Monasteries of Meteora

Monasteries of Meteora

At some point in the past there were 24 monasteries built into and on top of the pinnacle rocks of Meteora. 
At this time there are six still active/occupied. 
It costs €5/pp to visit each one. We visited five of them and they were all a little bit different.
  • Great Meteoron (the largest) - 6 monks, highest elevation
  • Varlaam - 9 monks, great museum, gorgeous terrace
  • Holy Trinity (didn’t visit this one) - 1 monk 
  • St. Nicholas (the smallest) - 3 monks, lowest elevation
  • Rousanou - 15 nuns, lovely gardens
  • St. Stefanos - 30 nuns, very few stairs so it’s the easiest to visit

Fun Fact - “Monastery” does not mean monks. 

It means a community of people living a monastic life. 

Those people can be nuns or monks.

















This was our view of the Meteora from our little terrace at Hotel Doupiani in the village of Kastraki. 

Meteora specifically refers to the rocks and translates to something like ‘suspended in air’. 

The village of Kastraki is the area of houses in the foreground. 


















Our arrival day was the best weather we had - cool but a bit sunny. 

The next two days were overcast and very cold (37 in the morning and warming up to 44). 

The nice part of the poor weather is that it rained overnight rather than during the day.


Meteora view as we were approaching on a brand new toll road (€25 and 3.5 hours north of Athens).









Now that the toll road exists, there are day-trip tours to Meteora from Athens.






Serena loves rocks and these are stunning but without the monasteries we probably 

wouldn’t have justified the detour (all of our other destinations are south of Athens). 


St. Nicholas











Very small chapel, no museum but a nice terrace and view at the top.












All but one of the monasteries require a certain level of fitness due to the hundreds of steps. 

More than one require walking down from the road then up to the monastery.  

We visited four in one day and recorded 1600’ of elevation gain!






















Great Meteoron



















A couple of monasteries have cable cars that go straight across from the road level to the monastery.

Those are not for guests and likely most guests wouldn’t want to get in one anyway. 

We did see one transporting a staff person across. 


The road through the Meteora was paved in the 1960s. 

The monasteries all have access roads (up to a point, electricity, plumbed water, and even wifi. 

The access stairways for visitors were installed in the 1920s. 

Prior to this all access was via nets and baskets raised and lowered with a winch. 

This included winching the monks and all construction materials. 


Varlaam

























Stunning view with a large beautiful terrace that would be perfect for a wedding (not allowed) and a great museum (pictures w/o flash were allowed).



















Varlaam had the most extensive museum of all the monasteries. 













Another view of Varlaam
















Also Varlaam (as seen from Great Meteoron)























Rousanou

This monastery has had long periods of being unused and empty. Eight nuns moved in late 1988. However, the living space was inadequate and too close to the tourist areas for proper monastic contemplation. Eight years later the stables were replaced with new living quarters, a library, and workshops (for icon painting and embroidery). 












An elevator is unique but at the time of the new construction, one of the senior nuns needed this accommodation. 





Holy Trinity 

This is the one we didn’t visit.
















Two different monastic ruins as seen from St. Nicholas




































Four Monasteries

Left-to-Right: St. Nicholas, Rousanou, Great Meteoron, Varlaam

















This unoccupied monastery opens for services once/year on May 20th.















This formerly unoccupied monastery is currently the home of Holy Trinity’s abbot.

He is 93 and needed to be closer to the village and medical care. 

This monastery is actually accessible by car (off to the right). 















Our hotel is in the center to the left of the pyramid-shaped rock.




















We did get a little bit of sunset light on our second day.































Panorama of the Meteora


More pictures of the Meteora because these rocks are stunning.


















It’s possible that many of the formations have names but the only one we learned was this one. 

It is the Spindle.



Comments

  1. justcruznMay 17, 2025 at 11:31 AM

    These are all really really cool! You sure got your steps in that day! 😄

    ReplyDelete

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