Full Day Excursion

We depart early in the morning from Corfu port to Igoumenitsa with local ferry. From Igoumenitsa we will travel by bus to the town of Kalambaka which is right next to the World Heritage Site of the “Meteora” – incredible natural stony pillars that are topped with monasteries from the Byzantine period. Film buffs will recognize this area which was featured in the James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only”!

The name Meteora comes from the Greek adjective ‘meteoros’ which means hanging in midair – and the pillars and monasteries certainly seem to be doing just that. How and why were the monasteries built in such a difficult place to get to, you might ask? From around the 9th century, due to the increasing power of Byzantium and threats by invaders, hermits lived in the caverns of Meteora. During this period Monks were searching for inaccessible places to build their monasteries – and the Meteora was the ideal place for them!

Initially the monasteries were reached by using swinging nets or baskets and ladders – which carried food and people slowly up to the top. Today they are accessed by steps carved into the rocks.

Important notice:

Appropriate clothing is required to visit the monasteries. Sleeveless clothing and shorts are prohibited. Skirts and shawls are available at the entrance for those who are deemed to be unacceptably dressed (including guys wearing shorts and tank tops). So not to worry, you will most likely not be sent all the way back down to change!

Meteora: Meaning "suspended in the air" one of the most amazing places in Greece. Everyone is impressed by the monasteries perched on top of enormous rocks and have probably wondered how on earth they built them.

The rocks themselves are impressive, rising from the plains of Thessaly a few miles northwest of Kalambaka.

It is a strange but breathtaking landscape that has been sculpted by wind and water over thousands of years.

By the 14th century, the Byzantine Empire was already on the wane and the monastic communities of Athos peninsula were increasingly besieged by Turkish pirates. After an encounter with brigands, three monks, Gregory, Moses and Athanasius, left the Monastery of Iviron on the western coast of the peninsula to search for a new home. They had heard of 'miracles’ taking place in the land of the great rock fore stand on arriving there, settled on top of the rock called Stylus or the Pillar where they built a hesychasterion or wooden hut.

Later, Athanasius assembled a small community and constructed a few cells and a chapel in a cave on the nearby Platys Tithos or the Broad Rosk. The Serbian Emperor, Symeon Uros provided them with an endowment that allowed them to build the Church of the Transfiguration around 1356 and to expand the monastery with more cells and cloisters.

His son, John Uros, retired here as a Monk Ioasaph about 1373 adding to the already sizable endowment enjoyed by the Grand Meteoron, also known as the Monastery of the Transfiguration.Ioasaph assumed authority upon the death of Athanasius in 1383 and he further expanded the monastery and the Church.