Trip
Explore trip reports, adventure stories, road trip guides and personal travel experiences from remarkable destinations around the world — told through the lens of weather and place.
Après-Ski Life in Arachova: Parnassos Slopes, Formaela Cheese, and Cozy Bars
Greeks do not simply go to Arachova to ski. They go to live, briefly, in the way people used to live before the lowlands filled up with traffic and noise. The village sits at 960 metres on the flank of Mount Parnassos, its stone houses stacked above each other in layers, and it has been doing this for centuries — long before anyone brought a chairlift up the mountain. What surprises most first-time visitors is not the skiing (though the Parnassos ski centre has twenty runs and is the closest resort to Athens) but the village itself: its main pedestrian lane lined with bars serving mountain tea and tsipouro, shops selling the local Formaela cheese that has been produced here for as long as anyone can document, and restaurants cooking winter food with the seriousness that cold weather demands. Arachova is extraordinarily alive.
The Oracle of Apollo: A Guide to the Delphi Archaeological Site and Museum
Delphi once held a monopoly on certainty. For nearly a thousand years, kings, generals, and city-states sent messengers up the slopes of Mount Parnassos to consult the Oracle of Apollo — the most authoritative voice in the ancient Mediterranean world. What remains today, at 570 metres on Parnassos's southern flank, is one of the finest archaeological sites in Greece: the Sacred Way, the Temple of Apollo, the ancient theatre with its panoramic valley views, the stadium, and the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia with its iconic Tholos. The Delphi Museum, a short walk away, holds the Charioteer — one of the only surviving full-scale ancient Greek bronzes — alongside a collection that can hold its own with any in the country. The site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987, and it deserves every hour you give it.
Venetian Vibe: Walking the Alleys of Nafplio's Old Town and the History of the First Pharmacy
Nafplio's Old Town is one of those rare places where three empires left their signature on the same handful of streets. Venetian lion reliefs share walls with Ottoman fountain inscriptions, while neoclassical facades from the Kapodistrias era line marble-paved squares that have barely changed since Greece declared its independence. This walking guide takes you through the narrow alleys where bougainvillea spills from wrought-iron balconies, past the building that housed the first pharmacy of the modern Greek state, and out to the waterfront where the Bourtzi fortress floats in the Argolic Gulf like something from a dream.
999 Steps: The Ascent to Palamidi and the Panoramic View of the Argolic Gulf
Perched 216 metres above the rooftops of Nafplio, the Palamidi fortress commands what may be the finest panoramic view in the entire Peloponnese. The legendary 999 steps — closer to 857 by honest count — switchback up the eastern face of the rock in a relentless stone staircase that has been testing calves and rewarding persistence since the 18th century. Built by the Venetians in just three years, seized by the Ottomans in a single week, and liberated by Greek revolutionaries in a single night, Palamidi is a fortress whose history is as dramatic as the climb to reach it.
Spiritual Silence: A Journey Through Meteora's Six Living Monasteries and Their Thousand-Year Story
Perched on sandstone pillars that rise three hundred metres from the Thessaly plain, Meteora's six active monasteries are among the most extraordinary religious sites on Earth. Built between the 14th and 16th centuries by monks who hauled every stone, every beam, every icon to the summit by rope and net, these communities have survived Ottoman occupation, world wars, earthquakes, and the slow erosion of time itself. Today, they remain working monasteries — places where bells still ring for matins, where Byzantine frescoes glow in candlelit naves, and where the silence of a thousand years of prayer hangs in the air like incense. This is their story.
Climbing the Giants: Rock Climbing and Ancient Trails Among the Sacred Pillars of Meteora
Rising from the plains of Thessaly like the ruins of some impossible city, the sandstone pillars of Meteora have drawn monks, hermits, and pilgrims for a thousand years. Today they draw another kind of seeker — climbers and hikers who come to scale these ancient towers and walk the trails that thread between them, navigating a landscape where geology and faith have conspired to produce one of the most surreal natural environments in Europe. With over 700 climbing routes and a network of footpaths that wind through forests, gorges, and Byzantine hermitages, Meteora offers a physical encounter with stone that no photograph can adequately prepare you for.
The Wine Route: Guide to the Ancient Wineries and the Assyrtiko Variety
Santorini's wine tradition stretches back more than 3,500 years — older than most civilisations still standing. On volcanic soil where no other European vine could survive, the Assyrtiko grape produces some of the most distinctive white wines in the Mediterranean: bone-dry, mineral-laden, and laced with the salinity of the Aegean wind. This guide traces the island's wine route from the caldera-edge terraces of Santo Wines to the underground cellars of Estate Argyros, through the ancient kouloura vine-training system, and into a glass of Vinsanto that tastes like candied history.
Volcanic Trekking: The Hike from Fira to Oia Along the Caldera
The 10-kilometre trail from Fira to Oia traces the western rim of the Santorini caldera — the drowned crater of one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in recorded history. Walking this path means following the edge of a cliff that drops 300 metres to a sea so dark it looks like ink, with the volcanic islands of Nea Kameni and Palea Kameni smouldering in the centre of the caldera below. It is one of the finest day hikes in the Mediterranean, and it ends in Oia just in time for the most photographed sunset in Greece.