I recently spent one night in this town.
sunset from hotel window
Arrival: I drove in from Ioannina, the largest town in the region, from where I rented a car. To travel around this part of Greece, a car is certainly very useful.
Church/Medieval Castle/Aiminadia Peak: At this curve in the road, I saw the sign to a medieval castle, together with a couple of parked cars so I thought I’d stop too and have a gander. I walk along the path and what do I get to is not a castle, but a church.
me and my mad selfie skillz (view from church)
Nevertheless, the trail continues through the churchyard, so onwards I proceed. Eventually I do find some ruins, which must be the castle the sign is talking about, and still no sign of anyone from the other cars. The trail continues to go upward, and eventually heads to Aiminadia Peak (and beyond), though I don’t know this at the time. Not being prepared for a long hike I return back to the car and the heavens open shortly upon returning.
Road Trip: When the weather clears, I’m sitting in my hotel room listening to the Kiwis roll the Poms on TMS. As enjoyable as that is, it’s not what I’m in Greece to do, so I head out again, along some empty roads, first to Holy Monastery of the Virgin Mary Molybdoskepastos and then to Moni Agion Taxiarchon. The first of these monasteries is in active use, the second looks closed and for some reason has some decaying basketball courts. The best viewpoint I find here is in the town of Aidonochori.
Albania: Despite coming within 400m of Albanian territory, I didn’t enter the country. I’m not doing a very good job of visiting every country in the world.
Moni Panagias Stomiou: There is a hike from the stone bridge along the gorge to this monastery. As it is the most famous and most photographed tourist site in Konitsa, instead I’m going to throw out this image captured from a point along the hike and ask: Who built this wall? Why? How?
There are two routes to the monastery, the easy route and the difficult route, which was the road less travelled and worth taking in one of the directions. And as with the castle, there are trails going beyond the monastery for more serious hiking. And again that is another hike for another day (maybe even for you, dear reader, to undertake). Rather intriguingly, there was one point along the path to the monastery where a trail branched off with a warning sign not to proceed without the proper safety equipment. Is this a third route to the monastery? I don’t know – more research is needed.
Departure: The route out following the Sarantaporos river upstream is a beautiful drive.
Tortoises: No animals were harmed in the production of this blogpost. This is despite the passivity of the two tortoises I found just hanging out on the road that I had to slow down and drive around, as well as the stray dogs essentially doing the same thing (unlike other parts of Greece where cats rule, here dogs are in the ascendancy).
Epilogue (Vikos Gorge): My original plan was to visit this en route from Ioannina to Konitsa, but that was before I even checked the weather forecast. Low cloud and rain didn’t seemed about as far away from the ideal weather as possible, so this got punted to the end of my drive around the region. I returned to Ioannina via staying a night in the mighty metropolis of Vradeto, where I quite likely met every other person staying in the town that evening. That’s not zero people, there was the couple that owned the hotel (and plied me with liquor from a plastic bottle), the people that owned/worked at the restaurant and the two other guests at the hotel. About the gorge itself, it’s about a 30-40 minute walk from Vradeto to the viewpoint. This time, the hike does not continue further, but can still be made longer by starting before Vradeto.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Dominick, who visited this region before I did, told me about it and inspired this visit. (It seems very likely that Dominick had even more fun than me).
