This article is for fellow independent travelers facing the same popular logistic problem ... how does one get from Meteora to Delphi using public transport? While we had the chance to take trains and buses the whole way, we found an alternate way at Livadeia to spend some money to pack a third UNESCO World Heritage Site, the 1000-year-old monastery of Hosios Loukas, to break a long half-day of travel.
Here I assume most readers would agree that the cliff-top monasteries of Meteora is a definite must-see for any first-time visitor to mainland Greece, and so is the archeological site of the Delphic Oracle. In fact many tour operators and taxi drivers from Athens make their living doing just that -- whisking tourists for a whirlwind tour of the two sites in 2 or 3 days at a premium price. For cheap backpackers though the easiest way is to travel to Meteora, back-track to Athens again, then start another trip to Delphi. This essentially wastes close to a whole day’s valuable sightseeing time on the road.
A smarter way is to travel from Meteora to Livadeia/Lamia and transfer to buses towards Delphi. Our original plan was to take Train IC47 from Kalampaka to Livadeia (06:33-09:51), take the quick connecting bus to the town centre (1 Euro, less than 10 minutes), then walk three blocks over to the bus station for next bus to Delphi (same bus that starts from Athens, departing Livadeia at 09:30, 12:30, 15:00, 17:30, 19:30, 22:00 at the time of writing). And we followed this plan leading up to the last step at Livadeia town centre, and then ... we came up with something more interesting.
Prior to our trip we had heard about this ancient monastery of Hosios Loukas, a gem surviving from the Dark Ages and called one of the finest pieces of Byzantine architecture in Greece, a short distance from Livadeia. No means of public transportation exists apparently, which meant that for us the only way to visit was by taxi. So this is what we explained to our young taxi driver: a trip from Livadeia to Hosios Loukas, stop for an hour or so to allow us time for a good visit, then head off to Delphi.
The road from Livadeia to Delphi measures around 40km. Hosios Loukas is on a branch road off the town of Distomo, adding another 20km or so both ways. For this total distance of 60km, plus the cost of the driver needing to make it back to Livadeia perhaps without passengers, cost 70 Euros. As a taxi trip we thought the price was quite reasonable, though we have to compare it to the 7 Euros per person bus fare from Livadeia to Delphi. So essentially the two of us would be paying 56 extra Euros for a trip to Hosios Loukas, with the added benefit of not having to sit and wait 2.5 hours for the next bus and thus getting to Delphi quicker for a half day’s sightseeing. Expensive? Definitely. But weighing the virtue of an extra destination and the longer sightseeing time at Delphi, we wasted no time jumping into the taxi.
Our driver was actually quite surprised at our mention of Hosios Loukas, which we thought was a good sign of how off-the-beaten-track this place was. After a 20 minute drive through hills after hills of olive groves, we arrived at the mysterious Byzantine monastery with no tour buses in sight, and of course none of the loud, flag-waving guides and tourists that plague any major sight in Athens. On this gloriously sunny Friday in late June, we ran into no more than 10 visitors in the entire complex.
At the heart of Hosios Loukas are two ornate medieval churches, both of which are considered among the most influential architectural pieces of their era. Relics of the 10th Century saint to whom the monastery was dedicated are still housed within the Katholikon church today, and a millennium’s erosion on the remaining frescoes and dazzling mosaics only adds to the air of sanctity and serenity. This was my favorite of the numerous monasteries and churches we came across in Greece.
My favorite area of the monastery was also easiest to miss, a hallowed crypt sitting underneath the main Katholikon originally serving the purpose of venerating the relics of the saint, back in the age of miracles and ritualistic healing. Today parts of the sacred stone altar remains, and the archaic, Middle Ages frescoes have been recently restored to its former glory after centuries of deterioration. The Hosios Loukas is already extremely quiet and off-the-beaten-path as far as World Heritage Sites go, but the crypt was so peaceful that we had it all to ourselves during our visit.
More than a thousand years after its founding, the monastery remains an object of pilgrimage to the Orthodox faithful, who continue to pay homage to the lavishly decorated casket on February 5 and May 3. To me this is the real attraction of sites such as Hosios Loukas -- not as a museum of medieval architecture and artwork, but as a living continuum of an ancient religious practice in this part of the world.
Our trusty taxi driver waited in the shades for more than an hour for us and asked whether we liked the monastery. I thought he still couldn’t quite understand what we enjoyed so much about Hosios Loukas enough to pay him to make this long trip. It would take another 30 minute’s drive to our final destination of Delphi, arriving just past 13:00 for lunch ahead of an afternoon of sightseeing in the museum and the archaeological sites. So that’s our alternate suggestion for fellow travelers journeying between Meteora and Delphi. It’s a little expensive if you’re a party of 2 or less, but the detour is excellent and the timing works great -- there’s definitely enough time left in the afternoon to see all of Delphi, especially in the long daylight hours of Greece’s summer.
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