Meteora

The largest and highest of the monasteries, reached up three hundred steps. Its old kitchen and the room with the rope winch survive as they were.

Built in 1541, with a water barrel holding twelve thousand litres. The netted winch that once hauled loads is still used for supplies.

It covers its pillar so completely that the walls seem to rise straight out of the cliff. Nuns keep it now, and a single bridge carries you in.

A viewing rock is reached on foot from a pull in on the road between monasteries. There is no rail, so standing two paces back from the edge is wise.

Before the monasteries, monks lived in hollows partway up the cliff, and those remain. Timber platforms and ladder fixings are still driven into the rock.

The town sits directly under the rock, and every lane looks up at a pillar. It has a station, and the train from Athens takes five hours.

Instead of the road, the dirt tracks the monks used connect one monastery to the next. Waymarking is thin, so a map is picked up and checked at each fork.

The smallest and the first one you meet, which keeps the crowds off it. Sixteenth century paintings cover every part of the narrow chapel wall.

Pillars without a monastery on them carry a number of climbing routes. The surface is pebbly and rough, and hands wear through quickly.

Above the town an eleventh century church reuses columns taken from a Roman temple. Older foundations show under glass in the floor.

Perched alone atop a solitary pillar, it appeared in the 1981 Bond film For Your Eyes Only. You drop into a ravine, then climb about 140 steps hewn from the rock. From the rock's back edge, Kalambaka spreads under your feet.

The only Meteora monastery entered over a short bridge with no stairs, now home to nuns. Sitting at the southern end right above Kalambaka, it overlooks the town and the broad Thessalian plain. With anyone who struggles on steps, choose this one.

This small village huddles at the very base of the pillars, its back gardens ending in sheer cliff. It is quieter than Kalambaka, and old footpaths up to the monasteries start inside it. At dusk, look up from the square as the rock catches red light.

A low rock above Kastraki with a small chapel tucked near its top. Meteora's first monks are said to have gathered here, and old hermit hollows survive nearby. Ten minutes up from the village, it squares you up against the big pillars.