Metéora, Greece: Where Nature and Spirituality Meet
Mass tourism aside, Metéora Greece is a stunning destination both geologically and culturally. It also happens to be a place of pilgrimage for eastern orthodox Christians. The landscape is like something from a fairytale, with pillars of granite and sandstone shooting up hundreds of feet from the valley below to form smooth walls of grey rock pocked by caverns and formed by centuries of erosion.
It’s only as you get closer to this primordial landscape that you begin to notice why so many people come here each year. The monasteries built here in the 12th century AD adorn the rocky cliffs as though they were built right out of the rock itself. Monks here climbed daring heights to construct what are objectively some of the most striking monasteries anywhere on earth. The monastic communities that built these incredible buildings sought isolation from the general population so they could more easily pursue their spiritual disciplines through an ascetic life of restraint and dedication to their faith.
From Solitude to Spectacle: The Rise of Mass Tourism
This way of life continued relatively unchanged for centuries until the Greek government began aggressively promoting tourism throughout the country’s iconic sites of which Metéora was included. Today it is safe to say that Metéora and its sacred monasteries have been “discovered” by mass tourism.
Though beautiful, the winding drive up the ravine is lined with tour buses carrying thousands of visitors from all over the world to see these once hermetic and mysterious sites of worship. The largest of the sites, built for maybe 100 occupants, now hosts thousands of visitors at a time all vying for the best place in line. The chaos begins in the parking lot where lines of buses attempt 3 point turns at the dead end street where crowds of people and cars navigate around the huge coaches. As you approach the entry way the narrow bridge connecting the entry swells with people who seem to be filling every square foot of available space as they cram into the main foyer.
Once inside there are people EVERYWHERE. With almost no space to move, it feels like a human bee hive, but with less organization. You can hear people yelling and arguing over which groups should have access to the chapels and churches within the complex. The nuns who now occupy the monastery turned convent can be seen shepherding groups of tourists around so as to keep the flow of movement. There is frustration on people’s faces and on an especially crowded day it can be so overwhelming that you almost forget the incredible views below.
When Sacred Becomes Overrun
This is an example of what mass tourism can do to a place which once held space for silent prayer, spiritual reflection and sacred ritual. The guides and the sisters and brothers who still work and live throughout these sites show obvious signs of resentment. This is NOT what they signed up for. What was purpose built as a place of peace and stillness now carries a chaotic energy which distracts from the site’s original intention. This type of compromise is happening all over the world. People see the beautiful images of a place like Metéora only to find an overrun and diluted tourist trap void of it’s original character. This extractive form of tourism runs the risk of stripping places like this of their authenticity and diminishing their unique traditions to a photo opp. This is how human culture can erode from history over time.
There is a cruel irony in how we choose to experience places in this way. In some ways these places self select themselves out of existence. Their own appeal has the potential to attract tourism in a way that imposes the visitor’s needs on the host, thus forcing an economic condition which inspires the compromise of authenticity for progress.
Rethinking Travel: A Call for Responsibility
The travel industry (a phrase that is not often taken seriously in the business community) has a moral obligation to preserve culture and tradition through a more balanced and responsible way of traveling. We need to be thoughtful about how and when these places are experienced by the general public. This doesn’t mean that we should limit their experience to only those at the highest income levels, but we should be having more direct dialogue with local stakeholders who should all play an active role in how their cultural sites are visited.
The intrusive nature of mass tourism needs to be addressed. A good way to start is to do your homework, partner with companies who provide sustainable travel experiences, and seek out more off the beaten path destinations. One of the greatest contributors to cultural erosion of these iconic places is not the lack of alternatives, it’s the lack of promotion of those alternatives by the industry. In a world of social media, it’s more important now than ever to educate and elevate the industry to destinations that have just as much or more to offer and divert a percentage of travelers away from these overcrowded and concentrated areas.
Stay curious, seek sustainable and understand that how you choose to experience a place will ultimately determine what becomes of them.