Sacred rocks

We got up this morning when the weather started to clear, after having a hilarious conversation with our Dutch speaking Greek host. He came back to Meteora after running a restaurant in Holland for many years. He cannot believe that we live a life, surrounded by electric fencing in South Africa, an unthinkable thing!

He told me that he wasted so many years of his life chasing money. He came back to start a family. He got married recently, he is in his early 50's and now has a 2yr old daughter and a 2week old son. He is a proud father. He is so very impressed that I am traveling with my parents. He says family is everything!!

Greece is in a bad way, and when people pay him for the accommodation, he says thank you I really need this. I asked him for a tax invoice as we can claim 24% back at the airport, he flatly refused. Nobody pays tax in Greece, am I crazy to even ask for such a thing.

All over the town is so many cats, and today he was chasing cats out of his guesthouse. So we called him " kattejagter"!

We took a slow scenic drive to the top of the mountain from where you have access to the monasteries. I was here more than twenty years ago, and the towns below have literally exploded. It is now a massive tourist industry.

It's unbelievably majestic! An incredible feat of man and nature. There are 7 monasteries on top of the rocks, conspicuous in more than one sense, the monastic settlements of the Meteora are perch upon high and precipitous rocks that rise abruptly from the edge of the Thessalian plane, where it meets in the foothills of the massive Pindos mountain range.

This varied landscape strikes the traveller with a curious mixture of awe and amazement.