Through the years of guiding, I have met some really interesting individuals. One of them is Claire Duiker, a co-guide and friend. We met back in 2010 and since then we have guided numerous tours together. Of course, we had great fun in all of them! She lives in Florence and during our off-season time we have exchanged lots of visits. This year due to the Covid pandemic, we didn’t have the chance to work together, so it was great when Claire took the decision to fly to Greece for a week getaway. She was heading to the islands by herself and before that we decided to visit Pelion together.
Pelion is a mountain, located on the eastern side of mainland Greece and in mythology, it was home to Centaurus, those mythical half man/half horse creatures, the most famous of which, Chiron, trained heroes like Jason and Achilles. Nowadays it combines, in incredible harmony, lush vegetation, abundant waters, pristine beaches, villages with special architectural character and authentic Greek traditional cuisine.
We started early from Athens and the first stop was the town of Volos, which lies at the foot of the mountain, and it’s famous Tsipouradika. The word comes from tsipouro, which is a spirit made from grape skins with an alcohol percentage of 40%. When you visit a Tsipouradiko, you just order the number of eikosipentarakia (individual dose of drink) and they always accompanied by small plates of Greek meze. The chef and the waiter personalize the order to you, and as the drinking continues, the flavors become more subtle and complex. At the end, you just paying for your drinks. Amazing, right?
Only by late afternoon, finally, we got in the car and started driving east and up the narrow, serpentine mountain roads. We drove past one picturesque village after another, and right by sunset time we reached Tsagkarada, our base for the next two days. It lies 500m above sea level, along a densely wooded area, looking out to the Aegean and it basically consists of four different settlements.
One of the main attractions of the region are the small villages, which seem to be dotted around everywhere. Many of them are connected by old donkey paths and this makes the area popular for hikers. So next day we took the early morning bus to Milies, famous for its steam-moved train which was connecting the village with Volos. From there, we hiked though the dense forest of the mountain, which consists mostly of pine, oaks, apples and chestnuts trees to Tsagkarada. By the way, it was October, which is the harvesting season for both chestnuts and apples, so we were able to collect them during our hike. If you’ve never been chestnut picking before you may be surprised to learn just how different it is from say, apple picking. Chestnuts grow in groups of two or three inside of incredibly spiky pods. Once the chestnuts have ripened the pods split open and either fall to the ground or drop the chestnuts from within. Picking chestnuts involves scavenging under the trees for open pods with chestnuts inside or loose chestnuts.
In the next morning we walked from Tsagkarada’s main square, home to a thousand-year-old plane tree, down the path to the tiny settlement of Dommouchari with magnificent views of the Aegean coast. Sure enough, this exotic and wild beauty beach is where Mama Mia ‘Dancing Queen’ scene took place. There, we took our time to relax, swim at the sea and ‘wash the cares of the world away’ before head back to Athens and civilization.
Claire was amazed with Pelion, and there is a reason for that! You can visit ravishing beaches with turquoise waters, forests with gurgling springs and traditional villages with sweeping views to the wide-open Aegean Sea, all in the same day.
Written by Dimitris Papageorgiou
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