Meteora

Really cool monasteries and a small town at the base, I love unique landscapes and architecture, so when I saw this on Youtube I knew I had to go.

Most people spend 1 day here, some spent 2. I spent about half a day (arrived at ~10:30pm, slept 11pm to 6am. explored 6:30am to 1:30pm) and that was perfect for me.

Despite getting caught in 1.5 hours of traffic on the way out of athens because of a motorcycle accident (wear your jacket kids, this guys shoulder and arm looked like candy apple red paint was brushed on it), and not arriving till 11pm, my jet lag caused me to wake up at 6 am and I made my way out to catch some sunrise views.

I mean what a genius idea! And monks still live there!

So I wanted to watch the sunrise, which is an amazing idea because no one is there. Everyone goes to the right side red circle because you can see the sun come over the mountains, but you have no view of the monasteries, cliffs, or the town. So go to the bottom red circle with the indicator. You can park there, and even walk out onto the rock like I did, you won't see the sun but you'll have a fucking incredible view of the colors hitting the rocks, towns, and you'll see the monasteries. And the roads will be empty so you can blast up the hill in a fiat 500c manual with the horsepower of a light fart and feel like a badass rally racer. Gah I love driving.

Once the sun rises, you can go to main observation deck of Meteora and Meteora view point. The main observation deck has the best view of the rocks, and view point you can sweet pics of st.haarlem monastery.

They open around 9am, so you can pick one or 2 to go to. I went to st.haarlem and the monastery of the holy trinity. Bring 5 euro cash to get in, men wear pants. Women need to put on a head scarf (they'll give you something to cover up with). There were 4 other monasteries, but I decided to get out to mount olympus since the first 2 had largely the same kind of art.

By noon it was a disaster to drive around, especially on the southern part of this map since the tour buses and vans park and block out a lot of the road. And people coming the other way can zoom around a turn (because they are assholes) and if I wasn't being cautious, it would have been a head on collision.

I stayed at odyessus teatro hotel and thought it was perfect. I considered doing a one way rental from athens to thessaloniki since I was going to mount olympus after but that was like 4 times the price for the car rental. Driving from athens, expect to pay about 20 euro or so in tolls, but they all have tap to pay credit card tolling. I'm american so we can knock out 4 hour drives like its nothing, then you end up in athens where the flights to the islands are more common and cheaper, and you also have a ferry. 3.5 hr drive from athens airport vs 3 hour drive from thessaloniki.

I really wish I did the drive totally in the day because the geography on the way up is GORGEOUS. I got to see some sweet sunset mountain views with wind turbines in the background, but then half of my drive was in the dark.

Some more pics for your viewing pleasure.