The following hiking route from Varlaám to Roussánou involves the least unnecessary altitude change and road-tramping. Proceed down the access road for Varlaám to a point about 150m past where the access drive for Megálou Meteórou joins up. Leave the road by the guard rail, keeping an eye out for blue-paint waymarks, and take paths with (except initially) decent surface underfoot; thread around (and briefly over) some minor, rounded monoliths, the Plákes Kelaraká, until you reach the bed of a ravine, just above the road. Cross the streambed and head briefly up the canyon on the far bank, then bear right into the trees on another path after about 50m. You'll emerge on the road, right below Roussánou, some 35 minutes after leaving Varlaám, with only a final twenty-metre scramble where the path has been ruined by rubble-dumping.

More or less opposite, a signed, cobbled path ascends to the compact convent of Roussánou (summer daily 9am–6pm; winter Mon, Tues & Thurs– Sun 9am–2pm), aka Ayías Varváras; there's another descending stair-path off a still higher loop of road, but in either case the final approach is across a vertiginous bridge from an adjacent rock. Roussánou, founded in 1545, has an extraordinary, much-photographed situation, its walls edging to sheer drops all around. Inside, the narthex of its main chapel has particularly gruesome frescoes (1560) of martyrdom and judgement, the only respite from sundry beheadings, spearings, crushings, roastings and mutilations being the lions licking Daniel's feet in his imprisonment (left of the window); diagonally across the room, two not-so-friendly lions proceed to devour Saint Ignatios Theoforos. On the right of the transept there's a vivid Transfiguration and Entry to Jerusalem, while to the left are events after Christ's Resurrection. On the east of the wall dividing naos from narthex is an exceptionally vivid Apocalypse.

To return to Kastráki directly from Roussánou, there's a trail shortcut. From the lower access path, walk downhill some thirteen minutes, through the first hairpin bend, to another roadside "sharp-bend" warning sign and a transformer pole. Take the path which drops from here to the course of the Paleokraniés stream, and then follow this until you emerge at a small pumping station on the Kastráki– Ayíou Nikoláou farm track. This takes about twenty minutes, saving nearly as much compared to using the road.