Day 7 – Kalambaka

Kalambaka is a small village which is famous because of its location on the foot of the Meteora rock formation on which the Meteora Monasteries are built, “meteora” meaning literally “suspended in the sky”. This is the reason why I came here and today was dedicated to nature, hiking and to visiting this UNESCO world heritage site.

During breakfast, I found a wikiloc route online which was supposed to take me to two of the monasteries all by foot on an about 8 km hike. I had asked for information about hiking paths at a tourist information yesterday but they had told me that doing it without a tour guide was “a little dangerous” because the trails weren’t very marked and because there were many dead ends and confusing animal paths. I ignored this information (of course).

The first part of my hike took me from the village of Kalambaka all the way up to the first monastery I would visit: The monastery of Agia Triada. It was raining lightly, very cloudy and pretty cold but climbing about 400 m in a very steep manner kept me warm.

The monastery was interesting itself, with rich wall paintings and metal decorations in it’s chapel. But (for me) nothing compared to the views. There is a total of six monasteries, all built on the very top of the strange rock formations, becoming one piece with the stone. From the top of the first rock I could see some of the others and went on to the second one. I hadn’t met anyone on my way up but the second monastery was packed with tourists who were getting driven around by a huge amount of buses from monastery to monastery. I got inside again but decided not to get inside any more afterwards. I always feel a little ambiguous about visiting religious places. I appreciate the artistic and historic value of what I visit, but I would feel much better about visiting (and paying for it) if church was actually past and not present.

My wiciloc path after the second monastery was closed so I went on by the side of the road and spontaneously decided to visit all the monasteries on foot. Every time I thought the views couldn’t get any better and that I had seen everything there was to see, another new angle became visible after the next curve, even more breathtaking than the previous one.

After having seen and walked everything I could, I started to make my way back, which would take me downwards through the woods beneath the rock formations on small hiking paths. The path turned out to me signed pretty well and I had no problem with finding it at all. Through beautiful nature, completely alone now, I could appreciate my surroundings without being distracted by tourists. I feel very ambiguous about tourists too, always torn between hating them and being one myself and hating to be one. In the middle of the woods, however, by the sounds of only some birds and the wind, I felt so much better than on the road or in the monasteries. I settled down for lunch (my 4th meal in a row with canned tuna as my primary protein source…) and stayed in the woods for almost 2 hours, entertained by the views, the different sounds and the figures, faces and animals I started seeing in the rock formations (who can see the giant hand?).

When it started raining again I had almost reached Kastraki, the village next to Kalambaka. I kept following the GPS and discovered even more constructions built in the rocks and the caves they form.

I am not sure if it is a good idea to write about what followed next, but maybe whoever is translating for my grandparents can just skip this part.
I kept following my track until a point where the trail disappeared and I found myself staring into a tight, rocky, steep canyon. I made my way over a huge rock to see if there was any path following after, which there wasn’t. I, very carefully, moved a little further to see if the terrain was maybe getting better, which it didn’t. I have to mention at this point that the wikiloc route was in Greek, so the author might have commented this part with “don’t do it!!” but I couldn’t read anything and trusted my GPS (in the end, someone had done it before, so it had to be possible!) and went on. It was more a climb than a hike, and more a struggle than a climb. I mostly made my way forward on feet, hands an butt and a climbing rope would have come in very handy but at some point I had gone too far to turn around and go back, so I kept going. It took me another half an hour of climbing to make it all the way to the bottom of the canyon and I was torn between feeling I had done something very stupid and irresponsible and extremely enjoying myself. I couldn’t take any photos during the climb, but these were the two rocks between which I descended:

I made my way back to the village, 8 km had turned into 18 and therewith I had done and seen everything I had wanted to in this village. Therefore I have decided to move on tomorrow instead of Monday. I spent the rest of the afternoon working, checking trains and hostels for tomorrow, cooking and talking to my fellow travelers and the extremely funny hostel owner. It’s somehow always getting very late very fast…

PS: Sorry for my non-interesting writing style today – I’m really tired.