When planning a trip to Greece, most travelers, especially first-time visitors, follow roughly the same itinerary: a day or two visiting the ancient ruins of Athens, then heading to the islands for the sun and the sea. It’s a great plan, one that I whole-heartedly recommend. But in the rush to get out to the islands, many visitors skip most of mainland Greece. When planning our trip to Greece, I had little intention of exploring the mainland at all. But then, I came across pictures of a place that looked too amazing not to see—Meteora.
Getting to Meteora
Meteora is located in a mountainous area about four hours drive from Athens. The landscape is dotted with spectacular rock formations, but as if that’s not enough, the rocks are crowned with amazing monasteries, which date back to the Middle Ages, although some of them are still functioning today. These monasteries are perched on top of the rocks, and look almost as if they are floating in the sky. When I saw the pictures, I knew we had to visit.
So in the final few days of our trip to Greece, we picked up a rental car and drove to Meteora. It is possible to do a day trip to Meteora from Athens, but it is absolutely worth it to stay at least one night. There is a train connecting Athens and Meteora, but I think a rental car was the right way to go, especially since we were able to make a stop at Delphi on our return journey to Athens. We made the four-hour drive in the afternoon, spent one full day hiking in Meteora, then returned to Athens (via Delphi) the following day. This was the perfect amount of time, although you could easily spend another day or two in the area if you wanted to visit all of the monasteries.
Where to Stay
There are two main towns in the Meteora area—Kastraki and Kalambaka. We chose to stay in Kalambaka, the larger of the two towns, so we would have more shops and restaurants to choose from. We stayed in a simple Airbnb close to the hiking trail, but there are also lots of hotels in the area if that’s more your style.
Meteora is quite far north in Greece, and the style of the buildings and the vibe of the town was totally different to anything else we’d seen in Greece so far. I loved it immediately.
Hiking in Meteora
Our one full day in Meteora was dedicated mainly to hiking, although we did go into one monastery. I had some trouble trying to find much information on the hiking trails in the area, but thankfully, this is the kind of place where everything is beautiful, and it’s hard to get too lost. Our day ended up being pretty much perfect.
We got up bright and early, and our first stop was the bakery across the street from our Airbnb. We grabbed some breakfast and stocked up on hiking snacks, then set off on our hike. The first part of our hike was the hardest climbing (although it really wasn’t that bad) up a clearly marked trail into the mountains. If you put “Ascent trail to Holy Trinity Monastery,” in Google Maps, you’ll find the start of the trail no problem.
In less than a mile, we reached a view point called Meteora Panorama, from which we could see two monasteries, the Holy Trinity and Agiou Stefanou clearly, along with a few of the others in the distance. There are six monasteries altogether left standing.
From here, we walked along the road towards the other four monasteries. There might be a trail, but we didn’t see one, and we had to walk along the road to the next monastery. It was a fairly nice walk, even if it was on the road. The landscape all along the way was amazing, and we were easily able to make stops at the various viewpoints.
Varlaam Monastery
We decided to stop and go into Varlaam Monastery, which is one of the larger ones, and I had read good things about it online. Each monastery is closed one day a week, so make sure you know ahead of time which ones will be open on the day of your visit. If you want to visit all of them, you’ll need to stay in Meteora at least two days. It’s also important to know that the monasteries observe a strict dress code. Men must wear long pants, and women must wear a long skirt and have their shoulders covered. I stuck a skirt and a sweater in my bag, that I quickly slipped on before we went inside. There is a small entrance fee to visit each of the monasteries, but it is only a few Euros.
Varlaam Monastery was very impressive, and if you only have time to visit one monastery, I’d recommend this one. (Granted, we only went into one, so I can’t compare it to any of the others, but I think we made a good choice.) The courtyard of the monastery is very pretty, and the church is spectacular, with gorgeous frescoes on the walls. This monastery also includes a small, but informative museum about the area and the monks who have lived there over the centuries.
Varlaam was the only monastery we went into. The rest we just viewed from the outside.
Once we’d finished exploring the monasteries, it was time to walk back to Kalambaka. I know there is a trail on the western side of Meteora going down from the monasteries to Kastraki, but we did not find it. We started walking on something that looked like a trail, but the farther down we went, the less trail-like it became. Our strategy was to just keep walking downhill. We encountered several startled tortoises on our steep, rocky descent, and eventually intersected with the road. We then found another trail (this one actually was a trail) that took us into Kastraki.
We stopped for a cold drink in Kastraki, then continued back to Kalambaka. Once again, I had seen on a map of the area that there is a walking trail between Kastraki and Kalambaka, but we couldn’t find it, and ended up just walking back along the road. Altogether we walked eight miles. It may seem like we spent a lot of time on the road during our hike, and I guess we did, but it was fine. There was very little traffic, and it didn’t take away from our hike at all.
We made it back to Kalambaka in time for a late lunch, then got cleaned up before jumping in the car to head back into the mountains. We drove back to our favorite viewpoint to have a picnic and watch the sunset. Sadly, the evening was very cloudy, and there wasn’t much of a sunset, but we still had a nice picnic with views of the monasteries.
The next morning, we were off to Delphi, and then back to Athens. I whole-heartedly recommend adding Meteora to your Greece itinerary if you can squeeze it in. It was 100% worth the trouble to get there. The mountains and the monasteries were jaw-dropping, and I would love to go back some day to spend a little more time there.
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