Meteora: A Gentle Guide to Greece's Monasteries in the Air

There are places that photographs cannot prepare you for, and Meteora is one of them. You arrive across the flat, farmed plain of Thessaly, and then the ground simply stands up: a crowd of grey rock pillars, rounded and fluted like melted candles, some of them rising a couple of hundred metres straight out of the fields. On top of a handful of them sit small monasteries, their red-tiled roofs and whitewashed walls looking as though they grew there.

The name says it all. Meteora means something like "suspended in the air", and that is exactly how the monasteries look when morning mist pools in the valleys and only the roofs float above it.

The best news for anyone who travels at a gentler pace: Meteora's greatest pleasure is the landscape, and the landscape is generous. A single road loops among the pillars, and some of the finest views in Greece are a few steps from a parking place. You can see a great deal of this World Heritage site without climbing a single staircase — and we will be honest about which staircases are worth the effort and which are not.

A little history

The rocks came first, and they are far older than any faith. The pillars are not volcanic but a hard mixture of sandstone and conglomerate — pebbles, sand and mud laid down by rivers flowing into a delta over millions of years. Earth movements lifted the whole mass into a plateau and cracked it along vertical lines, and then rain, frost and wind did the patient work of carving the blocks apart into free-standing towers. Geologists find it striking that this particular landscape is confined to such a small corner of the country.

People arrived in the hollows and caves of these cliffs long ago. Hermit monks are recorded living in the rock shelters from around the 11th century, drawn by silence and inaccessibility. The great building period came in the 14th to 16th centuries, when a monk named Athanasios founded the Great Meteoron on the largest rock and others followed, hauling timber, stone and provisions up by rope.

At its height the community counted around two dozen monasteries. Six remain active today, home to small numbers of monks and nuns, and the whole landscape has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1988. Until the first half of the 20th century, visitors reached the monasteries by rope ladder or in a net hauled up by a windlass. The staircases cut into the rock came later — which is why they are steep, but at least they exist.

The monasteries of Meteora standing on their sandstone peaks, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

What to see

All six monasteries are within a few minutes' drive of each other on one looping road. Each closes on a different day of the week, and the closing days change between summer and winter, so check locally the day before. There is a modest entrance fee at each one, and a dress code that is genuinely enforced: knees and shoulders covered, long skirts for women (wraps are usually lent at the door), long trousers for men.

Our advice: do not try to visit all six. Choose two, and spend the rest of your time looking at them from outside.

Great Meteoron

The largest, oldest and highest, with a beautiful old refectory, a kitchen blackened by centuries of cooking fires and a museum of manuscripts and icons. It is also the hardest work: roughly 300 steps, with handrails, some of them cut through a tunnel in the rock. Take it slowly and stop often — nobody is counting.

Varlaam

The second largest, next door, with glowing 16th-century frescoes and the old windlass tower still in place, complete with the net and the enormous barrel that once stored rainwater. The staircase is long but shorter than its neighbour's, and there is a lift used for supplies, not for visitors.

Roussanou

The one in all the photographs: a slim monastery that seems to wear its rock like a plinth, set lower than the others and reached by two short bridges from the hillside. It is a nunnery, immaculately kept, with flowers at every window. The approach is much gentler than at the big two.

St Stephen's

The kindest monastery of all for anyone wary of steps. It is entered across a short, level bridge with no significant staircase, and the terrace looks straight down over the rooftops of Kalambaka and out across the plain. Also a nunnery, known for its embroidery and its calm.

Holy Trinity and St Nicholas Anapausas

Holy Trinity is the loneliest and most dramatic, perched on a needle of rock — film lovers will recognise it from a James Bond film of the early 1980s. Getting in means going down and then up again, so many visitors are happy to admire it from the road, which is no hardship at all. Tiny St Nicholas Anapausas, nearest to Kastraki, is a steep but short climb and holds some of the finest frescoes here, painted in the 16th century by the Cretan master Theophanes.

Roussanou Monastery, the most photographed of the six, reached by short bridges.

The best viewpoints (no climbing required)

This is where Meteora becomes a nature destination rather than a monument. The upper road is lined with laybys and terraces, and the views from them are the equal of anything you would earn by climbing.

Psaropetra, the sunset rock. A railed platform on the upper road with an open sweep across the valley, the pillars and Roussanou far below. It is the classic place to watch the light turn the grey stone to apricot and rose. It fills up in the last hour of daylight, so arrive early, both for a parking space and for a seat on the stone wall.

The main observation deck. A little further along the same road, this is the view that fits several monasteries into one frame. Flat, close to the parking, with low walls to lean on.

The Great Meteoron and Varlaam car park area. Even if you decide against the climb, the walk between the two car parks is level and gives you Varlaam at eye level across a gorge.

Above Kastraki. The little village sits at the foot of the rocks, and from its lanes and from the small chapel terraces the pillars loom straight overhead — a completely different sensation from looking down on them.

Kalambaka at night. From the lower slopes the town glitters below while the floodlit monasteries hang above it. Worth stepping outside after dinner.

A wide view over the rock pillars and monasteries of Meteora.

Gentle walks and the most comfortable ways to see it

Be aware of one thing before you plan: there is no cable car at Meteora, no boat trip and no tourist train. The comfortable way to enjoy this landscape is on four wheels, with short walks at the stops — and that works beautifully.

The scenic loop drive. One road climbs from Kalambaka to the monastery plateau and comes back down through Kastraki. Driven without stopping it takes about half an hour; done properly, with viewpoints, it fills a happy half-day. The surface is good and well maintained, though it is narrow in places with blind bends, and tour coaches use it, so drive slowly and use the laybys.

Taxi or private driver. Kalambaka taxis will do the circuit by the hour and wait for you at each viewpoint. For many of our readers this is the single best money spent here: no parking worries, no reversing on hairpins.

The local bus. A small public bus runs from Kalambaka up through Kastraki to the monasteries a few times a day, with a day ticket available. Timetables are not reliably published online — ask at the bus station the day before.

Small-group minibus tours. Half-day sunset tours leave from both Kalambaka and Kastraki, stop at the viewpoints and usually enter one or two monasteries. A guide adds a great deal here, and the walking is kept short.

For gentle walking on foot, two routes stand out. From Kastraki, a path leads in under half an hour towards the Badovas hermit caves through olive groves, with the pillars overhead; the gradient is kind but the surface is stony, so proper shoes matter. And the old cobbled trail from the Holy Trinity area down to Kalambaka, shaded by oaks, takes something like 30 to 45 minutes — take a taxi up and walk only downhill, and it becomes one of the loveliest easy walks in Greece.

Monasteries crowning the Meteora rock formations above the valley.

A day trip nearby

If you have a third day and a car, two very different outings are close at hand.

Theopetra Cave lies only about 5 km from Kalambaka, at the foot of an isolated rock beside the road. Excavations here have revealed an extraordinarily long record of human occupation, stretching back tens of thousands of years. It is a short, level visit from the car park, and opening days vary, so confirm before setting out.

Lake Plastiras, around an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half by car to the south, is a mountain reservoir set high in the Agrafa mountains and ringed by fir forest and small villages. The drive up through the hills is the attraction as much as the water: a road of long views, with cafés and tavernas on terraces above the lake and level lakeside paths for a stroll. It makes a cool, green contrast to the bare stone of Meteora.

Closer and flatter, the town of Trikala is about 20 to 25 km away, roughly half an hour, with a pleasant riverside promenade, cafés under the plane trees and a Byzantine castle on the hill above.

Honest advice for comfortable travel

• Stay in Kalambaka or Kastraki, at the foot of the rocks. Kalambaka has the widest choice of hotels, the restaurants and the station; Kastraki is smaller, quieter and sits directly beneath the pillars. Both put you within about 10 to 20 minutes' drive of every viewpoint. Ask for a ground-floor or lift-served room, as some family hotels are built on slopes.
• Skip July and August if you can. Daytime temperatures commonly sit in the high twenties to low thirties Celsius, the rock radiates heat, and the monastery staircases are exposed. Late April to June and September to mid-October are far kinder.
• Visit monasteries early. Gates open in the morning; the first two hours are cooler, calmer and much less crowded than midday, when the coach groups from Athens arrive.
• Know your staircases. Great Meteoron is around 300 steps; Varlaam and Holy Trinity also involve real climbing. St Stephen's is entered over a level bridge and Roussanou by short bridges — these two are the gentle choices. No monastery is wheelchair accessible, but the roadside viewpoints largely are.
• The views cost nothing and need no climbing. If stairs are out of the question, you will still have a magnificent trip. Say so to a taxi driver or tour operator and they will plan around it.
• Bring a hat, water and a light layer. The plateau is breezy and can be cool at sunset even in warm months. Handrails exist on the main staircases but are not continuous.
• Shoes with grip. Monastery steps and courtyards are worn stone, polished and slippery when damp.
• Give it two nights at least. One sunset can be hazy; two gives you a second chance, and an unhurried morning in between.

Night view of the town of Kalambaka seen from Meteora.

What to eat

Thessaly is farming and shepherding country, and the cooking here is mountain food rather than island food: warming, generous and based on meat, pulses and wild things.

Look for the traditions of the Vlach communities of these hills — lamb and goat slow-cooked in tomato, wild mushrooms from the Pindos forests, mountain herbs, and river trout. Trahanas, a rustic soup made from fermented cracked wheat, is comfort in a bowl and often appears with mushrooms. Gigantes, big baked butter beans in tomato sauce, are a meal in themselves.

From the grill come lamb chops, souvlaki and pork ribs, cooked over charcoal and served with little more than lemon and oregano. On the gentler side, try eggplant saganaki, courgette fritters with minty yoghurt, a good village moussaka, or soutzoukakia — cumin-scented meatballs in red sauce, a dish carried here from Asia Minor.

Finish with local halva or a slice of syrupy cake from one of Kalambaka's patisseries, and if someone offers you tsipouro, the clear spirit of northern Greece, accept a small glass with something to nibble. Portions in the tavernas are large; two dishes shared between two people is usually plenty.

Getting there

Our verdict

Meteora is one of the rare great sights of Europe that does not punish you for taking it slowly. The monasteries are remarkable, and if you have the legs for 300 steps, the Great Meteoron will stay with you. But the real experience here is the landscape — and the landscape is handed to you from a railed terrace beside a quiet road, with the whole valley of pillars and monasteries laid out in the evening light.

Go in spring or autumn. Base yourself in Kalambaka or Kastraki. Hire a driver for an afternoon, choose St Stephen's and Roussanou for your two monasteries, and keep your sunset free for Psaropetra. Two nights, almost no strenuous walking, and you will come home with the feeling that you have seen something genuinely unlike anywhere else on earth.

“At Meteora the rock does the climbing, and all you have to do is look up.”

Photo credits

• Meteora Sunset: Dimitris9444, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Meteora morning: KASPAR, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Roussanou Monastery, Meteora: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Mystic land METEORA: Ioannis Ioannidis, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Meteora's monastery 2: Stathis floros, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Μετεωρα by night: Argiriskaramouzas, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons