In the middle distance before me, perched on rocky promontory, was a monastary of hewn stone and tiled roofs which rose almost organically from the limestone, the upper limit of which could scarcely be discerned from the walls which mounted it. I took a step closer, my feet moving cautiously over the undulating field of rock worn smooth by a river long dried, long forgotten. My new field of vision shifted the landscape between myself and the monastary in unpredictable ways, the unexpected parralax of the disjointed landscape revealing oddities of terrain which my mind could not readily accept. The midground between the weatherworn stone walls of the church and the now apparent edge of the precipice before me fell away, and an improbably distant strip of farmland was now interposed, momentarily confusing a pair of eyes incapable of immediately registering the nature of the landscape before them. Standing now before the precipice, my head swimming and now conscious of the strength of the wind tugging gently at me, I could see that far from sitting atop a slope in front of me, the Monastary of Varlaam in fact lay balanced on the edge of a soaring pillar of rock which burst from the plains several hundred metres below. Despite my own proximity to the structure, standing as I was at an almost equivalent height, I could approach no further; the two plateaus were separated by a chasm whose vertical walls of limestone plunged directly to a small grassy field a half-kilometer below.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust; the face of the opposing cliff posing a contrast of perspective which I couldn't quite reconcile with my understanding of reality (thus far). My gaze drifted down to the edge of the boulder on which I stood, and beyond which I could see nothing but a scattering of white farmhouses in a valley so distant that it resembled the delicate intricacy of a model train set. "Hmm", I thought, "Perhaps I should take a few steps back."

Still jutting from the front face of Varlaam was the winch tower, which for centuries was the only means of access to the Monastary from below. A cluster of low buildings flanked the stone tower, huddled on the narrow plateau. Beyond the spire of rock upon which the complex was perched was spread a panorama of twisted columns of stone scattered through a broad valley, presided over by a looming range of cloud-obscured mountain peaks.