The first time I went to Meteora, Greece, I needed clean clothes. This time, I needed seven helicopters.
In 2011, Jill and I were traveling through Europe with our children. My friend Milton Wheeler had insisted we include Meteora on our route. We arrived near Kastraki at dusk, drove past souvenir shops and tourist restaurants, and checked into Hotel Dellas.
I figured we would do laundry, catch up on schoolwork, and rest before heading north. We had already seen a monastery on Patmos. I wasn’t sure why we needed more.
Milton knew. I should have known to trust Milton.
Maria and Antonio Dellas ran the hotel. Her homemade breads and preserves made breakfast one of the best of that entire journey. I still remember the quince preserves. Maria told me she had begun making them after losing a daughter. It gave her something to do with her grief.
That afternoon, while Jill helped Holleman with schoolwork, Harrison and I drove up the mountain. One minute, we were on a winding country road. The next, we were looking at something resembling a Greek Grand Canyon, with a monastery perched atop a sheer rock pillar.
So much for resting.
We kept driving, stopping, and looking. More monasteries appeared. Harrison and I climbed 200 steps to one, where a nun welcomed us. In a small chapel, we sat down and prayed.
I thanked God for keeping us safe and asked Him to help me become a better father and husband. Sitting beside my son, I felt closer to Him than I had at almost any other time in my life.
Fifteen years later, I brought my Yonderlust guests.
We boarded seven helicopters in Athens. An hour later, we landed on a soccer field in a remote part of northern Greece.
I don’t know what the local soccer players had planned that morning. But 26 Americans in search of monasteries probably weren’t on the list.
I had chartered the helicopters so we could experience Meteora without spending nine hours on a bus. They gave us time to visit a place I had wanted to share since that afternoon with Harrison.
Meteora is difficult to describe without sounding as though you’re exaggerating. Huge stone pillars rise from the valley floor, with monasteries on their summits. Looking up, you wonder how anyone reached those heights, much less carried enough building materials to construct something that would stand for centuries.
I’ve had contractors tell me we couldn’t move a wall three feet.
Monks began settling among those rocks nearly a thousand years ago. During the 1300s, monasteries were built on the summits. By the end of the following century, there were 24. Meteora means “suspended in the air.”
That sounds about right.
I had wondered whether returning could measure up to discovering it with my family. I knew what was around the bends this time. But the familiarity turned out to be part of the pleasure. I could remember my surprise while watching other people get their first look.
Over the past 10 years, I’ve led more than 80 trips with over 1,700 guests. This was a top 10 experience. Easily.
I could have spent the day trying to work out how those monasteries were built. Inside them, though, I kept thinking about Harrison. The last time I had been there, he was a boy climbing the steps with his father. Now he is a grown man, and I couldn’t be prouder of him or his sister.
I went into a chapel and prayed for my family again.
There was more to say this time. Fifteen years’ worth.
I thought about Jill teaching the kids in hotel rooms while I wrote. About the four of us riding together for hours, finding somewhere to eat, figuring out where to sleep, and doing it again the next day. At the time, something always needed handling. Looking back, I would gladly take another day of it, laundry included.
Then, on the way to lunch, we passed Hotel Dellas.
I hadn’t given much thought to seeing it again. But there was the place where we had stayed, and I was remembering breakfast with my family as clearly as anything I had seen that morning.
And I thought about Maria.
I remembered her preserves first, as I suppose a food writer would. Then I remembered why she made them. While I was sitting at breakfast with my wife and two children, she was living with the loss of her daughter.
I understood that when she told me. Passing the hotel, I thought about everything that had happened in our family since that breakfast, all the years I’d had with my children that she hadn’t had with hers.
I’ve watched mine grow up, make their own decisions, and become adults I admire. Now there is a grandchild on the way.
I have been given so much.
When we checked out of Hotel Dellas in 2011, I had no idea I would ever host a tour. Owning a travel company wasn’t on my list. I was a restaurateur traveling with his family, writing about what we ate and where we went.
Yet there I was, back with a group of guests who had all become friends. Mine has taken some turns I wouldn’t have had the sense to plan.
We had a fantastic lunch, flew back to Athens, and ended the day with a Michelin-starred dinner. That’s a fairly full day for a fellow who originally came to this part of Greece looking for a laundromat.
I’m grateful to the people who trust me with their time and resources on these Yonderlust trips. Taking time away is no small thing. I want the days we spend together to be worth what it took to get there. This was one I was especially glad to share.
But the part I keep thinking about is the prayer.
Fifteen years ago, I sat beside my son and asked to become a better father. This time, I gave thanks for the man he has become, the woman his sister has become, and their mother.
And for a grandchild I haven’t met.
I’m still asking to be a better father. I’ll be adding grandfather to the prayer.
Onward.
Apricot Tarts
The brown butter in the recipe gives these tarts a unique and appealing flavor.
16 pre-made mini frozen tart shells
Filling
3 /4 cup butter
1 1 /2 cup apricot preserves
1 /4 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup dry apricots, chopped small
2 eggs
3 Tbl flour
Preheat oven to 350
Par-bake the mini tart shells for seven minutes.
For the filling, melt butter in a small aluminum sauce pot and cook until the butter begins to brown. Stir in preserves, honey, vanilla, and dried apricots. Remove mixture from heat.
In a separate bowl, combine egg and flour and beat until smooth. Slowly add the hot butter mixture, stirring constantly. Fill the tart shell and bake 12 minutes.
Cool and serve topped with Chantilly Cream.
(Robert St. John is a chef, restauranteur and published cookbook author who lives in Hattiesburg, Miss.)
