IN the central region of Thessaly, about a five-hour drive northwest of
Athens, rise the aptly named Meteora -- slate-gray cones and buttelike
outcroppings reaching as high as 2,000 feet. They appear in their crookedness
to be staggering, as if fatigued from surviving eons of tectonic tumult Byzantine monasteries that top them have made them one of Romaic Greece's most
spectacular sights legend has it that the first anchorite to reach the highest
summit -- that of the Great Meteoron -- to found a proper monastery did so on the
back of an eagle in 1340. Within 200 years twenty-four idiorrhythmic, or
self-governing, monasteries crowned the Meteora. Today six monasteries still functioning
and may be visited, using either the town of Kalambaka or the village of
Kastraki as a base |
clipped from www.theatlantic.com
clipped from www.theepochtimes.com
clipped from wallpapers.free-review.net
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