Thessaloniki to Meteora

Thessaloniki

We arrived from Izmir to Thessaloniki in the afternoon.  This city is the second largest city in Greece and the capital of Greek Macedonia.

The White Tower of Thessaloniki was built as a Byzantine fort dating the 12th Century AD and later was used as a prison and execution site during the Ottoman rule in the 1400's.

 The Apostle Paul came here on his second mission and preached in the chief synagogue on three Sabbaths; this sowed the seeds for Thessaloniki's first Christian church.  Paul wrote two letters to the new church here, which are preserved as First and Second Thessalonians.

Many Thessalonians believed, but certain of the Jews, envious of the Gospel's success, formed a mob, caused a riot and Paul and Silas left the city by nightand traveled to Berea. The citizens who did accept the gospel were among the first Christians in the empire.

From Thessaloniki we traveled to Veria/Berea.

Veria/Berea

The Bereans were more receptive to Paul's message and many of the Jews and Greeks believed.  Irate citizens from Thessalonica who learned of Paul's success, traveled to Berea and incited a riot.  Paul was then forced to leave Berea and sailed to Athens.
(Acts 17)

 While in Veria/Berea we visited The Apostle Paul's Alter.
 It is believed that this altar marks one of the places that Paul preached.

Next to the monument and altar was a public school.  The children were eager to try out their English skills and Hal had a conversation with them.

Aigai

We then traveled by bus to  the little village of Aigai, which is near Vergina (see map above).

Here we ate lunch at a truly Greek restaurant.

 It was a beautiful day and we ate outside behind the restaurant.
The french fries don't look very Greek but the large portions of grilled meat were prepared Greek style.  Before our main course, we also enjoyed a beautiful Greek salad (wait - can salads be beautiful?).  I should have taken a picture of it!

The portions of meat were huge and we were happy to share with the wandering cats under our table!  This was a dining adventure!

After lunch we met our group to tour The Great Tumulus Aigai.

 The Great Tumulus Aigai is the location of the tomb of Philip II of Macedon ( 382 - 336 BC).  He was the father of Alexander the Great and was assassinated at the age of 46.
Greek archaeologists began excavating the Great Tumulus in 1977.  Two of the 4 tombs in the tumulus were undisturbed since antiquity and contained fabulous treasures of gold, jewels and ancient antiquities.

 The entrance to the tombs

Philip II 's tomb

The gold larnax that contained the charred bones of
 Philip II

After our tour of the Great Tumulu Aigai we had a few minutes to shop and then it was on to the next adventure.

Hal somehow acquired the yellow flag that our guide used to keep our group together.  We hurried to the flag and boarded the bus to travel to our next stop - Meteora.

Meteora

 After a scenic drive from Vergina to Meteora, we arrived in the early evening - just in time to check into our hotel room and eat dinner.

We found a Greek restaurant and enjoyed dinner with Smiths and some new friends we made in our group - Winnie and Morris Graham from Hawaii.

 I ordered the veggie plate, which had large portions of  fava beans in a seasoned tomato sauce, beets, zucchini, eggplant, grape leaves filled with a rice and onion stuffing and served with tzatziki (a yogurt and cucumber sauce).

Hal ordered the fried zucchini, which was also served with tzatziki sauce, and we shared our food - there was way too much for us to eat - the Greeks serve gigantic portions!!

 

The next morning we began our tour of Meteora.
 

 Meteora means suspended rocks or suspended in the air and is one of the largest and most important complexes of Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Greece. Six monasteries are built on natural sandstone rock pillars. We toured four of these.  The scenery in this area is so interesting and beautiful!

 It is astounding to see these monasteries and the wonder of how they were built on such terrain!

 In the 9th century AD, a group of hermit monks began to inhabit the hollows and fissures of the rock towers and formations.  They eventually began building monasteries and by the end of the 12th century AD, an ascetic community had flocked to the monasteries of this area.  Access to the structures was originally and deliberately difficult, requiring either long ladders lashed together or large nets used to haul up both goods and people.
This is a ticket to The Holy Monastery of Varlaam, which is the first monastery we visited.  The photo shows how, historically, supplies and people were brought to the top.  Fortunately, now we accessed this monastery by roads, bridges, stairs and walkways.  We were happy that we didn't have to ride up in a net!

This photo shows the hook used to raise the net baskets and the view as we looked down from the monastery.

Views from the top

Inside the monasteries, all women were required to wear a skirt or dress.  If you didn't have one on, they provided one to be worn during the tour.

The second monastery we visited was The Holy Monastery of Rousanou/St. Barbara ( founded in the middle of the 16th Century).

The hike up to the monastery meant another hike down to the parking lot.  We got our exercise that day!
Stop for lunch!

After visiting two monasteries, it was lunch time and Steve found a highly recommended restaurant on Trip Advisor.

 The food was all prepared and you went through the line and told the cute little Greek lady what you wanted.  Then, she filled your plate with a huge portion!

 Hal and I shared what we had chosen - pasta with a tasty red sauce. The food was hearty and very filling!!

 After lunch we boarded our bus again and visited two more monasteries.

The Holy Monastery of Great Meteoron is the largest, highest and oldest of the monasteries and was founded in the middle of the 14th century AD.  It is dedicated to the Transfiguration of Christ.

This monastery required a huge hike to the top, beginning with a hike down from the road, then, crossing the bridge and climbing 146 stairs to the monastery.

 Hal braved the climb to the top!

A large part of this monastery houses a museum.

Painted on the walls of the interior are well preserved frescoes dating back to the 14th century. The museum contains many wood-carved crosses, rare icons and important religious manuscripts.

The last monastery we visited was The Holy Monastery of St. Stephen.

This monastery houses a small church that was built in the 16th century.  It was shelled by the Nazis during World War II because they believed it was harboring place for insurgents. Then after the war, it was repaired and is now a nunnery.

Fortunately, the hike to this monastery was on level ground!

You can see some of the nuns that live and serve here.

Inside the monastery I wore another cute skirt!

Views of the Meteora Valley were spectacular from the top of this monastery.

After our last tour, we boarded our bus and returned to our hotel.  That evening, we walked to the little town nearby for dinner.

Remember our huge lunch?  After that, we all wanted something light for dinner so we enjoyed another authentic Greek salad (they don't skimp on the feta cheese and I remembered to take a picture this time!).  Of course we still had room for an ice cream treat!

After our big day of hiking and touring we went to bed very tired! We knew tomorrow would be another big day; our next stop would be Athens.