Hi...

That's a tough daytrip to make - in fact it's probably not possible/desirable to do it in a day without renting a car.

By train, Kalambaka has a station at the end of a branch line from Palaeopharsalos where there are connections to the "main" Athens-Thessaloniki line. Athens to here takes between 3 and 4 hours on the train and the connection to Kalambaka (at the foot of the Meteors) is another 50 minutes or so.

A quick look at the OSE timetable suggests:

Athens - Palaeopharsalos 0650 - 1007
Palaeopharsalos - Kalambaka 1012 - 1105

and the last return of the day at:

Kalambaka - Athens (direct) 1734 - 2205

This gives a fair few hours there (assuming that the tight connection at Palaeopharsalos is honoured) - but you'll still have to get transport up to Meterora.

It might, therefore, be preferable to rent a car and drive from Athens. Figure at least four hours to drive to Kalambaka from Athens Airport - longer if you start from the city centre. For the greater part this route is reasonable (for Greece) Dual Carriageway (or perhaps Duel Carriageway is more appropriate ) but has single carriageway sections around the Maliakos Gulf and from Larissa to Kalambaka. But it's not too bad

Hope this helps...


m.