Today was spent primarily at two monasteries in Meteora. We were blessed with beautiful weather, as you can see from the much better pictures below. We spent most of the time discussing how the icons came out of a time when most people were illiterate and this was a way to provide a Bible that they could read. The icons are not to be worshiped, but rather read.
All the women were required to wear skirts in the monasteries, so we had to get a skirt picture.
Entrance used to be by rope pulley. They still use the pulley system to raise and lower goods, but some has been updated to more modern machinery.
The old entrance.
This was a view of 4 monasteries from a lookout on the roadside.
This is the Monastery of Varlaam, which we visited first.
This is the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, which James Bond visited a few years back. We didn't visit this one.
A view of the town below.
This is the Monastery of St. Stephen which we visited second.
Access to St. Stephen is by way of a bridge.
This is the back side of St. Stephen.
We couldn't take pictures inside the monasteries, but afterwards we visited the workshop of a monk that makes the icons in the traditional manner. I took some pictures of these. This workshop actually provides icons for the Vatican.
Every last one is hand painted.
The carvings are also done by hand.
For those of the group that purchased icons, the monk signed them.
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