Hiking in Meteora

Meteora looks structurally impossible in every photograph ever taken of it, and it is stranger still in person: a cluster of sheer sandstone pillars rising hundreds of metres out of the Thessalian plain, with Orthodox monasteries built improbably on their summits from the fourteenth century onward. Six are still active, and reaching them on foot is far better than driving the road between.

The hiking links the pillars by old monks' paths through oak forest and up cut-stone steps, so a few hours of walking threads several monasteries together with the rock towers looming overhead the whole way. It's a modest effort for a genuinely otherworldly landscape, and the sense of how these places were built — and defended — only sinks in properly once you've climbed to them yourself.

The monasteries enforce a modest dress code, so cover shoulders and knees. Go early to beat the tour buses, and time your day so you're out on the rocks for the low evening light.

Short trails, low elevation gain, town of Kalabaka at the base reachable by train from Athens or Thessaloniki.

Base in Kalabaka (train from Athens or Thessaloniki) and walk up the old monks' footpaths. Monasteries have dress codes and rotating closing days; avoid the summer heat.