Interlude 3. Meteora: September 9–10
We planned our 2024 trip through Greece with breaks throughout, during which we could stay in apartments and live semi-normal lives for a few days between multi-day hikes. Trekking Hellas hikes are extremely well-organized and the hotels are always comfortable and hospitable, but it is tiring to move from place to place every night, and keeping up with laundry can be a challenge.
So every week or two, we’d stop someplace, live in a house, and catch our breaths. We picked our break locations for geographic convenience, historical interest, and nostalgia. These interludes were just as much a part of the trip as the hikes.
We started our day reversing our drive to Gavalou, driving north up the A5 to Ioannina and then heading back east on the A2. This time, we got off at the exit for Meteora and headed west-south-west.
This was our first foray into Greek mountain driving. We found ourselves on a narrow road that serpentined up and down the hillside for quite some time. Local etiquette dictates that slower drivers pull over to let faster ones pass; on roads like this, though, everyone can get stuck behind a truck or bus. And the local roads are the only roads; the buses and trucks have to use them.
We arrived in the Meteora area around 1:00. Meteora is a collection of sandstone peaks with several monasteries and convents situated on their tips. The otherworldly appearance of the area makes it a wildly popular tourist attraction.
Our first task was to find our AirBnB. I didn’t really know much about how Meteora works when I was booking our accommodations, and it’s surprisingly hard to figure out what exactly people do there and where to stay.
It turns out that Meteora’s monasteries are situated near two towns: the small Kastraki and the larger Kalabaka. If you search for accommodation near Meteora, most of your results will be in those places. I chose a place in Kastraki based partly on the notion that we might be able to walk to the monasteries from there; while that was possible in principle, we ended up mostly driving.
Finding Maria’s place was a challenge. We drove back and forth through the center of Kastraki several times before we realized that what looked like a blind driveway was in fact the start of the road that led to the house.
Maria spoke only Greek. Her 20-something son spoke good English, though. We had a one-bedroom apartment on the ground floor, right next to a garden full of grapes and pomegranates and with an extraordinary view of the site. They’d set up the apartment with full hotel amenities, including supplies for breakfast. Maria’s dad was working in his garden. He cut clusters of grapes for both of us; Chris still talks about how those were the most delicious grapes he’d ever eaten!
We only had one night in Meteora, so we set off right away to see if we could see the monasteries. From Kastraki, you reach them by driving up a winding mountain road (this is a theme in Greece). Most people go visit the monasteries themselves; each one is known for paintings or libraries or some other feature. Each one has its own opening hours, so you have to check beforehand to see if it’ll be open when you arrive. Some of them serve lunch. The Internet is full of blogs describing visits to the monasteries and individual tourists’ favorites.
And that’s about all I can tell you about the site. The fact is, Chris and I didn’t actually want to visit the monasteries. We were much more interested in the exterior experience, the terrain and the vistas. As on the Menalon Trail, we felt uncomfortable visiting hermitages just to fill in tourism time, and we try very hard to avoid crowds.
But Meteora gets some 200,000 visitors a year, so crowds we found. At the top of the road leading to the monasteries, parked cars covered every inch of the sides, reducing the traversable portion to a single lane. Buses and cars heading downhill made it impossible to proceed up. We couldn’t see how this could end in a pleasant experience, and we didn’t know where we were going anyway. Chris seized the first opportunity to turn around and drive back downhill, stopping at the first taverna we saw. Sometimes lunch is the only answer!
Fortified by food, we investigated the possibility of hiking around the area. There are trails, to be sure, but we struggled to figure out where they started and what they were like. Finally, we found one that looked like it would take maybe half an hour and reward us with a good view.
After a struggle to drive to the trailhead and then to figure out where to park on the very narrow town roads, we set off into the rock formations. The walk started among some houses on a very narrow “paved” road, then through some forest and up a short, steep hill. We eschewed a leftward path along a cliff-face toward a boulder famous among climbers, and came to a ridge with a great view over the next valley, including the inevitable monasteries.
After narrowly avoiding taking the (scarily exposed) trail up to the hermit caves, we scrambled up onto a boulder and were rewarded with this view:
Meteora really is extraordinary; the monasteries seem physically impossible, perched on top of the sandstone fingers seemingly with no way up or down. Hundreds of years ago, people were hauled up by ropes that were replaced “only when God willed it”; presumably God showed His Will by breaking the ropes under the weight of some hapless soul who fell to a terrifying death.
After our hike, we headed into the town of Kalambaka to get some groceries at the Lidl.
Though many tourists try to visit the sunset rock to watch the sun go down, we spent the evening enjoying the view from our garden. Chris flew one of his two drones (Droney McDroneface II). We planned to get an early start the next day so that we could get up onto the monastery road before the tour buses arrived.
The next morning dawned foggy and misty.
Chris jumped out of bed and dashed out to fire up his drone; videos of the sandstone pillars in the fog would be amazing!
Alas, drones don’t do well in moisture. The drone sent an error message and then… nothing. It never returned. Alas!
Fortunately, we had a spare drone. Unfortunately, Chris hadn’t downloaded the videos he’d shot the previous day before sending this first drone to its death, so we have no drone videos at all from Meteora. Lesson learned!
But the monasteries were still there, and the fog would surely add to the ambiance. It was early yet, so we got into the Skoda and drove back up the mountain. This time, the road was empty and we could park where we liked.
We left Meteora around noon and drove off through the plain of Thessaly toward Volos and the Pelion peninsula. It was time to start our tour of Mount Pelion!
And then we hiked around Pelion for a week, September 11–16. We’ll link to the full write-up here once we get it done!.