A day of travel

Day 13- Meteora

Today, we left the Attica district of Greece, and embarked on a rather long drive through Thermopylae (where we stopped to visit the site of the famous Spartan battle of 300 against Xerxes and his Persian army.  We then headed to the northwest town of Meteora.  While this is not one of the stops of Paul on his journeys, it brings us close to Thessalonica, which is where Paul went after he left Athens.   What made the long drive to Meteora worth the effort is the spectacular views from the Monasteries which are perched precariously on summits of rock pinnacles of many strange shapes!  We visited some 14^th century monasteries which sprung into being when monks fled to higher grounds and sought refuge in cliffside caves.  One can only imagine what it took to get the building supplies up these cliffs (some of them more than 800 feet high), to create monastic communities, but there are six remaining monasteries left (out of the twenty four at their peak) still in operation.  Again, I will let the pictures speak for themselves.