Visiting a James Bond set

August 28, 2018

Holy Trinity monastery as seen in For Your Eyes Only

So we slept in today and awoke at 9.40 am local time. Breakfast was fairly minimal - square Gouda slices in white toasting bread - because that's all they had at the Mini-Market.
By the time we had got ourselves organised to go out, it was thundering and raining. As we left our hosts shouted to us from the bar opposite where they were drinking "Schnapps" with other villagers. It had already gone twelve.
Undeterred by the weather and without rainwear, we headed up to Meteora.
The roads are good and well signposted if you read Greek. Luckily Joan was forced to do classical studies at Covent and for laughs was taught to learn the Greek alphabet. This was possibly the first time ever this had come in handy.
The circuit of the monasteries is not that far to drive. It is also noticeable that the few monasteries and nunnery which survive to this day are the most accessible.
There is a circuit which covers all the monasteries and we chose to do it in reverse - partly because we wanted to establish where Lidl was so we could buy dinner.
The last monastery was Agios Stefanou was closed on Mondays se we couldn't visit. It's accessed by a short bridge from the car park. Seemingly the nun's are keen to sell trinkets to visitors. Entrepreneur nuns!
About a kilometre away is Moni Agias Triados or Holy Trinity. It was reached by a zig zag path down a gorge and then up a stone staircase.
There was a modern cable car of sorts from the road to the monastery. And just at the foot of the staircase where you ascend to the monastery, you could look up and see an old winch with a rope net on it sticking out from a platform high above. This was an older method of getting goods (and allegedly monks!) in and out.
Entrance to the monastery was 3 Euros per person and if you were not modestly dressed, women were given long, wrap around skirts.
We were able to peer over the platform where the winch was and it was vertiginous.
There were two chambers, both covered with ornate paintings of the saints. Every inch was covered but you were not allowed to take photographs. We could recognise some Biblical scenes such as Pontius Pilate washing his hands of Jesus.
We lit a candle.
Outside the views were amazing. The river bed way below was wide but barely a trickle of water in it.
According to the guide books, this monastery was used in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only so that gives us an excuse to watch some telly as research when we're home.
It was already after four when we finished visiting so we drove round the circuit looking up at the rocks with derelict or disappeared monasteries. These were certainly not easilyaccessible like the others. We were also tickled that atop one of the spires long ago was a monk's prison.
So then it was a quick trip to Lidl where Joan used her grammar school Greek to work out which pastries were spanakopita.
Diava is about 4 km from Kalambaka. It was still raining on our return so it was dinner on the balcony.