Why April is the sweet spot for Northern Greece — Meteora without the crowds, empty Halkidiki beaches, cheap prices, and landscapes at their greenest. A real-trip guide.

If you only know the Greece of the Cyclades and Athens, the north is going to feel like stepping into a different country. Over eleven days in April we drove a loop out of Thessaloniki that took us past the hanging monasteries of Meteora, over the clouds into the stone