Goreme or Kalambaka?

Neither place is for swimming. Goreme sits on the Anatolian plateau, a long day's drive from any coast, and its river near Avanos is for looking at, so a dip means a cave-hotel pool.

Kalambaka is deep inland too, with the nearest sea beaches well over two hours away by car, though that still puts the coast nearer than it is from Goreme. On a hot day it has something Goreme lacks: a cold plunge in a Pindos mountain river. In both cases the beach belongs to another leg of the trip.

Kalambaka eats better. Its tavernas and grill houses serve the generous cooking of central Greece, with lamb, slow-baked dishes, bean soups, mountain greens and pies, plus tsipouro with meze. Trikala, half an hour away, adds variety.

Goreme has its own signature, testi kebab cracked from a clay pot at the table, along with manti, roadside gozleme and decent Cappadocian wine. But its menus are written for visitors and start to repeat after a couple of nights.

Goreme's churches are cut into the rock and Kalambaka's monasteries stand on top of it, a difference that shapes the whole visit. In Goreme the Open Air Museum gathers a cluster of small, dim chapels in one valley a short walk from the village, so you step from doorway to doorway in a single morning. The painting is the reward. The Dark Church keeps the richest colour because so little light reaches it, and Tokali Church, just outside the museum gate, rivals it. With the cave houses and dovecotes of the village, the sight is done in a day or two.

Meteora works on a larger scale and leaves the stronger impression. Each of the six working monasteries crowns its own pillar, so a visit means a series of separate climbs, with the plain opening out below between them. These are living communities of monks and nuns rather than an empty monastic valley, keeping icon and manuscript collections alongside their painted churches. That sense of a tradition still running, set against the drama of the rocks, is what puts Meteora ahead of Goreme's single valley.

Both are early-to-bed places with no clubs. Goreme is the quieter of the two because the balloons launch before dawn. A raki or local wine on a terrace, looking at the lit-up rocks, is the evening.

Kalambaka keeps a little more street life, with locals sitting out at the café-bars on the central square on summer nights. For a real night out, Trikala's student bar street is within half an hour.

Both towns open straight onto extraordinary rock, and Kalambaka has a slight edge in range. Its grey pillars rise around 400m, and monks' paths climb through oak woods between them. Long bolted routes make it a serious climbing destination, and the Pindos to the west adds fir forest, rafting on the Aspropotamos and small ski slopes near Metsovo.

Goreme's valleys, Rose, Red, Love and Pigeon among them, are softer and stranger, with pink tuff cones, orchards and hidden chapels. The balloons at sunrise are the defining experience. Beyond them, though, there is little forest and no water.

Goreme is the stronger base. Within an hour you reach the multi-storey underground cities of Kaymakli and Derinkuyu, the Uchisar citadel, the abandoned cave villages of Zelve and Cavusin, the potters of Avanos and the Greek mansions of Mustafapasa. Even if much of it is rock-cut, few places offer so many outings in such a small radius.

Kalambaka's excursions are fewer and further apart, but more varied. There is Trikala's Ottoman and Byzantine old town, the stone village of Metsovo with its smoked cheeses, and Ioannina's lakeside castle quarter about an hour and a half away. A car is needed for most of it.

Goreme gives children more adventure. They can sleep in a cave, crawl through underground tunnels, ride horses or ATVs and get up for the balloons. Toddlers fare less well there, given the steep paths with unfenced drops.

Kalambaka is just as safe and small, and a beginners' climbing session can thrill older children. But its headline sights are monasteries with long stairways, silence and dress rules, which wear thin quickly with young ones.

The two are much alike: a tiny walkable centre and then a problem. In Goreme, the Open Air Museum and valley trailheads are on foot, while the underground cities and Ihlara need a tour, taxi or hired car, with slow local buses linking the nearer villages.

Kalambaka has the better long-distance links, with a rail branch to the Athens to Thessaloniki line. The monasteries, though, sit along a winding road several kilometres up. Fit walkers can climb the old footpaths in about an hour, but most people drive.

Goreme has more worth buying. Hand-knotted carpets and kilims are the region's real craft, and in Avanos you can watch the red-clay pottery being thrown before you buy it.

Kalambaka offers one souvenir street of painted icons and carvings, plus monastery shops and edible gifts such as local honey, herbs and tsipouro. Neither is a shopping destination.

Goreme can be cheap if you stay in a cave hostel, take the local buses and eat gozleme from the roadside stalls. But the things most people come for push a typical stay well above that: boutique cave hotels, menus set for visitors, guided tours and, above all, the dawn balloon flight.

Kalambaka makes it easier to keep costs down. Family guesthouses and generous taverna meals are fairly priced, and the monasteries charge only small entry fees. Prices go up mainly at hotels facing the rocks, and over Orthodox Easter and the long weekends around national feast days, when Greek visitors fill the town.

There is little live performance in either. What exists differs in character. Goreme stages shows for visitors, a folk-dance and belly-dancing dinner in a cave venue and, more worthwhile, the whirling dervish Sema ceremony in a caravanserai near Avanos.

Kalambaka has nothing comparable beyond the odd summer festival or taverna musician. Byzantine chant at a monastery service is moving, but it is worship to attend respectfully, not a show.

Goreme gives more chances to unwind. Village hammams offer the steam, scrub and foam massage, and the better cave hotels have small spas and pools, although pre-dawn balloon starts and full tour days can work against rest.

Kalambaka has no bathing tradition and only a few hotel saunas and massage rooms. What it does offer is quiet and slow mornings in the light on the rocks, which is pleasant for a night or two but is not a reason to go.