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Kalambaka is such a beautiful place! A real village with a friendly, welcome home kind of atmosphere. It is situated under the shadow of great rocky outcrops in the region of Metoria, I think they look like giant meteors but I think they are the legacy of an ancient earthquake.
Atop of some of these outcrops are perched 4 or 5 beautiful Monasteries; today we visited two of them and were blown away by their beauty and simplicity.
The first we visited was a large monastery with a beautiful church/chapel. The icons painted on every wall depicted the gospel story and gave us a sense of the Divine presence. But the smell of incense drove Peter out of the chapel and made home feel very I'll, it took a couple of tablets and many hours for him to recover. So no more visits into the small churches but there was plenty to see and appreciate outside.
The thing that struck us most was the austerity and simplicity of life for the early day monks. Life would have been tough, relying on other, town folk, for food and water just to survive. No electricity, gas, heat, phones or TVs, or other comforts at all made the monastic life difficulty and detrimental to your health.
But the spiritual benefits of putting all that aside were very rewarding; but of cause this life was/is not for everyone!
After this we visited an shop where they make icons for the faithful and for tourists. We had a tour of the area where the icons are made and then had the opportunity to brows the hundreds of icons and items for sale. The icons are certainly beautiful but we didn't buy any.
From here we travelled back to Kalambaka for a beautiful lunch in the shadow of the rocky outcrops while looking out over the beautiful valley.
From here we traveled toward Thessalonica where we will be staying the night, but first we had a stop in Berea.
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