Day 4 - Via Delphi to Meteora

Today we did a lot of driving. Once we were on our way we again started the day by praying the Lauds.

We stopped for morning tea and were fascinated by the fact that everywhere there were spits of lamb with there heads still on. Today was Easter Sunday, and of course, the Greeks eat lamb! I don't think there was a living lamb left in the whole of Greece. I have never seen so many lambs on spits on one single day ... and they all still had their heads on!

After morning tea we arrived at Hosios Loukas Monastery (St Luke's). There were some very beautiful icons in the Byzantine Chapel there. This monastery is actually on the World Heritage List for its Byzantine art.

From there we kept going and drove through the ski resort of Lavadia. This was really picturesque and no doubt very expensive. I hadn't ever realised that Greece had snow but the mountaintops where certainly capped with it.

We had lunch at a place called Omfalos Restaurant and most of us had lamb cooked on the spit with chips. Seeing though everyone else in Greece was having lamb today we thought we may as well join them. I had a piece of baclava that had been freshly made. It seemed to be a lot lighter and not as sweet as the ones at home.

We then continued driving to our destination, Kalambaka. As we were driving through, we passed another ancient ruin, the Olympic training ground near the 6th Century BC Temple of Apollo. There were some interesting stories that came from our guide about this site with regard to the attire of the athletes - it was nothing but olive oil and powder!

We eventually arrived at Kalambaka. This is a nice little town at the foot of the grey rocks of Meteora. I am not sure why these rocks are referred to as rocks. They are as large as mountains! On these rocks are a number of monasteries and nunneries.

We had Mass and then dinner.