Greece- Portitsa Gorge & Meteora

We had one final morning in Northern Pindos National Park after waking up in the Portitsa gorge- once it got light we couldn’t resist another wander to the bridge, where the valley suddenly turns into a deep gorge so we wandered through me and Adam having a wash in some of the deeper pools en route.

Slightly less stinky, we all hopped into the van to drive to another big target destination: Meteora. One look at the pictures in the guidebook was enough for us to decide it was a must! Monasteries on top of pinnacles of rock, established when Christianity was outlawed and monks found the most inaccessible places they could get to with rope ladders they could pull up to avoid the pesky Ottomans.

Of the 6 ‘castle churches’ (as Eddie initially knew them as) still open, we started with the monastery of the Holy Trinity, mostly because it was the first one we came to but also turned out to have the most epic precipitous staircase access. We enjoyed the views and the Chapel on top then moved to our next stop: St. Stephan’s monastery, a little bigger this time with a museum and a shop but significantly less exciting access these days in the form of a boring level wooden bridge.

Reaching monastery closing time, we drove to some viewpoints then to a convenient lay-by with a view of monastery no. 1 just off the tourist route and settled in for a van dinner and early night.

The next morning we watched sunrise over the hills and a quick breakfast then headed to our 3rd and final monastry: ‘The Great Meteoron Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Saviour’- length of name did reflect size of place it was the biggest so far!

Also with impressive stair tunnelled into the pinnacle it was sat on and with epic views of the neighboring mountains from the viewing decks, much museum stuff including random war propaganda cartoons in addition to the standard ecclesiastical displays from 700yrs ago and a particularly exciting shop which we obtained a couple of bottles from before ice cream and hopping back in the van for a nap time drive.