Items17The creator’s order
  1. 1MeteoraMeteoraSix monasteries open to visitors crown sandstone towers above the Thessaly plain, close enough together that you can see several in one day by road or on the old footpaths between them. Holy Trinity and St. Nicholas Anapausas are the ones that make you earn the view, with a steep walk and stairs to…0
  2. 2Panagia Hozoviotissa MonasteryPanagia Hozoviotissa MonasteryA white wall eight stories tall and only about 5 meters wide, pressed against an orange cliff 300 meters above the Aegean on the island of Amorgos. From the outside it looks like a single sheet of plaster; inside, narrow rooms and steps stack upward toward the icon of the Virgin that is the…0
  3. 3Ostrog MonasteryOstrog MonasteryThe Upper Monastery is built into two natural caves about 900 meters above the Zeta valley, a white facade set flush into a vertical rock face. Saint Basil of Ostrog founded it in the 17th century, and his relics still draw a steady line of pilgrims, which gives a visit here a living intensity that…0
  4. 4Rock-hewn Churches of IvanovoRock-hewn Churches of IvanovoThe choice for fresco lovers. Medieval churches and chapels were cut into the limestone cliffs of the Rusenski Lom gorge in northern Bulgaria, and six of them keep wall paintings from the 13th and 14th centuries. The paintings in the Church of St. Mary are the reason UNESCO listed the site, and…0
  5. 5Sumela MonasterySumela MonasteryCarved into the slope of Mount Karadağ, 300 meters above the wooded Altındere Valley near Trabzon, Sumela looks from below like a cliff that grew balconies. It was closed in 2015 over the risk of falling rocks and reopened after years of restoration, and it drew 514,596 visitors in 2025, its best…0
  6. 6Gergeti Trinity ChurchGergeti Trinity ChurchA small 14th-century stone church alone on a grassy ridge above Stepantsminda, at roughly 2,200 meters with the high Caucasus behind it. The silhouette against snow peaks is one of the defining images of Georgia, and the setting is the main event, though the interior keeps 16th-century art worth a…0
  7. 7VardziaVardziaLess a building on a cliff than a whole monastery cut into one. Vardzia was carved into a rock face above the Mtkvari river in southern Georgia between 1156 and 1203 and served as a royal monastery under Queen Tamar, whose name it is tied to. Today the cliff is honeycombed with exposed rooms,…0
  8. 8GeghardGeghardAt the end of the Azat river gorge, northeast of Garni, most of Geghard is carved out of the mountain itself. The main church was finished in 1215, but the real experience is behind it: churches and chambers cut straight into the rock, where carvings emerge from raw stone and daylight falls through…0
  9. 9Tatev MonasteryTatev MonasteryA 9th-century monastery on the edge of a basalt plateau above the Vorotan River gorge in southern Armenia, and the only place on this list where the approach is a world record. The Wings of Tatev cable car runs 5.7 kilometers, listed as the longest non-stop double-track cable car, and the 12-minute…0
  10. 10Key MonasteryKey MonasteryA jumble of whitewashed buildings stacked up a hilltop above the Spiti river in India's Himalaya, at 4,166 meters. It has survived repeated attacks over the centuries and is still home to a few hundred lamas, so you are visiting a working Tibetan Buddhist community, not a ruin, and its walls are…0