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INTRODUCTION

Mountains cover most of Greece; many are over 2000m (6500ft) in altitude. Most are limestone, the massifs cut by a complex geometry of deep ravines. To people who know only the summertime seaside, the mountains are surprisingly green, forested and well watered. In their more southerly reaches, the Greek fir, Abies cephalonica, is the characteristic tree cover from 800m to 1800m. Further north, the black pine, Pinus nigra, takes over, with extensive beech woods on the colder faces. Springs abound, and rivers run all year round. Snow cover lasts from November to April. But the mountains’ special beauty lies in the fact that they have remained not untouched, but largely bypassed by modernity.

They are hillwalkers’ rather than climbers’ mountains, but you do need to be in good physical shape to explore them. Routes – although not technical – are physically demanding because of the variations in altitude, the distances involved and the absence both of organised facilities for the walker and of restorative creature comforts. Meals and supplies – when available – are basic. There are a number of fairly active local branches of EOS, the Greek mountaineering club (known in English as the Hellenic Alpine Club or HAC), but they are not really of any use to the visiting walker and their huts are, with only two or three exceptions, unstaffed and locked.

Since the early editions of this guide, modern life has impinged on the mountains, mainly in the form of roads and bulldozed tracks. This has made navigation more difficult, because road construction has both destroyed paths and – more importantly – made them redundant. People travel by vehicle and the paths are no longer maintained.

Looking north-west from Áï-Liás chapel (Peloponnese Way, Stage 9)

On the plus side, there is a growing awareness among Greeks that their own back country is worth exploring and that walking, climbing, canyoning and mountain biking are worthwhile ways of doing it. There are also signs that even the local authorities have woken up to the fact that there may be some commercial advantage in encouraging such pursuits. It is not always consistent, but there are several areas where there have been attempts to clear and waymark paths. Guesthouses have sprung up in the remotest villages. Most importantly, from the walker’s point of view, the mapmaking publisher Anávasi (www.anavasi.gr) has appeared on the scene with an extensive series of detailed, accurate and GPS-friendly maps.

Armed with map, compass and guide, and possibly also with GPS, you should not encounter too many problems. Indeed, our hope is that you will come to see the relatively uncommercial and primitive nature of these mountains as an essential part of their charm.

Traditional mountain life

You can still get a sense of how traditional mountain life must once have been, although much has changed over the 40 years since this book was first researched. The biggest change has been the end of all economic – essentially agricultural – activity in the mountains. Already in the 1970s the population had been drastically reduced by emigration, but those who remained were still able to maintain a bit of farming activity. Now they are too old and too few. There is no longer any cultivation. There are no young children, no schools anywhere. The only economic activity is the arrival of the shepherds in May, bringing their flocks to the mountain pastures for the summer, and the seasonal return from the cities of now retired émigrés, sometimes with their children and grandchildren in the school holidays. Many villages are almost completely deserted in the winter.

Sheep grazing above Anavrití (Peloponnese Way, Stage 12)

There is a certain melancholy in the overgrown fields and crumbling houses. Yet, paradoxically, there is more life and investment than there has been for years. The children of those who emigrated have become prosperous enough to rebuild family homes for holiday times. Village squares are freshly paved. Churches are restored. There is at last a sense that there was something valuable about the life that has been lost, and people have begun to take a pride in saving what they can.

A little history

Mt Veloúkhi and the site of old Víniani (Píndos Way, Stage 9)

In the north and west of Greece you still find descendants of the shepherd clans, the Sarakatsani and the Vlachs, who have preserved a separate and distinctive identity to this day. The Vlachs in particular are interesting because their language, in contrast to all the other Balkan tongues south of Romania, is Latin-based. No one quite knows who they are or how they come to speak Latin. Traditionally semi-nomadic, with no written language, they have left no records. They call themselves arumani – Romans. While they are obviously not Romans, the language they speak is probably not much different from that heard round shepherds’ campfires 2000 years ago.

There are villages throughout the mountains, and you wonder why places so rugged and inaccessible should ever have been populated. But it is this very inaccessibility which provides the answer. People sought refuge in these natural fastnesses, especially from the Turks, who overran and controlled the lowlands from their capture of Constantinople in 1453 until, in the case of northern Greece, World War I. The outlawed sheep-rustlers and brigands – the klephts – made their hideouts in the mountains and formed what we would now call the liberation army that finally drove the Turks out and instituted the beginnings of the modern Greek state in the 1820s.

During World War II, many Greeks took to their mountains again to form one of Europe’s biggest Resistance movements. With the outbreak of Civil War in 1946 – for which many Greeks blame the British – a new generation of outlaws made the mountains their base. This time they were Communist guerrillas, mostly veterans of the Resistance, who felt that Anglo-American domination, restoration of the monarchy and the return of the old politicians from their safe wartime haven in Egypt was not what they had fought for. It was this war which occasioned the promulgation of the Truman Doctrine and America’s first attempt to halt the feared domino effect: the conviction that if one state fell under Communist influence, then others would follow.

The mountain communities endured 10 years of war in the 1940s, more than their fragile economy could stand. Populations were evacuated to the lowlands to prevent them supporting the guerrillas. Children went to school, adults found jobs. By the time peace came in the 1950s, village fields had reverted to nature and there was no other work. Many families never returned to their mountain homes.

Kernítsa convent (Peloponnese Way, Stage 5)

Flowers and wildlife

You see surprisingly little wildlife for such wild and remote terrain. The occasional fox or hare, perhaps a deer, an adder, salamander, or tortoise, the odd eagle or griffon vulture, and smaller species like chough, partridge, wheatear, accentor, perhaps a wallcreeper. If you are lucky you might see mountain goats or a wild boar in the north-west. Bear and wolf exist – both, reportedly, in increasing numbers – but you would be extremely lucky to meet either.

Flowers, on the other hand, abound. The best season for seeing them depends on altitude and latitude. In the first half of May in the Peloponnese and southern central Greece, for instance, you will find fritillaries, orchids, ophrys, violets, aubretia, iris, anemones and Daphne oloeides up to 1200m or so. As you approach the melting snow patches, around 1600–1800m, there are crocuses, squills, Corydalis solida, saxifrages and many others. Further south, spring comes earlier; further north, later. Tulips, gentians, narcissus, campanulas, geraniums, aquilegias, lilies – all sorts of glorious species are to be found, over 600 of them endemic.

Clockwise from left: Autumn crocus; Marsh orchid; Lilium albanicum, Astragalus angustifolium; Lilium heldreichii

Navigation and maps

The problem of finding reliable maps has been largely resolved by the appearance on the scene of Anávasi, specialist mapmakers and publishers. They are essentially a mother-and-daughter team, themselves experienced mountaineers. Their maps, varying in scale from 1:25,000 to 1:50,000 and 1:100,000, cover the majority of the most interesting walking areas of the country. No other maps are remotely as good. Penelope Matsoúka also produces beautiful books of aerial photographs which cover islands as well as mountain massifs and make a wonderful souvenir of Greece’s spectacular landscapes.

The maps are all GPS compatible. The digital versions in various formats can be downloaded from the Anávasi website (www.anavasi.gr). Until we are able to get the routes properly and consistently waymarked, they are an absolutely crucial tool. Where their traced paths and our routes coincide – which is not everywhere – and the path on the ground is not easy to follow, you can absolutely rely on them, which is why we strongly recommend using a GPS. If your GPS shows you have wandered off the route, you can trust it.

GPS set-up

Add the metric grid Greek Geodetic Reference System (GGRS87) to your GPS as follows:

User grid

Longitude of originE024°00.000

Latitude of originN00°00.000

Scale factor+0.9996000

False easting+500000

False northing0.0

User map datum

Dx–00201

Dy+00076

Dz+00246

In the UK, maps are available from Stanfords (www.stanfords.co.uk) and The Map Shop (www.themapshop.co.uk). In Athens, the Anávasi Bookshop is five minutes’ walk from the central Síntagma Square. For addresses and contact details, see Appendix D.

There is no uniform system of waymarking in Greece. You will find Bonne Maman jam-jar lids, fading red discs, splashes of parti-coloured paint, more sophisticated plastic squares and diamonds with variously coloured symbols, E4 and E6 signs left over from 40-year-old attempts to hook Greece into a trans-Europe network of paths, plus ribbons, streamers and paint spray added by us – and long stretches with no waymarks at all. It is all part of what the Greeks call ‘the Greek reality’.

A practical tip about path-finding

Right up until World War II in many parts of Greece and up to the 1970s in the furthest mountains, there were few roads. The paths were the roads. The traffic was four-legged and two-legged and had been for many centuries. As a consequence, the paths, even in rugged mountain terrain, were well worn into the ground, a bit like sunken cart tracks in England. The line of them, even when they have not been regularly used for a long time, is often still quite clear to a practised eye. They were made principally by the mules, who have a much better feel for a gradient than a human. They unerringly find the line of least resistance, winding up spurs and along contours, avoiding over-long or over-steep steps.

So, whenever a path is not clear and you find yourself striking straight uphill or straight downhill, pause and ask yourself: would a laden pack animal be doing this? And the answer is almost certainly: no. Goats go straight up and straight down, mules never, and their human drivers, never.

If you have been on a fairly clear path and suddenly it ceases to be clear, don’t panic. One of you should stay put and the other cast around systematically and patiently, thinking of those laden mules with a load of 100kg on their backs. Sections of path get destroyed by landslips; but entire paths seldom disappear completely. You will find the continuation.

Sleeping and eating

Country towns almost always have at least one reasonable hotel, and increasing numbers of mountain villages offer informal rooms or guesthouses – the latter at around €20–40 per room. On the Píndos Way there is no point really in trying to book ahead, except perhaps in towns like Ámfissa, Karpenísi and Métsovo. The villages you go through are not places that have outside visitors. But if you do find the inn full, someone will certainly find you an alternative place to sleep. Besides, you will have your tent or your bivvy bag: vital equipment on the Píndos Way.

The Peloponnese Way, however, is a different story. There, you will need to book ahead, if you plan to hike without camping gear, which should be possible as there is currently accommodation available at every stage. Remember that if calling a Greek number from outside Greece, you must prefix the number with the +30 international code for Greece.

Most villages do not have shops any more. What they do have is a coffee-shop-cum-general-store, the magazeé. This is the place to make for on arrival, for information about a place to sleep or eat or where to get supplies. They will always go out of their way to help. If there is a menu it will be basic – costing (with a beer) around €15–20.

Food for the road can be a problem. Special backpacking products do not exist. In general you have to make do with local fare: bread, cheese and olives, supplemented by endless tins of sardines or spam, which is all that is available in remote places.

Local produce for sale in Vitína (Peloponnese Way, Stages 5–6)

The rule has to be: whenever you hit a place with a restaurant and shops, have a blow out and stock up. Avoid things that leak and squash in rucksacks or are dry and salty – they are horrible when you are hot and thirsty. Be careful with cheeses, especially the ubiquitous feta. The dry variety is often salty, and the more edible wet one leaks. Better to go for the hard Gruyère type of cheese – graviéra or kefalotíri – if you can get it. Taste cheeses before committing yourself. Whole salamis are good, and although they sweat they keep. Halva (khalvá) is a good sugary energy-giver. Nuts, sultanas and dried fruit are readily available in the towns. Muesli is light, unmessy and quite palatable when mixed only with spring water, but unobtainable outside Athens supermarkets. Greeks eat no breakfast, so you need to bring something with you if you do not like the idea of cheese and olives first thing.

The refuge huts are really of little use to the visitor. With the exception of those on Olympus, Gamíla, Smólikas and possibly Taïgetos, they are unstaffed and locked. The palaver involved in getting and returning the keys far outweighs any benefits.

Monasteries are a better bet, if you are a man. You can always ask for food and shelter, but you have to be modestly dressed, which means no shorts. Women are not always allowed in.

Camping, on the other hand, is possible anywhere in the mountains and no one will object. As the land belongs to no one, there is no question of trespassing. You do not need a tent in summer; a bivvy bag is quite sufficient. Just be careful of sheepdogs.

Camping is possible anywhere in the mountains

Dogs

This is a serious warning. The sheepdogs – guard dogs, not collies – are the greatest danger you are likely to encounter in the mountains. It is not the little mongrels that guard some flocks that you have to worry about, but the Molóssi. They are wolf-sized, half-starved, unused to strangers and very fierce and, like the arrows of outrageous fortune, rarely come one at a time but in gangs. If at all possible, give them a very wide berth. Do not approach the flock they are minding and certainly do not walk through it. If possible attract the attention of the shepherd; he will call them off. Always carry poles or a stout stick and be aggressive. Keep them at pole’s length and throw rocks at them – with the intention of hurting them. Don’t panic. You will survive.

Getting on with people

Mountain people are extremely friendly and hospitable. It is, however, up to you, the stranger, to break the social ice by saying hello first. The simplest greetings are kaleeméra, good day, or yásoo, good health to you (yásas, if there is more than one person). That immediately dispels what can appear to be hostility, but is in reality merely polite reserve.

Do not forget that mountain people are still rather old-fashioned in their attitudes. Women, in particular, should be careful how they dress and act.

Weather and when to go

There is snow on the mountains from November to April. Quite extensive patches sometimes persist until mid June, and later on the higher and more northerly ones. The weather begins to settle in April or May, and to break again some time in October. June–September is the most settled period. It is also the hottest, but once you get into a big range like the Píndos, and high up, the heat is not too bothersome. Above 2000m the temperature rarely rises above 25° even in July and August, and at night drops to 10° or 12°. I have found my water frozen in the morning at 2000m near the Albanian border in September.

The table shows average monthly temperatures (°C) throughout the year 2016–17 in Thessaloníki (north), Yánina (mid-north in the mountains), Athens, and Sparta (close to the southernmost point of the Peloponnese Way).

Source: www.worldweatheronline.com

Certainly, the weather can be beautiful, but you should not be lulled into a false sense of security. Greek mountains behave like other mountains. Even in midsummer violent storms can blow up with little warning. Nights are cool, especially in contrast to daytime temperatures; you definitely need a fleece.

Vália Kálda in June (Píndos Way, Stage 23)

What to take

In summer conditions, you need a combination of light and warm clothing. We would recommend a hat, and shirts with collar and sleeves, if you are at all susceptible to sunburn. Take sunscreen if you have a vulnerable Anglo-Saxon nose and, especially, do not forget the backs of the knees, and the thumb and index area of the hand, one of the most exposed if you are using poles. Warm clothing (including your sleeping bag) does not need to be heavy, just enough to protect you in bad weather and against the chill of tiredness and night. Take a windproof and waterproof cagoule. A good pair of lightweight Vibram-soled boots is sufficient in the way of footwear, although consider taking hiking sandals or water shoes if you are likely to do any of the riverbed sections. Take a tent or survival/bivvy bag and basic first-aid kit, including some mosquito repellent for use in the lowlands.

If you are packing a stove, petrol is the most widely available fuel; but remember that, if you are travelling by air, empty fuel bottles need to be scrubbed clean enough to pass for water bottles. There must not be any whiff of petrol, otherwise you risk having them confiscated at the airport. Self-sealing camping gas cartridges are available in specialist shops in Athens and big towns, but not elsewhere. A safe bet is Polo Center at 52 Patisíon Avenue, in Athens, close to the National Archaeological Museum.

Emergency services

There are no emergency services or mountain rescue, so you would be wise to have an insurance policy that will get you home if you need serious treatment.

Access to the mountains

For most destinations in this book, buses are the best means of transport. All major country towns have daily connections with Athens. Buses for the Peloponnese and parts of central Greece west of the Píndos mountains (Yánina, for instance) leave from the terminus at 100 Kifisoú Street (referred to as ‘KTEL Kifisoú’); to get there, take bus 051 from the corner of Vilará and Menándrou Streets near Omónia Square. Buses for Delphi, Ámfissa and parts east of the Píndos leave from 260 Liosíon Street (‘KTEL Liosíon’), near Áyios Nikólaos metro stop. The only way to be absolutely certain about departure times is to go to the appropriate terminus.

Onward journeys from provincial centres into the mountains are more problematic. Bus services are much less frequent than formerly and the only way to find out times is generally on the spot. There is always the chance of a lift – easiest to arrange from village to town, when you can ask in the magazeé (village shop, café) if anyone is going. Alternatively, just step into the road and flag someone down. That is what the locals do. Vehicles are rare birds in out-of-the-way places, and you cannot afford not to make your intentions absolutely plain.

Dhrakólimni tarn (Zagóri, Stage 4)

Of the four sections of the Píndos Way, only Mesokhóra, the end point of Section 2/start of Section 3, and Mt Grámos, the very end of Section 4, are unreliably served by buses. The Peloponnese Way is better served, with daily connections to Dhiakoftó (start point), Kalávrita, Vitína, Kápsia, Trípoli (mid point), Áyios Pétros, Sparta and Áyios Nikólaos (end point); plus occasional services to Dhára, Vamvakoú and Árna.

Taxis can always be summoned with the help of the magazeé and are not expensive by general European standards. Ask the locals beforehand what the fare is and be sure to agree the price before you get in.

Using this guide

The book comprises four parts. The main route, the Peloponnese and Píndos Way, which constitutes by far the greater part of the book, is split into two: Part 1 covers the Peloponnese Way, and Part 2 the Píndos Way. Parts 3 and 4 cover the Zagóri district, which can easily be incorporated into the Píndos Way, and Mt Olympus, home of the gods of the ancient Greeks.

It may at first glance strike the reader as rather illogical that the two parts of our main route should be described as running in opposite directions – north to south for the Peloponnese and south to north for the Píndos – rather than as a continuous route. We accept that this will create some difficulties for hikers wishing to do the whole route in one fell swoop. For example, it would entail having to do one of the two halves in reverse – probably the Peloponnese Way, since it is the shorter half and better signed; and in terms of transport, getting to the further end of both halves would prove relatively complicated.

There are, however, some persuasive reasons for running the two halves in opposite directions. First, sea divides the two, in the form of the Gulf of Corinth. Second, Athens, the most convenient place to arrive, the only place likely to meet any last-minute shopping requirements and by far the most useful communications hub, lies smack between the two, pretty much equidistant from the starting points of both halves.

All the routes are broken down into and described as day stages. Practical information relevant to each – how to get there, maps, places with accommodation – is contained in the section and stage introductions. Information about distances, height gain and loss, difficulty, approximate walking times and waymarks is given at the beginning of each day stage. (The route summary tables in Appendix A provide an overview of the key statistics for each walk.)

Walks are graded on a scale of 1 to 3. You will find that nearly all are graded 3, not because they require a high degree of technical expertise or involve any serious danger – with rare exceptions they do not. But they do demand a considerable degree of commitment because of their remoteness and inaccessibility, and the absence of organised facilities. Routes are often long, with nowhere to stop between start and finish. The terrain is arduous and navigation not always easy.

Estimates of walking times exclude halts, and are records of our own times. (I was accused of walking too fast in earlier editions. Youth is well behind me now, so the times should be more generous.)

Following the route directions

L(eft) and R(ight) directions are given in relation to the walker’s line of march. This applies also to the flanks of valleys and gullies. The only exception is when referring to the banks of streams or rivers, when L and R are indicated in relation to the direction of the current. We have also given compass bearings and GPS positions (using GGRS87 – see ‘Navigation and maps’ above) when available.

We have used the word ‘path’ (monopátee in Greek) to describe the old mule trails and footpaths. We use ‘track’ to describe a rough unsurfaced road, more suitable for a four-wheel drive vehicle: the kind of road used by shepherds to get to their mountain sheepfolds or into the forest. Until not long ago, many country roads intended for ordinary vehicles were unsurfaced but maintained and relatively even. Where these still exist we have called them ‘dirt roads’ or ‘earth roads’ (khomatódhromos in Greek). When it is not suitable for an ordinary car, Greeks will call it anómalos (‘anomalous’, or uneven).

Significant features that you pass en route and that are marked on the maps are highlighted in bold in the route descriptions. Altitudes are given in metres (m), for example 2637m. Throughout each stage, cumulative walking times (approximate and based on our own times) are shown in brackets, in hours (hr) and minutes (min).

Greek place names

One problem peculiar to writing guides to Greece is the alphabet and what to do about rendering Greek place names and words in English letters in a form that allows English-speakers to pronounce them in a way that Greek-speakers in turn might have a chance of understanding. There is no consensus, no official system; chaos reigns. Some people no doubt will think the system used in this book crazy too. We have given place names in a spelling not too different from what you are most likely to encounter on bilingual road signs. See the glossary in Appendix B for pronunciation tips together with a list of Greek words and phrases that you may find useful along the route.

For the most important route, the one that gives this book its title, we have used the traditional English name for the Peloponnese and the compromise, Píndos, for what used to be known by the Latin name of Pindus. The Greek for Peloponnese, spelt kind of phonetically, is pelopóneesos and for Píndos it is peéndhos, the English ‘d’ being pronounced like ‘th’ in the word ‘then.’

Road sign near Vamvakoú (Peloponnese Way, Stage 10)