Including visits to two monasteries
43012GRE
Suggested timetable for the day:
The guide will arrange which monasteries to visit based on opening hours. In the unlikely event you are travelling without a permanent guide, you will meet the Meteora guide at the hotel, on the way up to Meteora or at the first monastery. Call the night before to arrange a time, and discuss program. There are many opportunities for spectacular photographs all through the routes up to, down from and in between the monasteries.
***all females MUST have skirts or dresses below the knee. They cannot wear pants (ridiculous but true). Some monasteries provide coverups but have a limited number.
9.00am Load up coach and leave hotel.
9.30am Enter first monastery
10.30am Drive to second monastery.
11.00am Enter second monastery.
12.00 midday Descend to Kalambaka
Free time for lunch and shopping – It is a good idea to arrange for your group to eat lunch together so as to save time-your guide can do this. Another option is to leave Kalambaka and drive straight to the Best Station for lunch (see below). Guide can arrange this.
1.30pm Depart for Athens. Roughly 5 hours. There is really only one place to stop. After about two hours. It is called the Best Station; it is just before Lamia on the Lamia-Athens National Highway. It is about ten minutes from Thermopylae so you can take a break and then go straight to the site.
3.45pm Visit of the Leonidas Monument at the site of the Battle of Thermopylae (the Hot Gates). Usually this is sufficient as the group can have photos next to the huge statue of Leonidas. However, should you have a group of real classicists, it is possible both to walk to the tumulus under which the Spartans lie (true to their word) and the hot sulphur springs themselves. There is also a visitor centre with a film and shop. This option would involve leaving earlier, shortening the visits to the monasteries and lunching at “Best” in Lamia.
4.00pm Leave for Athens. You can make another rest stop at Olympus Plaza on the highway en route to Athens if necessary.
6.15/6.45pm Arrive in hotel in Athens.
General Information about the monasteries in Meteora
- Of the six monasteries, five have monks, one has nuns (they are all ‘monasteries’ however)
- Same ways in as out.
- There is a dress code: long trousers for men, long skirts for women. There are no exceptions. Wrap around skirts are sometimes available (no guarantee) for women if they do not have them. HOWEVER, they can be all used up; if so, you have to wait.
- Apart from Agio Stephano (the ‘nunnery’), all have very strenuous flights of steps, ranging from 140 (Varlaam) to 280 (Grand Meteoron). You should advise those with mobility issues well in advance (they can remain in the coach).
- Make sure group have adequate water/sunscreen/coverage.
- All of the monasteries have fairly adequate gift shops for religious artefacts.
- There are toilets available in all of the monasteries but they are usually of the ‘Turkish’ kind.