Pindhos mountains Travel Guide

Even if you have no plans to go hiking, the Píndhos range deserves a few days' detour. The remoteness and traditional architecture, the air, the peaks, all constitute a very different Greece to the popular tourist image and, despite increasing popularity as a trekking destination, the area remains relatively unspoilt - attempts to establish a package industry, for example, have largely foundered.

If you are coming from central Greece, the best of the main routes is Kalambáka-Métsovo-Ioánnina , which divides the north Píndhos from the south Píndhos . If you are arriving by ferry at Igoumenítsa, getting up to Ioánnina enables you to reverse this itinerary, which is quite the most attractive route into the central mainland. Walkers will want to make directly for the Zagóri , north of Ioánnina, where trekking opportunities abound.

A number of hiking routes are detailed in the text; others can be found in specialist guides. Most of the routes are arduous and lonesome, rather than dangerous. But all the same, this is high-mountain country, with unpredictable microclimates, and it's inadvisable to set off on the longer, more ambitious itineraries without any previous trekking experience.