The flying monastery-Meteora Magnet

This is Varlaam Monastery, one of the 6 still "active" monasteries of Meteora (Trikala, Thessaly, Greece). Once upon a time there were 24 monasteries in this exciting region. The first one who climbed this rock, was an anchorite, named Varlaam around 1350 (that's where the name of the monastery comes from), who built a small church. After his death, the rock remained uninhabited for more than a century. In the beggining of the 16th century, two brothers, Nektarios and Theofanis climbed the rock. In 1518 they started reconstructing the church that Varlaam had built, and also built two more churchs. With the help of other monks that later climbed the rock they built the monastic "complex" that you can see in the photo and covers almost...