Meteora - hovering in the air
Zhigalov. Are there mushrooms in Greece?
Dymba. There is. Everything is there.
Zhigalov. But there are no mushrooms, I suppose.
Dymba. And there are mushrooms. Everything is.
So, as follows from the well-known dialogue in A. P. Chekhov's play "Wedding" - everything is in Greece!
And even those who have not read Chekhov are still sure that there are certainly sights in Greece! Even our school history textbook told us about this.
Well, if so, then after visiting Greece you will always have something to talk about when it comes to sights!
Let's talk about meteors. Not those that fall from the sky and can leave behind huge destruction, such as the Tunguz meteorite or the recent meteorite fall in Chelyabinsk, but something completely different...
Meteora or Meteora is one of the largest and most important complexes of Orthodox monasteries in Greece, second only to sacred Athos in its significance. Translated from the Greek "meteora" means "soaring in the air. " It should be noted that the name very accurately conveys the atmosphere of elevation, solitude and inaccessibility of everything that this place is famous for.
And it is known, first of all, for its monasteries. Starting from the 950s, the first hermits appeared here, who sought to retire from human bustle and devote themselves to serving God. From the 14th century, the first monasteries built on ledges of impregnable rocks began to appear in this area. There were no roads to them at all and it was possible to get to the monastery only on a manual winch. In the same way, food and the necessary building materials were delivered.
Without going into details, I will say that there were once 14 monasteries. Now only 6 remain active. In 1988, the monasteries were included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List.
We arrived in Kalampaka, a small town from which the road to Meteora goes. We settled in a cozy hotel called "REX". That evening we decided to take a break from the road and not go anywhere.
And in the morning, waking up, they immediately rushed to watch the dawn to the monasteries of Meteora. It was amazing! Such solitude, silence, freshness and beauty of the day being born and monasteries soaring in the rocks. Awesome! You could admire, you could meditate, think about something deeply hidden in your soul, or, conversely, about something big, sublime and eternal.
Having received a charge of positive energy, we returned to the hotel to rest a bit and we were again drawn to the monasteries. We arrived. It was already daytime. How things have changed in just a few hours!
A bunch of tourist buses, warming up with great difficulty on narrow mountain roads. Crowds of “vacationers” obedient to the guide, brought on a planned excursion, immediately after humming the obligatory hotel scrambled eggs, paid for from home...
Everything… Everything that I wrote about above was completely weathered by the cries of active guides, closely watching the herds of their charges, poking their fingers, accompanied by loud exclamations, so that the neighbor would definitely see the same thing as the finger-poking subject. There could no longer be any talk of something spiritual in this accumulation of consumers of universal values. Somewhat disappointed, we returned to the hotel.
But, as you know, hope dies last. And I really didn’t want to leave Meteora with the mood from a day visit.
Gathered and hoping for the best went to watch the sunset. It turned out that we were not alone. There were quite a lot of those who just wanted to “poke” at the sunset, admire the human art of creation, the proud aloofness of monasteries from worldly bustle. But there were people who came on their own. They “didn’t have to” like that, they just wanted to.
Everyone was on his own and at the same time everyone was together. No one interfered with anyone, even more than that, some kind of bright, life-affirming energy emanated from everyone. Everyone was very good.
It was on this emotional wave that we left the floating monasteries and, apparently, we will never forget Meteora.
