Meteora Agios Stefanos Monastery

Agios Stefanos Monastery – view from the plateau road between Agios Trias and Agios Stafanos   

From Agias Trias Monastery we trudged up the steep access road to the plateau road and walked along that the half mile or so to the entrance bridge to Agios Stefanos Monastery. Unlike all the others, this monastery has no steps to its entrance, just a short bridge spanning the chasm between the plateau and the stack on which the monastery is built. Nevertheless, inside steps, not that many but enough to make access difficult if you need a stick to get about. There is also an impressively steep and long set down to the public toilets, as the Australian tourists who used the facilities loudly attested!

Because of the relatively easy access to the monastery, Agios Stefanos is one of the most well visited. It is now inhabited by nuns, who were given the site in 1961 after it had been left abandoned following shelling by the Nazis in WWII (they believed the monastery to be sheltering insurgents). The nuns have turned it into a flourishing monastery (convent?) complete with beautiful courtyard gardens and a busy gift shop (a facility that appears to have now been copied by a number of the other monasteries!). Apparently there are about 25 nuns in residence at the present and we certainly saw a good half dozen or so, some doing admissions and sales, with others in the church, acting as guides and custodians. There were far more nuns visible here than there were monks visible elsewhere.

Agios Stefanos courtyard   

The small church was built and decorated in the 16^th century, though many of the frescoes looked to be very newly restored. Many of them were quite graphic scenes of the persecution of Christians, a theme repeated in many of the monasteries’ churches. Hardly encouraging for those worshipping inside, though perhaps they felt safe from harm up on their rock stacks. We were not permitted to take pictures inside the church or the museum, which was a shame as there is a beautiful embroidery of Christ on his bier in the latter.

Agios Stefanos – gardens   

Having taken a short stroll around the gardens and courtyard, we headed back the way we had come (Agios Stefanos is at the end of the plateau road) to the monks’ trail back through the woods and down to Kalabaka.

Route up to Agias Trias Monastery and the steep route down through the woods   

The route down was significantly easier than the route up and we made good time back into the village to collect the car and continue our tour of Meteora using motorized transport rather than Shanks’ pony.

Meteora, Greece