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Meteora
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How it came to be
Meteora, in Thessaly in central Greece, is a cluster of sandstone pillars rising more than 400 m from the ground; the name means 'suspended in the air' in Greek. By the 11th century hermits were living in the clefts and caves of the rock, meeting on Sundays at a chapel at the foot of one pillar.
Amid the political turmoil of 14th-century Thessaly, monasteries were built on the inaccessible summits. Athanasios arrived from Mount Athos in 1344 and founded the Great Meteoron on the Broad Rock. In all 24 monasteries were built, and people and supplies were hauled up in nets and baskets or climbed removable ladders. Theophanes the Cretan painted the Monastery of St Nicholas Anapafsas in 1527, and the 16th-century frescoes mark a key stage in post-Byzantine painting.
Steps were cut into the rock in the 1920s, linking the complex by bridge to the nearby plateau. The monasteries were bombed and ransacked during the world wars, and six survive. UNESCO listed Meteora in 1988.
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