Meteora 2018

Sunrise

Sunset

Meteora is spectacular.  You start with the setting:  sheer vertical cliffs rising out of a very flat plain, with mountains off in the distance in one direction.

Then you add these incredible man-made structures built in the 13th-15th centuries perched on top.

In the middle distance

Then you learn that the road that are leading you there, and the stone steps you use to reach them are all 20th century.  They used to arrive via net.  The relevant scene starts at 52 seconds into the 2 minute video.

Then I wonder how the first monks got here, the ones who built the first pulley and net system.  They can only have simply climbed up the sheer rock face.  But there wasn't even anything to tie a rope to.  There was no shelter when they arrived. I just cannot imagine how this was started.  Once there was shelter and a net and pulley, it is clear that it was hard work to live up there, but doable.  But at first?  Impossible.  And in the 13th century...

Even now, although people, tourists, arrive via a road and then  long flights of stone steps, equipment and supplies still arrive via a pulley system, though now it is electric.

The rope dangles from a metal platform that itself moves out into the air and then back into the tower.

The new basket is the metal box next to the wheelbarrow. The rope is currently attached to a hook very similar to what is shown in the the 1920s film.

Once in the monastery, there are exhibits about monastic life.

The barrel that holds 3170 gallons... water or wine?

The kitchen

And a very tidy ossuary