Meteora is a popular resort located in northern Greece, at the northwestern edge of the plain of Thessaly, near the town of Kalambaka. It is an important center of the Orthodox Church, as well as a popular tourist destination, and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Twenty-four monasteries built with enormous sacrifices on these sandstone cliffs, currently only six are still inhabited, partly recovered after years of neglect: Agios Nikolaos (St. Nicholas)
Agios Stefanos (St. Stephen)
Aghia Triada (Holy Trinity)
Great Meteora Monastery of the Trinity or
Roussanou
Varlaam
The first settlements date from the eleventh century, when the first hermits occupied caves in the sides of cliffs.
Near the geological formation known Dupiani "at the beginning of the twelfth century it was a community of ascetics who gave impetus to a monastic state organized.
In the fourteenth century, in order to defend against the Turks, monasteries were built on the tops of rocks impregnable. It is said that Athanasio the founding of the Monastery of the Transfiguration (Great Meteora) with the strict monastic rules of Mount Athos, has called "Meteor" to the rock base of the building, thus giving rise to the term meteor still in use today.
After a period of accelerated growth and expansion of the monasteries, the passage of time and natural disasters, such as incursions by various conquerors, led the decline, many of them, especially after the seventeenth century.
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