{"id":11027,"date":"2026-06-03T12:32:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T12:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/?p=11027"},"modified":"2026-06-03T12:32:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T12:32:26","slug":"meteora-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/03\/meteora-greece\/","title":{"rendered":"Meteora, Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From Akcay, Turkey, we crossed the border back into Greece. It was the longest border crossing we have had. It took over 2 hours!! This was mainly due to there being a narrow bridge across a river after the Turkish immigration \/ customs and before the Greek side, and they were only letting through about 10 cars + 2 trucks at a time. We finally got to our overnight stop in Xanthi, Greece around 6:30pm and the kids and I headed out to find dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xanthi<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We wandered through the town and found ourselves near the Old Town where we ate one of the largest and best Gyros we have ever had. It was HUGE and only cost 4.50 euros! It was a Saturday night and there were youths and adults out everywhere. All the bars and restaurants were packed with people. The town had a great atmosphere and felt like a university town. The Old Town was very cute and we had a nice walk through it back to the hotel where we crashed out after such a long day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Meteora<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We stayed in the town of Trikala where we enjoyed a great balcony at our apartment and the fact that we were right next door to a massive supermarket. I didn’t take many photos of Trikala as it wasn’t very picture worthy, but there were parts of it that were cute and there was a nice river running through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meteora has tons of tour buses and tourists. They come here to see the remarkable landscape and visit the unique monestaries. The monestaries were built on top of large rock formations. Early on, monks came seeking solitude and lived in caves in the rocks, then they started building shelters which eventually turned into the monestarties. They were only accessible via ropes and rope\/wooden ladders hanging down the cliffs until the 1920s when stairs were carved into the rocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some photos of the landscape and scenery:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure>
\"\"<\/figure>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

There were originally 24 monestaries, but there are only about 6 now that people visit. We decided to only visit 2 and picked the two larges ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Holy Monestary of the Great Meteoron – Transfiguration of the Saviour (aka Great Meteoron)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The parking area was already full by 9 am so we had to park several hundred meters down the street closer to the Varlaam monestary. We then had to walk back up the hill and then down about 50 steps in order to walk back up about 300 steps into the monestary. Once in the monestary, there was the church, a couple of courtyards, the wine cellar, the kitchen and a couple of small museums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure>
\"\"<\/figure>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Varlaam monestary<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After the first monestary, we walked back down the road to our car and ate lunch. After lunch, the temperature was over 30 C and it was getting hot! (I don’t know how people visit this place in August when the temps are over 40…!?) This monestary was much the same as the last one – a church, a courtyard, a larger museum and a large wine barrel. They did have an interesting room where they have a man-pushed winch that was used to lift a net carrying supplies or monks (one at a time) from the bottom up the 400 meters to the monestary. They also had a one man cable car that stretched from the monestary down to the base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure>
\"\"<\/figure>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This monestary didn’t have as many steps as the previous one, but nevertheless, by 3pm climbing up and down steps in the heat (it was now 35C), and probably not drinking enough water, I was exhausted and nearly fell asleep sitting up on a bench!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meteora was a cool place to visit, but I think one day is enough and you probably don’t need to visit too many monestaries – one or two is probably enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meteora is a UNESCO listed, unique destination where monestaries were built on top of large rock formations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-2024-2026"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kidstravelworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0902.jpeg?fit=600%2C800&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11027"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11093,"href":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11027\/revisions\/11093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kidstravelworld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}