Meteora

Meteora is becoming more common with American tourists and is well known by Europeans.  The Greek word Meteora means “suspended in air.”  Meteora is famous for its rock formations and for the monasteries on top of some of those formations.  At one time there were 24 or so Byzantine Monasteries in the area, today there are 6 that are open for visitors with most being inhabited by a small number of monks and nuns. It is much easier to get up to the monasteries today, but that is a relative term there.  You will do a lot of stairs of varying quality and height.

We read that the most probable account of the formation of the sandstone rocks of Meteora was from erosion of an ancient lake bed that was drained into the sea following earthquakes.  It is an amazing site. At the end of this post, is a very short 3rd party drone video of the area that I encourage you to watch.  

Note the line of people ascending the stairway

Look closely and you will find 4 of the Monasteries

The monks chose these remote locations to live an isolated life.  Access was limited to a lift as shown below.   Today stairways and bridges have been built for the thousands of tourists that visit daily.   At the end of the blog is a copy of short documentary from the 1920s depicting the life of the monks and the use of the net.

The hook holds a net, that lifts people and supplies from the ground far below

The wood pole in the center of the room would have four horizontal posts for monks to push while walking in a circle to hoist people and things up.

Looking up at net (circled) used to raise/lower people and things

Based on good advice, our plan was to split our visits across two days and arrive early for the most popular sites.   The hotel allowed us to pack some breakfast food before it opened and we repeated the mountainous road to Kalambaka.  It turned out to be a smart move as the crowds grew as the day went on.

Our first stop The Great Meteoron Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Savior was the first Monastery here when it was founded in the mid 14 century.  It is also the largest of the Monasteries.  It towers over you as you approach.  The stairways leading up to it appear daunting and will leave you catching your breath.  The view at the top is spectacular.   The tour includes several chapels adorned with Frescos.   You don’t have access to the living quarters, but you see some rooms depicting how the monks lived not too long ago.   A museum has been established to displayed the many national and religious heirlooms.  Photography was not allowed in the Chapels or Museum areas.

Kitchen as it would have appeared back in the day

Monastery of Varlaamj was built a couple decades later by a single monk, but it was then left unoccupied for two hundred years.   It was then rebuilt and adorned with Frescos by several famous artists.  The addition of a bridge made it very assessable for us.

One of the few religious heirlooms we could photograph

Holy Monastery of Rousanos has experienced several start overs.  First founded in the mid 14th century, it didn’t take its present form until the mid 16th century.  It was known as a refuge for persecuted individuals and families.  It declined in the 19th century and it later became a nunnery with the patron  of Saint Barbara in1980 after its restoration was complete. The monastery is 3 floors that occupy the entire plateau.   While it has some nice modern bridges to traverse the gap, their are lots of stairs to get to the bridge. 

Steps and more steps

Great view of the garden below where the bridge is

Monastery of Saint Nicholas Anapavsa Meteora has a similar start, but was abandoned in ~1910 and restored in the 1960s.   It was our fourth stop for the day.   Maybe that was it or the heat, but those steps were rough.  It is at a slightly lower altitude and has the best view of the valley below and the town of Kalambaka.  

Saint Nicholas Monastery in the middle of the 3 lined up together.

Saint Nicholas Monastery in distance

Ruins from a former Monatery

Day 2 started with the Agios Stefan’s nunnery.  It’s the newest having most of its building constructed in the 17th and 18th century.   The new church (1798) was unadorned when nuns inhabited it in 1961.  In 1980, they adorned the new church with Frescos.   The Frescos in the other monasteries were very dark from age other than a set of three small restoration tests.   These Frescos were bright in color similar to the prior small tests we had scene.  

women had to have their shoulders covered, their knees covered and if wearing pants still had to wear a scarf they gave you to cover the hips to meet their conservative values

Our final stop was the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Meteora which was the smallest we visited.  It didn’t even have a gift shop.

Each Monastery display a long board.  It wasn’t until near the end of our tours that we discovered the board was used as a drum to call the Monks to prayer or other events much like a Bell might be used.  We did not discover the purpose of the metal hanging on the left.

Return to London

We went into London from Reading several times.

We rode Great Western Railroad to Paddington then the Underground around London

    SuperBloom at Tower of London was one of the first places we visited.  In honor of the Queen's Jubilee, they planted 3 of the 4 sides of the moat for the Tower of London with wild flowers that are planned to bloom throughout the summer.  The moat has had grass in it since 1845.  It was really pretty with just waves of colors changing as we walked around the tower.   I recognized most of the flowers but there were some that were new to me like one from the brochure called Annual Toadflax or another called Viper's burgloss.

London Bridge in background

Kensington Park and the Victoria and Albert Museum - our original trip plan had us staying in the Kensington area in a flat for 2 weeks, but alas Covid ruined that plan so visiting is all we did.  Have to admit walking around Kensington and Hyde Parks made me wish we had gotten to stay here.  Kensington and Hyde Parks are in very nice residential areas.  After we wandered around the parks we headed to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The museum is considered to be a museum of art and design.  It is arranged by geographic and time periods.  You find a room full of artifacts from the Singh's during 1500s say and another that is full of things from artifacts from early 1900s Europe.  On top of that, the building itself is amazing.  All of the memorials and halls related to Victoria and Albert are quite simply beautiful.  The buildings often have an area with underlying meaning.  For example, on the Albert memorial below, each corner is a region with a statute with related topics such as an American Indian in the Americas region.  While in the museum café, the walls above the windows were tiled with words of wisdom.

Memorial to Prince Albert.

Inside Victoria and Albert Museum

the bed from a lord's bedroom

really like this chair makes me think of the rag rugs my grandma made.  In the current room display.

    Gordon's Wine Bar - on another day, we went into London to go to the musical Six and then to visit Gordon's Wine Bar which a cousin had recommended.  Gordon's is the oldest wine bar in London and has been open for over 130 years.  The indoor portion is under ground and the seating is in caves - no electricity in that area - only candles at the tables.  It is also known for its port and sherry wines some of which are served from the cask.  Like most people we got a glass of wine and stood around waiting for a table.  It was Father's Day and were asked to move away from a beat-up old photo by a group so the 2 men could take a photo in front of it.  The one guy then proceeds to tell me how he had come here many times with his father who always went to that photo.  It seemed that the photo was dad's platoon in the Boer war in South Africa.  We talked with the couples for a few minutes and then we had a table.  The wine we had was nice and then we shared some fortified wines since it was their specialty! It is definitely a unique place.

at our table in the cave

Six is based on the six wives of Henry VIII.  In London, all of the theaters are small so there is rarely a bad seat.  Six is so popular Jeff and I had to accept individual seats a few rows apart.  We enjoyed the show once we got used to the accents.  It is almost a concert with a storyline, there are no set changes, I would recommend the show.

St Paul's Cathedral - on our last trip into London, we visited the St Paul's Cathedral, The Globe Theatre, picked up some whisky and went to an Italian restaurant.  Our timing had been off before and had not been able to visit either St Paul's or the Globe so better late than never.  

While in Oxford, we had seen the Sheldonian Theatre that Christopher Wren had designed early in his career and now off to his masterpiece - St Paul's Cathedral.   Easy part first - it is gorgeous inside.  The bright gold patina on wood and plaster and oh my all of the mosaics and all of this on top of a very nicely designed church/cathedral.  We opted out of the audio tour and chose to walk around and read the placards.  The prior St Paul's Cathedral burned in the great London fire of 1666.  In 1668 Wren starts to design the new/current cathedral, it took until 1711 for it to be completed.  Since this is after the reformation, there are no icons in the building instead you will find a lot of statutes to military leaders and war memorials.  Many of those are on the first floor, there is a crypt in the basement with even more memorials and stones/monuments to people although in the crypt there is an artist corner so you do find people other than the country's late warriors.  Oh,  Jeff and I had a laugh.  There are plaques for all of the lead organists for couple of hundred years.  Jeff said I can hear it now in the interview - we can't pay you well, but you will be remembered for eternity by the plaque we make for you.

As we wandered, I noticed a sign that said the above window's stain glass was lost to a bombing in 1940.  Per a write up I saw part of the cathedral was hit on Dec 29th, 1940, but it was a small area.  Said there were a couple of other times when out buildings were hurt and some walls were thrown out of alignment.  We overheard a tour guide describe how many key items and statutes were removed from the cathedral before the bombings began, but there was one statute that was left behind.  The main caretaker at the time regularly slept by that statute and had a saying that he (the statue) was looking after him.

In the crypt, they had an exhibition set up for the Queen's Jubilee.  They had pictures from her past jubilees and from the previous kings and queens who had jubilees.  Seems it is part of the jubilee tradition to have a mass of thanksgiving at St Paul's.  The exhibition had a cloak that the bishop had worn at an earlier jubilee mass.  It was impressive.  An embroidery school had stitched together this large cape like garment with buildings and symbols for much of the Commonwealth.

Shakespeare's Globe Theater - the Globe Theater and St Paul's Cathedral are close to each other.  They are on opposite sides of the Thames River with the millennium pedestrian bridge connecting them.  I will be honest I went to the Globe because I thought I should.  I am happy I went because I really enjoyed the tour.  This is a very good reproduction of the theatre that Shakespeare would have appeared in during his lifetime.  It was opened in 1997 after 50 years of research and slow construction.  When I say very good reproduction, I mean they used the same type of wood that was common in the day (unseasoned even), they used the same materials for the plaster like walls and thanks to carbon footprints and some old drawings were able to deduce the most likely building layout including the fact that many patrons are in a ground area standing.  The theater is an active theater for Shakespeare plays.  While we toured, we saw a group rehearsing a modern-day version of the Tempest. It was an enjoyable 50 minute tour.  Unfortunately, since they were in rehearsals for a new play that has not been reviewed yet we were not able to take any photos. Don’t ask where these came from.   

Whisky Exchange - note the UK spelling.  We had found a whisky we really like in Scotland and wanted to take some home.  That was easier said than done until we learned of this place and able to order it from them.  It was a very nice and interesting shop.  This is the entire width of the shop.

Bar at the Shard as in the large office building called the Shard.  While on the train going to Stonehenge/Salisbury.  I ended up sitting next to guy and talking with him.  He suggested that one of the best views of the London skyline was from the bar of the Shard.  We had some time to kill before dinner and by shear chance were right at the Shard so up we went.  This was after we visited the Borough Market which was nearby.  If you are in London and need some nice quality food, go to this food market the food looked wonderful.

We are a fan of Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy on CNN.  On the last episode we saw he visited London, where he resides instead of a region in Italy.   On the show he introduced us to “The Mammas” at La Mia Mamma restaurant.  Each of their 3 restaurants features a different region of Italy with Mammas from that region on a rotating basis.  Click here to watch a 62 second clip from the show.  On one of our last evenings in Britain, we made reservations and did variations of their tasting menu for the evening.  The restaurant we visited was hosting mamas from the Sardegna region of Italy.  We had to hurry to get there on time, but enjoyed our evening once we relaxed.  It started with an Aperol Aperitif and ended with a small panna cotta and cheesecake.  In between a huge antipasta plate, some pasta and a main dish.  The antipasta plate had probably 10 different things on it from fried ravioli to olives to small dishes and bread.

And finally, we ran across this whimsical art installation in the area of St Paul's.

There is room for two people to join these characters at the dinner table.
I should have taken a Panoramic photo to capture the entire table.

Stonehenge & Salisbury Cathedral

We almost made a horrible mistake in our planning for visiting Stonehenge.  We had booked everything for the day before the Summer Solstice.  By chance, went to London the day before that and ran into some partiers from the Salisbury area who warned us that tons of people go there on the Summer Solstice and we might want to change our plans.  Boy were they right, on June 20th there were already traffic jams on the country roads so we quickly rebooked for the following Friday.

To get to Stonehenge, we took the train from Reading and grabbed a variation of a hop on hop off bus that does 3 sites:  Stonehenge, Salisbury Castle and old Sarum.  You can add an option for entrance into the sites which we did.  Salisbury is a quaint old English town with a very tall church cathedral.  The bus picks you up outside the station and off you go into the countryside.  When we got to Stonehenge, there is a nice new visitor center with parking for all the tour buses and then there is either a 1.3 mile walk or short bus ride to get to Stonehenge itself.  We first did the visitor exhibition in the visitor center and then walked to Stonehenge and rode the bus back.  Part of the route is through a field that was part of Stonehenge proper/landscape. 

 We got to Stonehenge itself and had to show our timed entry tickets and then started the audio guide on our phones as we walked around the ring of stones.  Now a days most tourists cannot get inside of the stones rather you are kept back a ways on a roped off walkway.  Still it was impressive to see.  Jeff and I were surprised to learn that the horizontal rocks (lintels) did not just sit on the rocks they crossed but that there were joining pieces in the vertical rocks to hold it all together.  Part of our audio tour pointed out that the gentle moundings in the dirt was not natural but had been done as part of the building of Stonehenge.  As we walked to the site we had been near part of the moundings/pathway.  The audio pointed out that there had been some burials around parts of  Stonehenge and that throughout the neighboring fields were mounds that were also burial areas.  None of the mounds are anywhere near the size of the Indian burial mounds you find in Collinsville or St. Louis, but they were distinctive.  Jeff and I enjoyed Stonehenge, but were somehow a little disappointed.  We suspect it is because up in Orkney Scotland we had seen a large ring of stones and another spot with the large stones like this that we were able to go right up to and touch.  I understand the need to protect the area.  I just think we were a little prejudiced after our earlier site visit.

arrow shows where the sun light hits on the 2 solstices

From Stonehenge we went to Salisbury Cathedral in downtown Salisbury.  The cathedral is right in town and was built in the 13th century.  The cathedral is special because it has the tallest church spire in all of England, large cloisters and because it has one of the 4 remaining copies of the Magna Carta.  Since the cathedral is so old, it was originally a Catholic church.  I point this out because the room that the Magna Carta is in was a former room specifically for the monks. In that room there is a stone frieze of some common biblical stories.  Another interesting thing about the church is that it is built in an area that in at least modern times has a very high water level.  Very high as is they have a spot in the floor where they lift up a stone to check the water level with a stick - think checking your car's oil level.  A few years ago the water did rise up and flood the church (I think inch or 2 not bad).  As you wander around the church you find the crypts and stones for prominent townspeople over  the years and some distinct chapels.   Also it is because of the catholic monks that there are a lot of very old books and documents that the church owns such as the Magna Carta.  We wandered around the inside of the church some and then went to the chapter house to see the Magna Carta. 

Baptismal Font

The chapter room has a display about how the document came to be.  Seems the king at the time (King John) had run up some serious bills and was trying to unduly tax the nobles who weren't too happy about it.  They threatened him with a civil war.  The document guaranteed certain civil liberties and all was good except the nobles had to force the king to follow it.  Later kings would use it to their political advantage thus it has been amended some since its original writing.    When it was our turn to see it, we entered a small dimly lit enclosure with a light sort of shining on the document.  Meaning you see it, but you aren't going to read it - not really.  The document was written on sheepskin in very small writing.  Yes I could see start and stop of words, but I couldn't make anything out and it was probably old English that I would not have understood anyway since it was written in 1215.  But hey I can mark that off some bucket list!

After the cathedral, we walked around town some and then headed back to Reading.  We skipped Old Sarum which is a medieval town.  I guess you could say it was the original town of the area before Salisbury.  There is the foundation of a cathedral there that the Salisbury one replaced and other medieval time period buildings (remnants).