A thousand steps

The Greek winter season officially starts on 15 October. Here it happened at 9.05am with large drops of rain while we were waiting for a bus up the mountain to Great Meteroron Metamorfosis monastery. By the time the bus dropped us the rain was so heavy I had to shelter under a fast-food awning to put my nightdress on over my shirt and trousers. Now, my nightdress is a perfectly respectable Nigerian dress, but I was so annoyed by the pompous man who yesterday told me emphatically that I must wear a skirt and not trousers to visit the monasteries that I decided to 'conform' by seeing how many I could visit in a nightdress (with trousers hidden underneath). Childish, I know, but the answer was three. Not only childish, as it turned out, but unnecessary, since all the monasteries provide wrap round skirts for women to put on top of their trousers so that the monks are not corrupted.

Anyway the higher powers were not amused. As well as chucking solid rain on us and everyone in the vicinity they tried to blast us with thunder and lightning. The heavenly fury was breathtakingly dramatic. Around midday the rain lessened and swirling mist rose from the warm ground. As a second act it was hugely impressive, with everything shifting by the second. (The picture is Roussanou Nunnery - which we plan to visit tomorrow - from Varlaam.)

At each of the monasteries we stood on pinnacles of rock looking at the precarious towers where monks used to be winched hundreds of metres in a net between the monastery and the ground. Nowadays steps (thousands of them) have been built into the rocks which is harder on the knees but less terrifying.

From Varlaam we avoided the road and took a short cut down through deciduous woods as the sun was emerging. Underfoot it was like an English autumn and overhead, with brilliant glistening greens, it was an English spring. A superb finale from the saints in charge of weather.

Then what felt like another thousand steps up to St Nicolas Anapafsas. Thankfully we didn't have to get in this way.