Meteora from Athens and back in two days

We took a very early morning train and arrived early afternoon. The train back late afternoon. Not remembering exactly. We arrived back in Athens very late evening. We had two nights. I don’t know how you would do it with just one night.

I have two days and two nights. Second night would be back in Athens. Sorry if I wasn't clear!

We are going on a RS Greece tour in mid September to early October and also wanted to visit Meteora. our Early research indicated the train from Athens to/from Kamalbaka was 4h 40m. We did not look at overnight hotels though as we found good flights from the west coast to Thessaloniki and will be visiting Meteora from there before we go to Athens to start the RS tour. It looks like there are plenty of options from Athens as well though.

We just did that in April 2023 - and it was great! We were with friends who live in Athens so we drove - stayed at the Doupiani House (https://www.doupianihouse.gr/), which was great. They have a bar for drinks in the evening and a great breakfast - and it’s walkable to several good restaurants.

Mary, a few years ago, I spent a few days in Athens before the RS Best of Greece tour. During this time I booked the 2 days/1 night tour to Meteora with Visit Meteora tours. It included round-trip train ticket to Kalambaka, overnight in a nice hotel (maybe 3 stars) with breakfast included, a guided late afternoon tour of a few monasteries and an ancient church, and a morning tour of a few different monasteries. The various monasteries have different opening schedules. Everything went very smoothly and the value seemed good. The tours were not rushed, with plenty of time to wander. View stops for photos. Also ample time for meals and wandering in Kalambaka. A hotel upgrade was offered at additional cost. The company offered various types of tours through the monasteries, including hiking, etc. At that time, the train ride was about 5.5 hours and pretty boring I thought. Arrival back in Athens between 11 pm and midnight. I think there is also some lodging in Kastraki closer to the monasteries, although Kalambaka is a small city with choices of restaurants, shops, etc.

I will second Visit Meteora (https://visitmeteora.travel/) in helping plan your trip. They offer guided tours of the monasteries as well as hiking tours if you are into that type of thing. They also offer roundtrip packages from Athens and back that include the train and hotel stay. They list the hotels they use on their site and since I like to have flexibility (and was also planning to stop at Delphi on the way back), I just booked my hotel and train tickets independently and took their guided monastery and hiking tours which were very good. But if you want to book the whole thing through them, that would certainly make things very convenient!

I took 3 tours with them actually: the sunset tour, the morning monastery tour and the hiking to the hermit caves tour. The first two you get chauffeured around in nice air conditioned luxury minivans. The 3rd was a really fun and unique adventure for me as you hike up to these hermit caves on the cliffs and get an amazing view of the town below. I would just forewarn if you do that type of hike, have decent shoes. I just wore basic tennis sneakers, but almost slipped a couple of times. Thankfully my guide caught me (literally grabbed my backpack!) to stop me from falling.

It's good that your are going to spend an overnight there. Some people fit it all in a single day which is a very long day!

Thank you all so much for great information. I am going to schedule with VisitMeteora for sure.