Day 22 - Tuesday 15th September

We'd set our alarms for 4:45am because we had a 7am flight to Athens. The taxi was already waiting for us when we went downstairs a little before 5:30 and we'd finished checking in at the airport by 6am. The range of food available at the airport wasn't too exciting but it was better than nothing (but only just).

Unlike Rome, there was no queue at the Avis counter at Athens airport. The car we got was a Hyundai Accent. The car they originally offered us was an Audi A4 Avant but we changed it when the Audi turned out to have manual transmission. We left the airport by 9am on our trip to Meteora.

The first part of the trip was on motorways (E94 and E75). The E75 (national route 1) travels north and north-west close to the sea and so it was a quick an easy stretch (except for lots of roadwork). At Lamia we turned inland to travel north-west along the E65 which is just a rural highway rather than a motorway - once again with lots of roadwork.

For the first 30 minutes out of Lamia, we passed through a mountainous area with windy roads that generally had a 50km/h speed limit. It was showery and misty and so it was hard to see more than about 50m in front of us. After we left the mountains, the road was flat and the scenery barren. The further west we went, the weather improved until it was quite sunny when we reached our destination.

We stopped a couple of times for a snack and a leg stretch - we needed to top up the food intake after a skimpy breakfast. We reached the hotel in the town of  Kastraki at about 2:45pm.

Our hotel is incredibly close to the huge sheer-sloped rocks on which the Meteora monasteries are built - they are right in the back yard. The hotel was up various lanes and driveways and so the hotel has put up signs all the way through the town pointing the way towards the hotel.

It's a charming hotel. Our room has a little balcony looking back into the town. Downstairs near the hotel entry, there is a delightful lounge area and a dining area with a rear balcony that looks out onto the rock mountains.

The hotel manager suggested that we go see some of the monasteries this afternoon and then some others tomorrow morning. He confirmed what the Michelin guide said about the main monastery being closed on Tuesdays and so he suggested other monasteries that we should visit today.

We took his advice and went to two monasteries: Vaarlaam and Stephanos. It's hard to know how to describe this location. It's like Ayres Rock only there are many rocks and the sides are vertical and grey rather than red.

You drive up a winding road that goes past the monasteries. Although the roads are narrow, they are wide enough to take big tourist buses if you are very careful. (It would be even better if the tourist buses stayed on their side of the road.) The drop on the side of the road and on the sides of the monasteries are straight down and huge.

The monasteries are charming stone and timber constructions with churches, museums, courtyards, etc. Nowadays there are timber bridges to the entrances but I guess there would have been drawbridges originally. They date back 600 years or more.

I came to the conclusion that there was no point in becoming a monk or a nun if you were scared of heights. I know I've said this before on our trip through Greece, but the views here are spectacular.

After leaving the monasteries, we drove back down into the town of Kalambaka which is also very close to the base of the rock mountains. There we stopped at a very nice coffee shop near the central square - once again with the huge rocks in the background.

We left our hotel at 7pm to walk down to the tavern in town that the hotel manager had recommended. On the way we made a detour further down the hill to find a shop that sells fruit without any success. The man at the supermarket says we need to go to Kalambaka to buy fruit but the fruit shops would be closed by now. Fruit doesn't seem to be a standard food in Greece.

The hotel manager's recommendation was spot on - it was an excellent meal. We got chatting during the meal to a Belgian couple at the next table. There were also cats begging for food. As usual, Suzy gave in and fed the "starving" felines some tidbits after which they moved on to their next soft target.

We were back in our hotel (panting after climbing the hill) by 10pm after a long exciting day and looking forward to more of the same tomorrow.