These are truly amazing buildings in an amazing landscape. It is a privilege to have see them!
Greeece was a strange place. They practice an archaic ash culture of stubble burning and the whole of northern Greece was under smog. Above the smog were winter clouds so there was nothing to see of this beautiful place. When we got to Meteora the cloud lifted a bit though it was grey and drizzly there was no smoke from fires so we did see these incredible places by driving the camper up some amazing hairpin bends. There is a lot to be said for being out of season - we didn't compete with too many tour buses.
We did go and see the biggest monastery and that was interesting in every way.
I got very cross there. The orthodox church is zenophobic and nationalistic. They spelt out that Jews and Muslims were typical betrayers of the saints and claimed that they had led the Greek people to freedom. Yes I was cross and disgusted!
Actually this was also an aspect that angered me about the Roumanian monasteries - they were wonderful but most of the images are of saints being tortured or having their heads cut off. In the end you get quite sick of the ghoulishness of it all - is this the basis for Christianity? However there was Goreme and there the monasteries had a lightness and seemed to be more about lovingness - or thats what I felt.
No comments:
Post a Comment