Varlaam is Great Meteoron‘s near neighbour, and it keeps the thing that explains the whole place: the old rope-and-net winding tower that once hauled up everything and everyone.
Diagram by Greece Trips. Free to reuse with credit - CC BY 4.0.
Why the tower is the point
Meteora’s monasteries sit on rock pillars. Before staircases were cut into them, there was one way up for a monk, a sack of flour or a visiting bishop: a net on a rope, wound up by hand from the top.
Varlaam still has the machinery. Standing under it does more to explain how these houses functioned for centuries than any amount of reading about them, and it is the reason to put this one on the list alongside its larger neighbour.
Visiting it as what it is
Like all six, Varlaam is a working religious house first and a sight second - the single fact that governs how you visit.
Each monastery keeps its own hours and a different closed day. There is no shared timetable, so check Varlaam’s own day before you plan around it. Entry is a small cash amount in euros.
Dress code: shoulders and knees covered for all, long trousers for men, and a skirt traditionally expected for women, with wraps lent free at the gate.
The six that remain
At its sixteenth-century peak, Meteora held around 24 monasteries and hermitages. Six remain active and open today - four communities of monks and two convents of nuns.
The monk communities are Great Meteoron, Varlaam, Holy Trinity and St Nicholas Anapausas; the convents are Rousanou and St Stephen.
Great Meteoron and Varlaam sit close enough together that they are the standard pairing for a first visit, and doing both is the usual half-day.
Practical notes
Getting there: Meteora rises above Kalambaka and Kastraki. About four to four and a half hours from Athens, about three from Thessaloniki by car, plus KTEL bus and rail to Kalambaka - the Palaiofarsalos-Kalambaka line has run a rail-replacement bus since the September 2023 storms.
UNESCO: inscribed 1988 as a mixed World Heritage site, cultural and natural.
When: April to June and September to October. July and August are hot and coach-heavy, so start early.
No opening hours or price here. Each house sets its own and they change.
Common questions
Is the winding tower still used? We describe what is there rather than its current working use - the tower survives at Varlaam, which is why it is worth seeing.
Great Meteoron or Varlaam? Not really a choice. They are neighbours and most visits take both; Great Meteoron for scale and age, Varlaam for the machinery.
How many steps? We print no count. The approaches are stairs cut into rock, and how that lands depends entirely on you - look at it before committing.
Next
Our Meteora guide has the practicalities, things to do in Meteora covers all six, and Thessaloniki to Meteora covers getting there and whether to stay.