Under New Management: The Great Meteoron Bed & Breakfast

* This blog post will contain a some religious analysis

We are at the end of our stay in Kalampaka and in Greece. Tomorrow we depart on the 6:33 am train to Athens, the 12:06 train to Patra then the 18:00 ferry to Bari Italy. We have enjoyed every minute of Greece but have agreed it's time to move on and eat pasta and pizza (NO fries!)!

The cliffs and mountains here are really breathtaking and the exploration possibilities seem endless. We spent our first day here just getting lost in between the cliffs on random trails and climbing the rocks. We discovered a turtle and some delicious cherries (free off a tree). At the end of the days seeing as we hadn't had enough, we walked up to the great meteoron and then back down because it was closed (We didn't expect to see monks at 7pm). To our delight we did see a monk! He pulled up in a brand new nissan with his suit and pulled out two big shiny suitcases out of the trunk and took this little wodden box on cables across the gap between the parking lot and the monastary instead of the stairs (Yes Janelle monk on a rope). We will show you a video when we get back(Youtube will have it a little later). At first we chuckled (along with some German tourists), but then got a little angry. We had just finished walking ALL the way up the uneven stairs through the jungle to get to this place. As we walked down this sparked some debate and discussion about living life as a monk and taking a vow of poverty in order to serve a certain deity. It kind ruined the tour the next day.

The next day we took the bus up to the monastary and paid the fee to get in to see how the monks live inside (we did not get to use the Monk SuperSkyride). The whole building is really beautiful and we really really like the architecture and layout of the place. We even decided to take it over by force one day and open up a super sweet B&B. Throughout the tourist area were displays of the way the monks lived some years back with homemade wine a giant wodden kitchen. We were not allowed to see how they lived now so we assumed it was all KitchenAid and Sony. Other than that, and getting puzzled by their views of pagan grecce, we had a great visit and a nice walk back to our hotel.

Tonight we had a last warm greek meal of greek salad, lamb, chicken souvlaki, and of course french fries. Tomorrow, SANDWICHES!

See you in Italy!