A Meteora food tour takes you into the villages below the rocks to taste pies, cheese, honey and wine where they are made. Plan the rest of your trip to Thessaly with Greece Tours.
Below you will find the bookable tastings, each village stop, the wines poured, the local dishes, the truffle hunt, who the day suits and answers to common questions.
What is a Meteora food tour?
A Meteora food tour is a guided day of tastings in the villages around the Meteora rocks, in Thessaly. It covers homemade pies, fresh cheese, honey, local wine and sweets, made by the farmers and breeders who live there.
Meteora is the group of sandstone pillars above the town of Kalabaka, topped by Orthodox monasteries. A Meteora food tour looks beyond the monasteries, into the valleys and villages around the rocks, where the food of the area is made.
The main bookable Meteora food tour comes from Visit Meteora, a tour company based in Kalampaka. The company calls its tour a culinary journey through the food and wine of the area, led by local experts. It runs the tour as a private outing with a guide who speaks English.
The tour lasts about 6 hours, according to the operator’s own answers to common questions. Pick-up comes from a hotel or a rented flat in Kalampaka or Kastraki, the two places at the foot of the rocks. Up to 8 people share one private Meteora food tour.
The rest of the area is covered on our Meteora page, from the monasteries to the hiking trails.
Which Meteora food tour can you book?
You can book the Meteora Food and Wine Private Tour, a private wine tasting from Kalampaka, or a truffle hunt with lunch below the rocks. Each Meteora food tour on this list runs as a private outing.
The Meteora Food and Wine Private Tour is the full tasting day. Visit Meteora sells it on its own site and on Viator. The operator runs just one private tour of this kind each day, so dates fill one group at a time. It advises booking at least one week ahead.
The same operator lists a private guided wine tasting that starts from Kalampaka. It suits travellers who want the wine part of a Meteora food tour without the full day. Visit Meteora also runs a monastery tour with lunch, for visitors who want the rocks first and a meal after.
The truffle hunt is a separate Meteora food tour on GetYourGuide. It runs in the woods below Meteora, on the edge of the Pindos mountains. The listing gives a length of 3.5 hours and a private group. It must be booked at least 20 hours ahead.
Visit Meteora lists more outings beside its Meteora food tour. They include its own private truffle hunt with lunch and off-road buggy rides in the morning or the afternoon. The buggy routes are covered on our Meteora buggy tour page.
Visit Meteora offers free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start. A booking can be made up to the last minute, but the single daily slot can be gone by then. The operator’s bus tours run in any weather. If extreme weather forces a cancellation, guests can change the date, switch activity or take a refund.
What does the Meteora food tour itinerary include?
The Meteora food tour starts with a morning drive to the village of Agios Dimitrios for pies baked in a wood oven. It goes on to fresh galotyri cheese with bread, meetings with local farmers, a wine tasting and a visit to the hermitage of St Theodosius.
The morning opens with a scenic drive out of Kalampaka, by car or minibus. Kalampaka and Kalabaka are two spellings of the same town. In the village of Agios Dimitrios, local cooks bake homemade pies in a wood oven for the group. The next stop is a farming village, where guests try galotyri, a fresh white cream cheese, with fresh handmade bread.
The operator then takes the group off the usual tourist routes. Guests meet the breeders and farmers who raise the animals and grow the food used in the tastings. The Meteora food tour menu lists these items:
- homemade pies, baked fresh for the group
- meats, cheeses and yogurts from local farms
- honey and homemade sweets
- soutzouki, a sweet made with unfermented grape juice and nuts
- seasonal organic fruit from the area
Between the tastings, the route passes through villages that see few visitors. Visit Meteora names isolated monasteries from the 14th century, old stone bridges and walks through oak forests. Its list of sights on the Meteora food tour includes Gavros village, the old settlement of Kastraki, Kastraki itself and the town of Kalabaka.
One stop is not about food at all. The tour enters the hermitage of St Theodosius, which the operator calls the only ancient hermitage in the area open to the public. The caves where the first hermits of Meteora lived are covered on our Meteora caves and hermitages page.
Which wines does a Meteora food tour pour?
The Meteora food tour pours five premium wine labels made from Greek grape varieties. Each wine is paired with local cheeses and finger food, and the guide explains how to match the wines with the dishes of the area.
The wine tasting is the main drinks stop of the day. Visit Meteora lists it as a tasting of five wine labels of high quality. Local cheeses and small plates of finger food come with the glasses.
The wines come from Greek varietals, the grape types grown in Greece itself. The guide gives pointers on pairing each wine with the regional dishes. This makes the Meteora food tour useful for visitors who want to order wine with more confidence in tavernas later in the trip.
Children can join the Meteora food tour, but the wine tasting is for adults only. Younger guests enjoy the food stops, the views and the village visits while the adults taste. Travellers who want only the wine can book the separate private wine tasting from Kalampaka instead.
Tsipouro is the strong spirit of the region. It is an un-aged Greek brandy from Thessaly, Epirus and Macedonia, at 40 to 45% alcohol. Makers distil it from grape pomace, the skins and seeds left after the wine press, and the common method distils it twice. Tradition credits Orthodox monks on Mount Athos with the first tsipouro, in the 14th century.
What is the soutzouki served on a Meteora food tour?
Soutzouki is a sweet made of walnuts threaded on a string and coated in thick grape must. The Meteora food tour serves a local version made with unfermented grape juice and nuts, among its homemade sweets.
Makers run a needle and string through a row of walnuts. They boil down grape juice and thicken it with flour or corn starch into a dense, pudding-like coat. The strings of nuts go into the warm mixture again and again, so each dip adds a layer and the coat grows thicker and smoother.
The coated strings then hang in an airy room for days or weeks until they set firm. The finished sweet looks like a sausage, which explains its name. The Turkish word sucuk means a type of sausage, and the sweet takes the name from its shape.
Soutzouki has a long history in West Asia and the eastern Mediterranean. Food historian Priscilla Mary Işın notes walnut versions in Anatolia as early as the 15th century. In the 17th century, the Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi recorded grape sausages made in Gaziantep, Manisa and the Greek island of Euboea.
On the Meteora food tour, soutzouki sits beside honey and other homemade sweets at the end of the tastings. The guide tells the story behind each flavour, which the operator lists as part of every stop.
Which dishes of Meteora appear on a Meteora food tour?
Pies of greens and cheese, fresh galotyri, mountain meats, river trout, apples, walnuts and wild herbs shape the food of Meteora. A Meteora food tour brings guests to the farms and village kitchens that make them.
The food of the area mixes the farm produce of the Thessaly plain with herbs and livestock from the mountains. Gastronomy Tours, a Greek food travel site, links this mix to the monasteries too. It describes the local table as a fusion of monastic simplicity and the plenty of the Thessalian fields.
Village tables around Meteora start with pies. Hortopita is a pie of wild greens. Pispilita, also called bobota, uses corn flour, wild greens and feta. Both appear in the cooking lessons of the Gastronomy Tours listings for Meteora, alongside the wood-oven pies served on the Meteora food tour itself.
The meat dishes reflect the mountain herding tradition. Gastronomy Tours lists kokoretsi, kebab and sausage with leek as local favourites. Fresh trout, roasted or fried in butter, is served in the villages of Diava and Panagia.
Apples and walnuts grow well in the region and turn up in its desserts. Halva Farsalon, a sweet from the town of Farsala, is a speciality of Thessaly for festive tables. Mountain thyme, oregano and sage flavour both everyday meals and feast dishes. For the restaurants of Kalabaka and Kastraki, see our page on where to eat in Meteora.
How does a truffle hunt fit a Meteora food tour?
The truffle hunt is a 3.5-hour Meteora food tour in the woods below the rocks. Guests walk with a truffle hunter and his dogs, search for rare truffles and then eat them with pasta made in front of them.
The hunt takes place on the edge of the Pindos mountains, in the woods below the rocks. The hunter works with trained dogs that sniff out the truffles under the soil. Guests follow the dogs through the trees and watch each find come out of the ground.
The meal comes straight after the search. Pasta is made on the spot, in front of the guests, and served with the truffles from the hunt. The GetYourGuide listing for this Meteora food tour also includes a museum visit. Gastronomy Tours lists a Mushroom and Natural History Museum in Meteora, tied to the same truffle hunts.
The truffle hunt runs as a private group and must be booked at least 20 hours ahead, with free cancellation. It pairs well with the full food and wine day on a second day, since the two tours cover different foods. Kalabaka, the town at the foot of the rocks, is described on our Kalabaka page.
Who suits a Meteora food tour?
A Meteora food tour suits food and wine lovers, couples on honeymoon and travellers interested in local culture. Families can join too, and the operator adapts the tastings for allergies, vegetarians and vegans.
Visit Meteora names food and wine lovers, honeymooners and cultural travellers as its main guests. The tour is family-friendly, with food stops and views for children while the adults taste the wine. Guests with allergies or a vegan or vegetarian diet tell the operator at booking, and the tastings are adjusted.
The pick-up area matters for planning. The Meteora food tour collects guests in Kalampaka and Kastraki, including from rented flats. Guests in a rented flat give a phone number with the booking. The village of Kastraki is covered on our Kastraki page.
Trikala lies about 21 km from Kalampaka, and the operator does not collect guests there. Visitors staying in Trikala take the regular local bus to Kalampaka and start the Meteora food tour at the company’s office in town.
What do travellers ask about a Meteora food tour?
How long is a Meteora food tour?
The Meteora Food and Wine Private Tour lasts about 6 hours. The truffle hunt with lunch lasts 3.5 hours.
Is the Meteora food tour private?
Yes. Visit Meteora runs its food and wine tour as a private group of up to 8 people. It runs one such tour per day.
Does a Meteora food tour visit the monasteries?
The food and wine tour passes isolated monasteries from the 14th century and enters the hermitage of St Theodosius. Its description does not name any of the six active monasteries on the rocks. For those, book a monastery tour, such as the operator’s monastery tour with lunch.
Can vegetarians join a Meteora food tour?
Yes. The operator adapts the tastings for vegetarian and vegan guests and for allergies. Mention the diet when you book.