Pick up from your accommodation is at 07:30. The drive north takes you out of Athens and through the Boeotian plain, where the landscape opens gradually as the city falls behind. Central Greece has a particular quality in the early morning, and the route itself is part of the experience.

You reach Thermopylae by 09:00, with half an hour’s walk to the site and see the Statue of Leonidas. In 480 BC, the Spartan king held this narrow coastal pass against the Persian army of Xerxes for three days with a force of three hundred men against an army of one million. The battle ended in defeat, but its place in history has never faded.

Shortly after 10:00, Kamena Vourla comes into view. The town sits along the North Euboean Gulf, and the 30-minute stop here is a chance to have a coffee by the water before the road turns inland towards Thessaly.

The rock formations appear as you round a bend in the road shortly before 13:00, rising without warning from the flat plain below. Sandstone pillars reach heights of 400 meters, and on top of several of them stand monasteries that have been in continuous use for six centuries. Meteora is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and no photograph can truly capture the beauty of the landscape.

Great Meteoron is the oldest and largest monastery in Meteora, founded in the 14^th century by Saint Athanasios Meteorites and later expanded under the Serbian king Symeon. It stands at 613 meters and was, for most of its history, reachable only by rope and net. The stone steps that replaced them are considerable, and a steady pace is the right approach.

The church of the Transfiguration holds 16^th century frescoes that cover every surface, their colors still vivid after five centuries. The museum next to it contains illuminated manuscripts, embroidered vestments and carved wooden crosses that document monastic life across several eras. The old kitchen and refectory are perhaps the most memorable rooms of all. Simple, functional spaces left largely as they were, used by a community that lived here in complete self-sufficiency for generations. The monastery shop at the exit sells honey, herbs and other goods produced by the monks

From Great Meteoron, your driver takes you to Psaropetra, where all six active monasteries are visible in a single 360° panoramic view. The road there passes the Badova caves, a row of hermitages cut into the rock face where the earliest ascetics of Meteora lived before the monasteries were ever built.

Rousanou is reached by a narrow bridge that leads directly to the entrance. The monastery seems to grow from the rock beneath it rather than sit on top of it. Founded in the 16^th century and run today by a community of nuns, it has a quieter atmosphere than Great Meteoron. The frescoes inside depict the martyrdom of early Christian saints, and the garden at the top of the rock looks out over the surrounding pillars with nothing in the way.

Kastraki is a short drive from Rousanou, and lunch here at 15:00 is well timed after the morning’s visits. The village has kept its stone houses and its pace and the tavernas serve honest Greek food with the rocks visible from most tables. After lunch, the shops along the main street sell local honey, tsipouro, herbs and handmade goods from the surrounding area.