Trikala

Trikala is a proper city rather than a provincial town, and it earns that description: over sixty thousand people, a dense centre, a real evening economy, and a river running through the middle of it.

The Lithaios is canalised through the town and it is the best thing about being here. It is lined with plane trees that turn gold in autumn, and the central arched footbridge over it — cast iron, late nineteenth century — is the place the town meets itself. In summer the weirs below the bridge are the town's swimming-adjacent answer on a hot afternoon.

Underneath all of it is ancient Trikka, which is beneath the modern city between the river and the castle hill. That matters more than it sounds, because Trikka was ancient mythography's birthplace of Asclepius and what Strabo called the earliest and most famous sanctuary of the god. The excavation is still open, and the fragments are small. It is one of the more interesting situations in Greek archaeology: the literary importance is enormous, and what is physically there is a scatter of stone in the middle of a modern town.

And then Meteora is twenty kilometres away, which makes Trikala the best base in Thessaly for almost anything.

Ancient Trikka was a long-lived settlement and an early seat of the Thessalian federation. In the Iliad the Catalogue of Ships lists the men who held Trikka and Ithome, led by the two sons of Asclepius, Podaleirius and Machaon, with thirty hollow ships. Those are the physician sons who fought at Troy, and their presence in the poem is a direct statement about the town's standing eight hundred years before the poem was written down.

The settlement continued into the Roman and Byzantine periods and was a place of pilgrimage as much as a town. The Ottoman period brought real growth: Trikala became a centre of artisanal crafts, woollen textiles and leather, and the town expanded around the river and the trading routes east towards Thessaly.

The municipality's own history dates the Ottoman conquest to 1393, which is earlier than the 1483 usually repeated for Thessaly. Trikala was taken by the Greek state in 1912 and absorbed the usual influx of refugees after 1923. The town is also one of the few places in Greece where the Jewish presence of Ottoman times is still a physical part of the streetscape: the Kahal Kadosh Yevanim synagogue on Athanasiou Diakou was restored and rededicated in 2022, and the Jewish cemetery a few streets north has graves going back four centuries.

Trikala is inland, and the region around it is mountain rather than sea — which is the point of basing yourself here.

Meteora is the headline: Kalambaka at about twenty kilometres, the Great Meteoron monastery a few kilometres beyond it, and Kastraki village below the rocks. It is close enough for a full day with an early start and close enough to stay a second morning, and it is the reason a great many travellers pass through Trikala without ever really visiting it.

The second set of mountains is west of that: Lake Plastiras at about twenty-nine kilometres, and Argithea at about thirty, in the Agrafa. Further out the Neraida gorge at roughly forty-eight kilometres is genuinely wild country in the Pyli mountains.

Closer to town, the municipality's own mountain villages — Koziakas, Palaiochora, Kefalovryso, Megalo Kefalovryso — give you the Pindus without leaving the prefecture, which is useful if you want the mountains without crossing into Meteora's municipality. Eastwards the road runs across the plain towards Farkadona and Volos, and the Pagasetic Gulf is reached that way rather than directly.

Trikala is large enough to have its own food rather than simply absorbing Thessaly's, and what it does best is the everyday version: grilled meats, pies, and the soft white Thessalian cheeses, which are outstanding.

The town markets itself on feta, pies, wine and tsipouro, and that is a fair list rather than a boast — the pies in particular are the thing to order. The river gives it a slightly different character from the rest of Thessaly: there are tavernas along the Lithaios where you eat beside the water, which is the best experience of an evening in Trikala. Ottoman-era Trikala was a centre of woollen textiles and leather, and that craft tradition is still visible in the workshops around Poria.

Eat on the river rather than on the main road, and try the local cheese before anything elaborate.

April to June is the best time for Trikala: the plain is green, Meteora is clear, and the temperatures are comfortable. September and October are also excellent, with the autumn colour on the plane trees along the Lithaios at its best in late October. July and August are hot on the plain, though Meteora and the mountains remain fine and the town is lively in August. Winter is cold and can be snowy — it is a genuine winter city, and the Christmas and New Year period is busy.

Trikala is the easiest of the Thessalian cities to reach by train, on the Athens–Thessaloniki line. It also sits on the E2 and E14 roads.

A car is worth having for Meteora and the lakes, though Kalambaka is reachable by bus and on the main rail line. Book Meteora early if you want the Great Meteoron, which has a visitor limit and is busiest in midsummer. The Asclepieion excavation is open but fragmentary and has had restricted access at times — arrange through the Ephorate before going rather than assuming it is open. And spend one evening on the river rather than in the centre.