Next day (Saturday) was the main event, visiting the World Heritage monasteries of Meteora which are built on top of rock pinnacles. It’s possible to visit the site using public transport, but it’s far easier with a car. We planned an anticlockwise route to visit five of the main monasteries.
Moni Agiou Stefanou (St Stephen) was first. Built in 1798 it sits at the end of the road with a spectacular drop off to the plain below.
Moni Agias Triados (Holy Trinity) was next. It has a cute little cable car to ferry people and provisions, and a less sophisticated winch system. It’s famous for being featured in the James Bond film For You Eyes Only.
Stopped at Psaropetra lookout to take in the full panorama. We could see down to Moni Varlaam which we visted later in the day.
Moni Agiou Nikolaou (St Nikolaou Anapafsa) was the next stop. It was built in the 15th C and is a great spot to see the geology up close. We lingered here to eat our lunch on a shaded terrace.
Moni Varlaam was next. It has a rope and basket system on display so you can see how things used to get in and out.
Moni Megalou Meteora (Great Meteora) was our last stop for the day. Founded in the 14th C it’s a large and seemingly prosperous monastery. The frescoes and major church building (katholikon) were most impressive.
Headed back to Trikala for the evening with our heads full and our legs weary. And kinda wondering, why?
Started slow on Sunday morning after a big day yesterday.
Drove out to Pyli to visit the 13th C church of Porta Panagia. It’s a beautiful building in a gorgeous setting.
The priest was getting ready for a baptism but took time out to tell us about its history. Originally it was a Greek temple. A medieval monstery was built on the site then destroyed by the Turks. The church was not destroyed, and he showed us doors that had been bricked up and turned into windows to stop the Ottomans bringing their horses in. He explained that in orthodox churches, icons of Christ are always on the right of the altar, Virgin on the left.
Nearby we saw the Portaikos bridge, an arched bridge built by the bishop/ Saint Bessarion II in 1514. It’s a very elegant structure.
The south bank of the river is shaded by trees and there’s a cafe and restuarant. Lots of locals had driven or ridden out there for a drink or something to eat. It was a lovely spot to linger for a while.
Headed back to Trikala for the afternoon/evening. This ended up being a very pleasant day. A nice change of pace from yesterday.
Another day we took a ‘Byzantine’ slice through the city, checking out its Byzantine Walls and the Byzantine Museum. This was a fantatstic day.
The wall painting ensembles, mosaics and frescoes of Thessaloniki’s Byzantine churches and monasteries are among the great masterpieces of Early Christian art, recognised as World Heritage Paleochristian and Byzantine Monuments. This heritage stems from its strategic location, and its role as capital of the eastern Roman empire under Galerius. Thessaloniki morphed into being the ‘second city’ of the eastern empire (behind Constantinople) when east and west were permanently split by the Emperor Theodosius in 395 AD. Under Theodosius the city’s Byzantine Walls were commenced and the Roman Rotunda of Galerius was converted to a Christian Church and decorated with high quality mosaics.
We spent a day zigzagging between the ancient churches and monasteries, gradually climbing up to the old walls that sit high above the modern city.
On the way up we visited Agia Sofia (750 AD), Church of the Acheiropoietos (470), Agios Dimitrios (634), Latomou Monastery (Osios David, 490), and Vlatadon Monastery (14th C).
After a well-earned and delightful lunch behind the Byzantine Walls, we visited Agios Nikolaos Orfanes (14th C) on the way down to the Byzantine Museum.
Islands in the Venice lagoon were initially occupied by Veneti, a Celtic tribe living in the Po valley region and allied to the Roman Empire. They had to flee waves of Barbarian invasion as the Roman Empire fell and lagoon islands provided places of refuge. Invading Visigoths then Ostrogoths settled in nearby Ravenna and the lagoon island communities became permanent as the invaders weren’t going away.
Initially they occupied the island of Torcello, spred out to surrounding islands, then occupied the ‘high bank’ (rivoalto) which is the Rialto of modern Venice. These island communities eventually formed a federation and Venice the republic is said to have been founded around 421.
The eastern Emperor Justinian the Great made Ravenna (140 kms south of Venice) his base for reconquering Italy and reuniting the eastern and western empires. His efforts did not however succeed. The Lombards began a next wave of northern invasion, and island communities in the Venice lagoon grew larger and more established in response to this latest pressure. In 726 the first Doge of Venice was elected and a 1,000 year history began. The Franks followed the Lombards as invaders though their attempts to invade the Venetian islands were unsuccessful. By 810 the Venetian lagoon was the only part of northern Italy still in the Byzantine sphere of influence, and the Venetians were using their seafaring skills to establish a powerful trading base in the Adriatic and beyond. In 828, informed by an earlier prophesy, the body of Saint Mark the Evangelist was smuggled from Alexandria to Venice and the Basilica of San Marco was established. Saint Mark was symbolised in Saint John’s Book of Revelation as a winged lion and this symbol became synonomous with the Republic of Venice.
By the 10th C Ravenna’s port (Classe) had silted up and the city was in decline to the advantage of Venice with its access to the Adriatic. Up to the First Crusade in 1095 Venetian Doges used their diplomatic skills to trade with both the Byzantine Empire in the east and the Holy Roman Empire in the west. Venetian involvement in the First Crusade, although minor, soured relations with the Byzantines and things didn’t get better from there. Venice was a major player in the Fourth Crusade of 1203 under Doge Enrico Dandolo, and part of his price for involvement of the Venetian fleet was a detour to Constantinople where the Crusaders sacked the city and Venice took three eights of the spoils.
Standing in St Mark’s Square and looking at the Basilica of San Marco, Venice feels like the closest thing we have to a living Byzantine city. That iconic view is much more interesting when you understand how it was influenced, what it imitates, and the fact that some of what you see was literally looted from Constantinople.
The island of Torcello is another great place to evoke Byzantine Venice. The Byzantine Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta was built in the 7th C and is the oldest in the region. Climbing its bell tower and looking out over the lagoon you get some sense of what the fleeing Veneti had to deal with in establishing a safe home in the lagoon. Somehow they managed to turn this precarious existence into an empire.
(N.B. Photos not allowed inside the Basilica of San Marco or the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta.)
This was our third stay in the city and we’d had enough time looking at the wonders of Ancient Greece to have the headspace for contemplating its Byzantine heritage. There are a few gems.
The Church of the Holy Apostles sits in the southeast corner of the Ancient Agora. It dates from the last quarter of the 10th C and was the first significant church of the middle Byzantine period in Athens. It is the only monument in the Agora, other than the Temple of Hephaestus, to survive intact since its foundation. The church was built partly over a 2nd-century nymphaion. The few surviving wall paintings in the central aisle date to the 17th C.
Another day we walked out to the excellent Byzantine Museum in the Kolonaki district. It has a great collection of sculptures, icons, paintings and artefacts that are atmospherically lit.
Next to the Athens Cathedral in Plateia Mitropoleos stands the tiny Church of Agios Eleftherios which dates from the 12th C. The cruciform-style marble church was erected on the ruins of an ancient temple and its exterior is a mix of medieval beasts and ancient gods in bas-relief, and columns appropriated from older structures. It was once the city’s cathedral but now stands in the shadows of its successor.
From Athens we picked up a hire car at the airport and drove towards Delphi.
On the way we stopped at Moni Hosios Loukas, one of three World Heritage monasteries from 11th and 12th centuries that are characteristic of the second golden age of Byzantine art. It has a beautiful complex of buildings in a very peaceful setting, and we happily whiled away a few hours.
Not far from here lies the town of Distomo which was the site of a Nazi war crime in World War II. German forces killed 228 chlidren, women and men in reprisal for actions of the Greek resistence. We visited the monument and paid our respects to the dead.
Arrived in the town of Delphi late that afternoon, and enjoyed great views down to the Gulf of Corinth from the hotel balcony.
The World Heritage archaeological site of Mystras preserves the remains of a city with a remarkable six hundred year history, from its founding in 1248 to its abandonment in 1832 at the end of the Greek War of Independence .
After the Fourth Crusade in which Constantinople was sacked and the Byzantine Empire defeated, its lands were divided up under the so-called ‘Latin Empire’. These lands included the Principality of Achaea which basically covered the Peleponnese, also known as Morea. The Frankish Prince of Archaea, William II of Villehardouin, toured the region in 1248 and chose the top of a 310 metre high spur of Mount Taygetos to build his fortress which became the city of Mystras. The Latin Empire only lasted till 1261 but Mystras became the seat of the governor of the Byzantine territories in Morea. It flouished under the Byzantine scholar George Gemistus Pletho (1355-1452) who was instrumental in the revival of Greek scholarship in Western Europe, which had a profound effect during the Rennaissance. Mystras declined from 1460 when it was surrendered to the Ottomans, but flourished again when occupied by the Venetians from 1687-1715. The Ottomans recaptured it in 1715 and then it was burnt by the Russians in 1770, the Albanians in 1780, and the Turks again in 1825. It was abandoned in 1832 when the modern city of Sparta was established by King Otto.
The site is dominated by Villhardouin’s castle at the top, with an Upper City, Middle City and Lower City spilling down the slopes. The major building complexes we visited were the Meteropolis/ Agios Demetrius, Hodegetria, St Sophia, Villehardouin’s Castle, Patanassa, and Peribleptos.
We were walking the site until 19:00 so it was great to just drop down to the local village of Mystras where we’d booked a room for the night. Freshened up, ate dinner, and slept very well. A magnificent day.
Left Mystras next morning and stopped in Sparta en route to Nafplio.
We’ve all heard of the Spartans but there’s precious little left of their ancient city. It sits on a plain and the fearless Spartans eschewed walls and fortifications, preferring to back their fighting prowess. Obviously that didn’t end well. The modern city of Sparta was founded in 1834 on the instruction of King Otto, the first King of Greece. With Athens being rebuilt after independence he believed that Sparta should be rebuilt as well. It was a laudable idea but never actually happened. We visited the Sparta Archaeological Museum which has a quaint, yesteryear feel.
Drove east to the coast then north towards Nafplio, stopping at Astros for a swim and lunch.
The mix of Byzantine, Arab, and Norman influences on Sicily from 535 to 1194 created an incredible artistic and architectural heritage that is unique.
As part of Emperor Justinian’s plan to reunite the eastern and western empires, his general Belisarius took the island of Sicily in 535. Although Sicily had been part of the Roman Empire for 700 years, Belesarius was welcomed by a population that largely identified as Greek in language and custom.
Under attack for many years because of its strategic location between North Africa and Southern Europe, Sicily was finally invaded by Arab Muslims in 827. The island prospered under their rule, and Palermo became the capital.
The Norman conquistador Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger I gradually captured the island between 1061 and 1072, at which time Roger became Count of Sicily. The Normans were ferocious conquerors but adopted a concilitory appproach as rulers, embracing and building on Sicily’s Arab and Greek influences. Roger I died in 1101 and his widow Adelaide del Vasto ruled until 1130 when their son Roger II became King. He was an enlightened leader who ruled with distinction until 1154. Things gradually fell apart under his successors, William I, William II, and Tancred until Norman rule was replaced by Swabian (South German) rule in 1194. Which is another story…
Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Monreale and Cefalu are World Heritage listed in recognition of this unique history.
Palermo’s Palazzo Dei Normanni dates to the 9th C but what you see today bears the hallmarks of Sicily’s Norman rulers. The Capella Palatina (chapel) and royal apartments were designed by Roger II in 1130 and the combination of dazzling mosaics, marble inlay, and carved wooden ceilings in the Arab style (muqarnas) reflects a distinctive vision. We spent several hours trying to take it all in.
Another day we caught the bus to nearby Monreale, 8 kms southwest of Palermo. It is here that William II built a magnificant Catherdral designed to outdo his grandfather Roger II. Several different mosaic cycles cover the interior.
The Sanctuary including the main apse, north and south chapels has an enormous Christ Pantocrater (Almighty) surrounded by various, life-size saints.
The lower walls, columns, arches and ceilings of the interior are also beautifully decorated.
The Cathedral has a gorgeous Cloister with slender, inlaid columns, sculpted capitals every one of which is different, and elegant arches. The fusion of Byzantine, Arab and Norman sensibilities is fully on show in this space. We enjoyed taking our time to do a few laps of the Cloister before going back in for a second round of the interior.
The north and south walls of the central Nave are covered in the cycle of the Old Testament, with 42 stories represented.
The Transept includes the cycle of the life of Christ.
Taken as a whole Monreale borders on being overwhelming, and we left with our heads full and our senses heightened. It was amazing.
Modern Istanbul is ancient Constantinople, the epicentre of Byzantium. Its strategic position on the Bosphorous, connecting the Black Sea with the Mediterranean, ensured that it was an important place from at least 657 BC.
It became seriously important in 324 AD when the Emperor Constantine the Great declared it the ‘New Rome’ and laid out a vast new city to serve as capital of his empire. It was inaugurated in 330 before Constantine died in 337 (aged 65 years).
The city continued to grow under his successors Theodosius I and Theodosius II , who built the eponymous Theodosian Walls in 413.
In 527 the Emperor Justinian I took the throne and launched an ambitious program of building (including the Aya Sofya) and reconquest of the western empire (from Ravenna). His expansionist ambitions were not realised and exhausted the Byzantine Empire’s treasury, though Constantinople remained a major force for several hundred years.
It was sacked in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade and finally captured by the Ottomans in 1453 .
We saw many vestiges of the Byzantine era while staying in Istanbul, but there were four monuments that gave us the strongest sense of Constantinople. The Aya Sofya , Theodosian Walls, Chora Church, and Church of the Pammakaristos.
The historic areas of Instanbul are World Heritage listed and the Aya Sofya (Hagia Sofia / Church of the Divine Wisdom) is the standout.
Built by Justinian in 537 as a statement in his campaign to reunite the eastern and western empires, it stood supreme as the greatest church in christiandom for 900 years. Mehmet the Conquerer had it converted to a mosque, then in 1935 Attaturk proclaimed it a museum accessible to all.
It is a remarkable edifice that can only be fully appreciated when you are inside it. We stayed in Istanbul at the start and end of this trip and visited the Aya Sofya twice. Like Athens and the Acropolis, it seemed inconceivable to us that we would be in Istanbul and not go to see the Aya Sofya.
On another day we caught a ferry from central Istanbul up the Goldern Horn to Ayvansaray in the western districts. This was a great experience as it took us outside the walls of the ancient city and enabled us to see several important monuments as we walked back into the centre of Instanbul.
First up we explored the Theodosian Walls. These massive fortifications were built by Theodosios II then added to by Mehmet the Conqueror.
From here we could walk to the Chora Church which is an amazing ‘museum’ of byzantine art and architecture. It was built in the late 11th C and most of the interior decoration dates from 1312. The mosaics and frescoes are simply stunning.
We then walked on to the Pammakaristos Church. Built in the late 11th C or early 12th C it was adapted into the Fethiye Mosque (the “mosque of the conquest”) in 1591. It’s now a museum with the largest amount of Byzantine mosaics in Istanbul after the Hagia Sophia and Chora Church.
One of the reasons we chose to stay in this part of Rome is that it’s a great place to see the trajectory of Christianity from minor cult in pagan Rome to state religon of an empire. Over a couple of days we walked between a series of buildings that illuminate this period of history.
Travel Tip – Don’t, as we did, try to visit the churches on the last Saturday of Spring because they’ll have weddings going on!
Santa Croce in Gerusalemme was founded in 329 by Saint Helena, Empress of the Roman Empire and mother of the Emperor Constantine the Great who legalised Christianity in 313. Helena had a church constructed to house relics she brought back from the Holy Land. It is said that these included three chunks of Christ’s cross, a nail, two thorns from his crown, and the finger that a doubtful Saint Thomas thrust into Christ’s wound. As well as a bunch of soil from Jerusalem. Quite a haul, and one that sparked something of a craze in relic hunting.
When we first visited Rome, one of the things that struck us was how layered it is. Rome seems to have been continuously built on top of itself over time and the modern city stands well above many of the ancient ruins. The Basilica of San Clemente is an excellent place to see this, with a 12th C church built on top of a 4th C church that was razed by the Normans in 1084, built on top of an insula (apartment building) destroyed in the Great Fire of 64 AD. The oldest buildings are almost 20 metres below the newest ones. Saint Clement was the fourth Pope, exiled by the Emperor Trajan for his preaching and eventually drowned in the Black Sea with an anchor tied around him. No photos are allowed inside San Clemente.
We walked along an ancient Roman road called the Clivio Scauro to the San Gregorio Magno, a Baroque church built on the site where Pope Gregory I lived (r. 590 – 604). The building was closed when we visited with a sign saying there was no entry until the Fire Brigade said it was safe. That didn’t sound promising. Next stop was Santa Maria in Domnica to which the locals add ‘alla Navicella’ or ‘little ship’ because of the Roman ship statue that stands outside. The site used to house Roman firefighters (vigiles) then a chuch was built in the 7th C and remodelled in the 9th C with a lovely apse mosaic.
Santi Quattro Coronati is an ancient basilica dating back to the 4th C devoted to four anonymous martyrs. It’s set in a lovely part of Rome which is relatively quiet and green. Like San Clemente and others it was razed by the Normans then rebuilt as a fortified monastery albeit to smaller dimensions. The much larger original apse is still visible from the outside. It has a lovely cloister dating to 1220.
The Archbasilica of San Giovanni in Laterano is the cathedral church of Rome. It is said to be the oldest public church in the city and the oldest basilica of the Western world. You wouldn’t necessarily know it however. There are few traces left of its origins from 313, and subsequent rebuilding and restoration has been fairly unsubtle. The fifteen 7-metre high statues out front telegraph the intentions.
The basilica of Santa Pudenziana stands on a site where a church was first built in the 4th C. It’s also been continuously restored and remodelled though the apse mosaic from the early 5th C remains.
The basilica Santa Prassede dates from the 9th C and has excellent mosaics, considered to be the finest expression of Byzantine art in Rome.
Our last stop was the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. It has an impressive Baroque facade that shrouds a basilica church from the 5th C with some impressive mosaics.
Taken as a whole this walking tour gave us a great sense of how Rome continued to be built, razed, rebuilt, restored, over and over again according to the dominant belief system of the day. It’s quite a history.
We spent a day exploring Ravenna’s World Heritage Early Christian Monuments. Stepping off the train from Bologna you wouldn’t guess that you were walking into a place that has played a signifcant role in European history. Modern Ravenna is unprepossessing at first impression. Stepping off the modern streets and into the ancient churches, baptistries, and mausoleums presents an entirely different picture. You are blasted by a quantity and quality of art and architecture befitting a place that was capital of the Western Roman Empire, capital of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, and a base for reuniting the Eastern and Western Roman Empires under Justinian the Great and his wife Theodora. Ravenna remained an exarchate or lordship of the Eastern Roman / Byzantine Empire until it was captured by the Lombards in 751.
This ‘time capsule’ exists in part because of natural processes. Ravenna used to lay about four kilometres inland from its ancient port at Classe. The port silted up and by the 10th C Ravenna was literally a back water. Over time siltation has moved the coastline a further nine kilometers east and Classe now is far from the coast. This greatly benefited the city of Venice with its access to the Adriatic. Yet it also helped to preserve the remarkable buildings and mosaics of Ravenna that were protected by irrelevance and inaccessibility.
We started at the Arian Baptistry which has an incredible dome mosaic of Christ being baptised by John the Baptist, surrounded by twelve Apostles. It was commissioned by the Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great around the year 500. Theodoric was an Arian Christian and decided to let the Goths (Arians) and the Orthodox Christians co-exist albeit in separate neighborhoods with separate religious buildings.
Next stop was the Basilica di Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, built around the same time as the Arian Baptistry. Along one wall a procession of 26 female martyrs is shown leaving the town to follow the Magi who bear gifts for the Virgin. On the other wall a line of male martyrs leave Theodoric’s palace to honour Christ. It’s a mesmerising sight.
After the poet Dante Aligheri was exiled from Florence his wanderings eventualy led him to Ravenna where he completed his great poem The Divine Comedy before dying in 1321. We visited Dante’s Tomb which sits within a small neoclassical monument next to the Basilica of San Francesco. [Having visited Dante’s Tomb in 2009, it was interesting to visit Alfredo Jaar’s ‘The Divine Comedy’ at MONA, our local museum, in 2019. Not sure if it’s significant but Jaar’s interpretation of Hell was by far our favourite.]
The Neonian Baptistry is named after Archbishop Neon who commissioned its mosaics around 485. The building is a converted Roman bathhouse which is octagonal in shape. It also has a dome mosaic of Christ being baptised. Four of its eight walls bear mosaics of altars and the other four bear mosaics of empty thrones symbolising ‘preparing of the throne’ for Jesus to deliver the last judgement.
01 Arian Baptistry
02 Dome mosaic
03 Dome mosaic detail
04 Sant'Apollinare
05 female martyrs
06 Christ
07 wall and ceiling
08 San Francisco
9 Dante's Tomb
10 Neonian Baptistry
11 Dome mosaic
12 Empty throne mosaic
It’s easy to overdo the superlatives in describing Ravenna’s treasures, but the Basilica di San Vitale is probably the highest of the highlights. The combination of greens, blues and gold is startling, and the mosaics of Justinian and Theodora make them seem surprisingly human.
Next to San Vitale is the small Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. Galla Placidia led an amazing life. She was daughter of the Emperor Theodoius I, half-sister of the Emperor Honorius, held hostage by then married to King Athaulf becoming Queen of the Visigoths, and Regent of the Western Roman Empire when Honorius died hierless, ruling for 13 years in the name of her son Valentinian III. Her mausoleum is appropriately spectacular, though in a final twist she’s actually buried in Rome.
Across the railway lines and surrounded by parkland stands the Mausoleum of Theodoric. It’s an austere monument built in 520 out of Istrain stone and assembled without mortar. The roof alone is a single slab weighing over 300 tonnes and enormous effort must have been required to transport the material to Ravenna then construct the building. Inside is a beautiful Roman porphyry basin which was recycled as a sarcophagus. Theodoric was a Germanic warrior who, around the year 488, brought over 100,000 people across the Alps and into Italy after their homeland was overrun by the Huns. His mausoleum provides a fascinating link between the Roman empire, the Barbarian invasions, and the Byzantine empire. It seemed the perfect way to end an amazing day.
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