Badovas, Rock formation in Kalabaka, Greece.

Badovas is a sandstone rock formation in the Meteora region, rising between Kastraki village and Kalabaka town. The rock contains multiple cave levels that historically served as living spaces and religious chambers.

The Monastery of St. Nicholas of Badova was founded around 1400 in a rock cave on Badovas. German bombing destroyed it in 1943, leaving ruins. The ruins of the Monastery of St. Nicholas of Petra, also called St. Nicholas of Skala, stand just west of it on the same rock.

The caves here show different ways monks lived and practiced their faith through preserved wooden ladders and old living spaces. You can see traces of daily monastic life directly built into the rock.

Reach the rock by a trail branching off from the gate on the main road up to the Monastery of St. Anthony, the main building on Pyxari Rock. There is no direct access to the monastery ruins on Badovas, so the final approach is on foot.

Two monasteries stood on Badovas Rock: St. Nicholas of Badova, founded around 1400 in a rock cave and destroyed by German bombing in 1943, and the ruins of St. Nicholas of Petra just to its west. The trail to the rock branches off from the gate of the road up to St. Anthony's Monastery on Pyxari Rock, but no path leads directly to the ruins.