the village and mountains covered with snow in the distance. The weather was amazing as well, it was sunny both days we visited the monasteries with only a slight breeze, absolutely gorgeous. They built these super cute courtyards oustide, personally they were my favorit part about the monasteries. The hermits who became monks and built these started around the 14 century, and until the 1920's, the only way to get things and people up there was a system of pulleys and nets. They would just hop in a net and turn a wheel to bring each other, building materials, food, and whatever else they needed up to the top. When you look at the pictures you will not believe it is possible to build these, and even seeing them in person I am still confused as to HOW they actually built them...they just seem like extentions straight upward from the rock they are built on. Meteora actually means "suspended in air" and this describes the monasteries perfectly.

The city of Meteora was great in itself. It is a very small town compared to Athens, and it shows. There are adorable little shops everywhere, the streets are wider and everything is more spread out, rather than packed into small city blocks that stretch forever. They also seem cleaner, Athens, although awesome, is a very dirty city. There is nearly no graffiti anywhere, where as in Athnens there is not a building without graffiti. The pace seems slower in the town as well, although Greece in general is set at a slower pace than America. The comparison of the pace of the U.S. and that of Meteora is like fast forward and slow motion, eveyone and everything is laid back and easy-going.

The night life is still as lively as Athens though. We went to a cafe decorated for the Carnival, it is like our Halloween. It starts next week sometime and everyone dresses in disguises and there are a lot of parties. The cafe had giant masquerade masks and gossamer hanging all over inside. Everything was cheaper here too. They have a lot of creperies in Greece, and in Athens we ate at two different ones. Crepes are like a sweet, thin dough wrapped around whatever you want. They come in meal-like crepes and dessert crepes. We got a nutella (chocolate/hazelnut spread) and banana crepe the other night at 1 in the morning! In Meteora it was only 1.70 euro where the same crepe in Athens was about 5.50 euro. Crazy. We had three people in a room at the hotel in Meteora and stayed there for two nights. We all felt cheated because we wanted to stay longer, there was talk in the guide book about some sort of cliff diving...but there was no time, so don't worry Mom!

Today we left Meteora at 10:30 am after seeing another monastery in the mountains and south to Delphi, a very famous tourist spot because of the Delphic Oracle I will learn about tomorrow. We have an amazing view from our hotel balcony of the Aegean sea! We have only two nights here as well and a paper due tomorrow, so no one will be enjoying their night as they should be. But tomorrow is friday which hopefully means no homework for a little bit, we can enjoy the atmosphere. Delphi is in the mountains and the streets are very steep and windy, it is even smaller than Meteora and very cute. Today we did a little exploring, but tomorrow is when we will be doing the fun stuff, we plan to hike up a trail in the mountain after class! How exciting!