June 23, Wednesday
Greece is a beautiful country of mountains, hills, plains, trees and water. We spent five hours traveling in the bus, going northward from Athens through the Theban plain to Thermopylae. This is the site of the famous Spartan battle in 480 BC where 300 Spartans died (actually about 1000 with the support troops) trying to hold off a huge Persian army.
Aegean Sea coastline
Wheat fields of Greece
The battle of Thermopylae took place onthe wooded hill
The Aegean Sea would have covered the road
We continued through the mountains of Greece to Meteora to see the famous Byzantine Eastern Orthodox monasteries that are perched precariously on summits of gray rock pinnacles of varied and beautiful shapes. The history of the monasteries goes back to the 14th century when the monks first sought refuge in the cliffside caves. Later they built monasteries on the peeks of the rocks. We climbed over 300 steps to tour one of these monasteries and enjoyed a great ice cream treat when we got back to our bus.
The rocky formations of Meteora
We walked down and up into this monastary
It was a great ice cream bar!
The city of Meteora seen from the top
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