Monk pants

Today, we climbed a whole lot of stairs to make it to the Great Monastery, higher up than anything else in Meteora. In total, there are seven Monasteries and nunneries built on top of these rocks, which, we've been told, came up this way when the European tectonic plate and the African one shifted against one another.

The Great Monastery is the biggest and highest up, ad in order to enter it, we had to be modestly dressed- a tall order in Meteora in the summer.  I had to borrow a skirt at the door (about half of the women did) because women had to wear skirts, and those skirts have to cover the knees.  Cas had shorts on, so he had to borrow a pair of long pants.  Men are not to show their knees, either.  He was calling them his "monk pants." 

I will not be sharing any photos of monk pants or my nun-approved skirt.  Just know that borrowed skirts and pants from a Monastery are about as pretty as you imagine.  

From the first Monastery, we had the option to see two more, but when we asked if the next two were particularly unique, we were told no.  They were pretty much like the first one.  We learned yesterday that all Byzantine churches have the same frescoes in the same places.  Over the door, they have the scene of the death of the Virgin Mary.  On the left and right sides of the doors are always the same row of saints and holy men in the same order. Lovely though they are, if you've seen one, you can make a lot of inferences about the rest of them.  We decided to save ourselves from the weather a little by seeing the greatest and grandest Monastery and leaving the other two on the list to the imagination.  

Good thing, too, as we got back from the bus stop, went swimming, took a nap and headed out to purchase more sunscreen before we saw the folks walking back who had been on the full day tour.  No thanks.  They were walking back to the hotel at 5pm, having headed up with us at 9am.  There are no restaurants atop the mountains, and I am sure they packed a lunch, but I don't think I could have spent that much time marching about in the sun today.  The nap was pretty great, and the pool was very refreshing.  

The Monastery itself was impressive.  They had museum pieces in rooms for everyone to look at, but most of those rooms forbade photography.  Here was an outdoor copy of some of the indoor frescoes, albeit this one was newer and in much better shape: 

I was taken with the old kitchen: 

Of course, you can't beat the view:
 
Cas has lots more photos in his album (in case you need the link again,) here you go: https://goo.gl/photos/zxmxAmDBqhc4hPHD7