Slate roofs, arched packhorse bridges and a limestone rim
Stone bridges, mule paths and a deep gorge: reserve an eight night village to village walk in Zagori
From $1,580 per person, two sharing a double room, eight nights in May, June, September or October. The spread here is moderate: the villages, the paths and the stone are fixed, and the weather mostly changes how far you get rather than what you came for. The good week and the poor one are both set out below at the same figure.
Reserve one of these weeksSend the form whenever it suits: it never shuts. Someone here replies inside one working day, and no charge arises at this end.
One week, written out twice
One set of dates, one set of rooms, the same guides and the same $1,580. The variable is the place itself, which answers to nobody here. Both readings appear below because both are real.
At its best
You drop off the rim on a paved mule path that has been there for centuries, switchbacking down through box and maple until the walls close in and you are on the dry riverbed with cliffs eight hundred metres over your head. It takes most of a day and ends with a climb out to a village of grey slate roofs. Another day is the pools in the pale rock above the twin villages, cold enough to make you shout, with the massif standing behind them. Another is a long haul to a col and a small high lake that holds newts and not much else. Bridges of one, two and three arches stand over beds that are dry, and you cross them because the path does. Evenings are a stone room, a wood fire by October, pies, beans, wine from the barrel and no traffic noise at all.
At its worst
Same eight nights, same rooms, same $1,580. Rain here arrives as thunderstorm rather than drizzle, and a gorge floor is the wrong place to be standing in one: the guide turns the day around and you walk a rim path instead, which is a fine walk and not the walk you booked. Cloud can sit on the massif for three days, so the high lake day is cancelled and the col stays theoretical. The pools run low and warm by late September in a dry year, or run brown for two days after a storm. What still stands: every village, every bridge, every paved path and every kitchen is where it was, none of it depends on the sky, and the gorge is no shallower for being full of cloud. That is what a moderate spread means.
Tall narrow view of a grey stone house with a heavy slab roof in a mountain village
Forty six villages in the mountains of northwest Greece, spread over a plateau cut by two gorges, and almost every visible surface in them is the same grey limestone: walls, roofs, lanes, thresholds, churchyards and the bridges between. Roofs are slabs rather than tiles, laid overlapping and heavy enough that the walls had to be built for them. These places were rich once on wool and on people who went away and sent money home, which is why a village of forty residents has a stone school and a bell tower out of all proportion to it. Between them run paved mule paths and single, double and triple arched packhorse bridges over beds that are dry most of the year. Above everything sits a limestone massif over two thousand four hundred metres.
Walking days and what they demand
Five walking days out of eight, guided, four to seven hours each. The gorge day is the long one: down a stepped mule path from the rim, most of the day on and beside a stony riverbed, then a climb out at the far end, roughly nine miles with loose rock underfoot and no water for stretches of it. Another day climbs to a col and a small high lake, and that is the one that goes when cloud sits low. Two are village to village on paved paths, gentler, with a kitchen at each end. Three days are unguided and most people spend one of them doing nothing whatever. Boots with ankle support rather than approach shoes; poles help on the descent; afternoon storms set the start times, not your preference.
Money, and what the figure excludes
From $1,580 per person covers eight nights, two sharing a double room, in restored stone guest houses in three villages; breakfast every day and five evening meals; five guided walking days with a mountain guide from the area; road transfers between villages and to the path heads; and luggage moved for you, which matters when the day ends four hundred metres above where it started. Left out: reaching Greece, and the onward leg into the range, both of them yours to arrange. Also not covered: lunches, three dinners, drinks, entry where a monastery or museum charges, and personal kit. No insurance is sold or advised on here. The firm running the week invoices you under its own name, and settles with this end later after the fact.
Nights
8
From
$1,580 per person, two sharing
When it runs
May, June, September, October
Spread between the two versions
Moderate
What the figure holds
Rooms for the nights stated, the guided days set out on this page, admissions belonging to those days, and whatever the running company charges for its own part.
What it leaves out
Reaching the country and leaving it again, any meal not listed above, anything personal, and anything agreed later.
Who invoices you
The company that runs the week, in its own name.
Asked before anybody commits
Is the gorge walk within reach if I walk regularly at home?
If you walk five or six hours on rough ground at home and are steady on loose stone, yes. It is not technical and there is no exposure that needs hands, but it is long, hot from June onward, and the climb out at the far end comes when you are already tired. People who turn back do it on the ascent, not the descent.
Can you tell me the chance of thunderstorms in my week?
No. Storms build over these mountains through the warm months, and whether one lands on your Tuesday is not something anyone can tell you in advance, least of all a booking office in another country. We keep no figure on it, we will not borrow one from elsewhere, and the wet version of this week is printed in full so you can price it yourself.
Does the office hold my deposit?
No. It holds nothing and takes nothing. The company that runs the week bills you in its own name, sets its own deposit and cancellation terms, and holds any card details involved. That firm settles with this end once you are home again. If anyone asks you to pay this office instead, something has gone wrong and you should stop.
Finish the sentence and a week gets reserved
Whatever the hour, what you send lands here and is read by a person, who replies inside one working day. Sending it binds you to nothing, and no sum is ever taken at this end.
