That next morning we ate breakfast by 7:30 and left by 8:00 a.m. to go see three more monasteries. Again, even though they were all similar, I think we broke longest time records in a few of them. We had a lot of fun exploring, taking pictures, and admiring the views. George had to keep us on strict time limits so we didn’t spend too much time in each monastery. This day involved a little more exercise since it was a trek to reach the entrance to some of the monasteries…lots of stair stepping. Here is a picture of the biggest monastery. Notice that I appear a lot cleaner in this picture…
 |
| I love this picture with the largest monastery and a hint of the snowy mountains in the background |
The next few hours we spent exploring the monastery…some highlights:
I happened to find a nice monk and he took a great picture with the Hortons! Now you know what the monks looked like.
 |
| Nicest monk around! (second christmas pic anyone?) |
Also, in this same monastery there was a man who got behind these ropes and started making googly monster faces…it was hysterical. He had glasses that just amplified his eyes. I tried to get a picture of him because I never wanted to forget what he looked like but I missed the shot. So…I tried to recreate it…
 |
| Pretty much an epic fail he looked so much weirder and funnier than I did |
Apparently no one in the monasteries is as tall as Mr. Horton. It turned out to be quite dangerous for him.
 |
| Ouch! |
Shenanigans....
 |
| didn't quite make this one haha |
 |
| showoff! |
I am sure from the pictures above you can surmise why we may have had problems with some of the time limits. However, we made our way down the mountain and headed out of Meteora. We were lucky enough to have two more stops. The first was at a place where they made the icons that went in the churches of the monasteries and other famous churches around the world. Here is a photo. The Hortons purchased a very beautiful icon if you ever get the chance to see it!
 |
| This man actually signed the back of the Horton's icon! |
The second stop was at a very historical place made even more famous by the movie 300. You guessed it…we went to the infamous battle site where Leonidas, king of Sparta, faced off against the Persian army. Welcome to Thermopyles.
 |
| Tribute to the Spartan soldiers who gave their lives... |
 |
| Monument to Leonidas |
We were all pretty exhausted when we got dropped off back at the apartment so we went to dinner. My first real greek gyro, delicious!
Then we went to bed for the big island day ahead of us…or so we thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment