Day 114: Thursday 10 July – Zagóri: A Gorge And Some Fantastic Bridges, by Ken

Mabel’s gauge showed the outside temperature to be 13° when I got up. That’s much cooler than we have been used to and a consequence of being in the mountains 500 metres above sea level.

There’s an art to designing a good camping ground shower cubicle, whoever designed those at Camping Limnopoula wasn’t well versed in the art. While the cubicle had hooks for clothes, they were inside the cubicle and placed such that water from the shower couldn’t fail to be splashed on clothes. That was something I only spotted after the event requiring a change to dry shorts when I got back to Mabel.

The reason for staying in Ioannina was to enable us to visit the Zagóri region which our guide book described as surprising and beguiling with dense forests and rugged mountains dotted with remote villages (the Zagorohória) with traditional stone houses dating from the 18^th century. The region also has some very interesting bridges which grabbed my attention as soon as Jane suggested we should spend a day exploring in Smarty.

Jane drove and after leaving the main road north from Ioannina we were soon climbing into the Pindhos mountains. In spite of the sun providing warmth from a near cloudless sky, the temperature dropped to 17° as we climbed. That’s about half what we have been used to. It wasn’t long before ahead of us we saw a large statue perched on a hilltop. A narrow track led from the road to the statue. It was a bronze of a woman who appeared to be carrying a small trunk on her back and what looked like a flat iron in her left hand. A plaque on the plinth undoubtedly provided the raison dêtre for the statue, but the only part I could translate was 28 October 1940. Whatever it was she had done t must have been significant to justify such a large and impressive memorial. That’s something I need to follow up on.

Statue

We reached Monodhéndhri, a small village in the mountains where we parked and changed into our boots so that we could visit the Vikos Gorge. The gorge attracted us because it was rated as ‘magnificent’ by our guide book and it provided a good opportunity for some exercise. We were now at 1150 metres above sea level. However, the sun was shining and the day was beginning to warm up. Opposite where we parked was a brown tourist sign headed ‘Guinness Book of Records’ proclaiming the Vikos Gorge to be the deepest in the world at 900 metres. That seemed odd as I could recall the Grand Canyon is up to 1,600 metres deep and I’m sure there are deeper than that (see footnote below).

World's Deepest Canyon?

Weathered Limestone

We walked down through the village passing a number of tavernas before taking a path signed to the gorge. We followed a rough stone path downhill, the path had ridges about 900mm apart, presumably there to provide footholds for mules. We passed through a leafy square with a monastery on one side and then a small church before the track started to descend more steeply through trees. We were disappointed the trees prevented any view of the gorge. We weren’t disappointed for long, the gorge came into view as the track began to zig-zag its way down one of the gorge’s faces. It was a very impressive sight with the main gorge running right to left in front of us and a tributary almost directly opposite. Heavily jointed limestone cliifs soared above us. The limestone was weathered such that the closely spaced and horizontal bedding planes were clearly visible given the appearance of lots of slabs stacked one on top of another (very similar to the pancake rocks at Punakiki on New Zealand’s south island). Below the limestone was a harder unweathered rock that I subsequently learnt was dolomite.

Our First Glimpse Of The Gorge

The track was very rough with a mix of large polished stone and a lot of loose material. It made for slow progress. Jane became concerned that getting back up the track was going to take a lot longer than going down. I became concerned when Jane referred to her guide book and said there were bears in the mountains. We carried on down, the going didn’t get any easier and the dry river bed we caught occasional glimpses of didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Jane wanted to turn back, I was keen to continue down. We did for a while, but 50 minutes after setting off down the track I agreed that was enough. The walk back up was much harder work aerobically but it was much easier to get a firm footing than on the way down. We we were soon hot and bothered and pleased the temperature wasn’t any higher. In spite of a few stops to catch our breath and to take on water we reached our starting point in about the same time that it had taken us to walk down.

Track Was Quite Hard Going At Times

The Stress Of The Walk Was Getting To Jane!

While I Remained Cool and Calm

Jane Took This

From Monodhéndhri we continued northwards following the mountain road to its terminus at Oxiá. On the way we passed through what was signed as ‘the stone forest’ made up of lots of weathered limestone pillars. A short walk from the parking area at the end of the road brought us to a lookout with commanding views of the gorge.

'Stone Forest'

Gorge From Lookout

Monohendhri

Arriving back in Monodhéndhri we parked outside a taverna, climbed the steps to its verandah and took a table next to the rail with a view onto the village. A cool breeze made the temperature feel less that the 23° displayed in Smarty when we arrived. It’s interesting that when we first started our travels, temperatures in the low twenties felt positively hot, but after more than a month of days when the thermometer has been in the mid 30s anything less than 30° has a distinct nip to it.

The taverna catered for tourists and the menu was printed in four languages. Inevitably, it had lost something in the English translation. We decided against ordering the ‘Cock with red sauce’. There was also Vikos pork meat with red sauce that the menu amplified as being comprised of ‘clean meat, red sauce, fresh tomato, mild, paprika, onion and fried fries’. We wondered about ‘everything goes with potatoes and rice’ that appeared under the list of grilled dishes. But, fair play to them, this was a small taverna in a mountain village that recognised Greek is a very difficult language. The mind boggles as to what Ye Olde Naked Man café in Settle would come up with in terms of a Greek version of their menu. I certainly wouldn’t know where to start.

Taverna

Jane had decided that Feta is the best cheese in the world whereas I had always thought Wensleydale was top of her list after the lengths she went to in order to visit a Wensleydale creamery while we were staying in Settle. The creamery produced what I thought was the blandest cheese ever and we could have saved ourselves the journey and a bar of soap from Settle’s co-op would have tasted better. Anyway, Feta is now the go to cheese and we decided to have baked Feta to start with Jane choosing cheese pie (Feta in filo pastry) while I picked moussaka. In the event we shared the mains between us.

After lunch it was time to find some bridges. We set a course that would take us to Kaloutás where the guide book described a bridge I was keen to see. We hadn’t gone much more than 10km when Jane saw a road signed to Dhílofo on our left and asked me to stop. The guide book referred to Dhilofo as one of the most handsome of the Zagorohória. We decided to take a detour and see if the book was correct. Along with the village’s inhabitants we had to park on the outskirts of the village because its narrow streets were not designed with cars in mind. It wasn’t long before we agreed the Rough Guide was spot on. Nestling on the side of a hill was a series of sturdy stone built houses linked by narrow and often steep alleys. Occasionally we caught sight of the church tower along view shafts formed by alleyways. There was a closed taverna on one side of a square in the centre of which was a large tree shading much of the square. A large dog lay in the shade, it was obviously pleased to see us, but she struggled to roll onto her back so she could have her stomach rubbed.

One Of The Many Zigori Towns

Lazy Dog

Walking back through the village we reached a taverna set on the hillside above us. Next to the steps at its entrance was a high wall on top of which was a dog. It seemed distressed and was drooling, presumably because she could hear plates being cleared from the taverna above, but the dog was stranded on the wall. Jane stretched up her hand towards the dog and the dog reached out a paw as if she was asking for help. Fortunately, there was a stone pier in front of the wall sufficiently high for me to stand on and get the palms of my hands under the dog’s belly. She seemed uncertain at first but then allowed me to lift her clear of the wall. She squirmed and I nearly dropped her but managed to get her safely on the ground. As soon as I put her down she ran up the taverna steps without so much as a thank you. We think she probably lived off the taverna’s scraps, she certainly didn’t look under nourished.

Dog Stranded

Dog Recued

 It wasn’t long after we rejoined the road to Kaloutás that Jane shouted “there’s a bridge”. A swift U-turn got us onto a grassed area close to the bridge. What I was keen to see was some of the arch bridges for which the Zagóri is famous. Being a mountainous region streams and rivers were an impediment to the movement of people, goods and livestock. 45 bridges were built in the 18^th and 19^th centuries to cross these obstacles funded by monasteries, wealthy landowners and, sometimes by villagers. Usually, bridges were named after whoever had provided the funding. Schist, abundant in the area, was used to build elegant arches, usually semi-circular, but some had a pointier, more Gothic or Islamic shape. What makes the bridges unusual is the ‘running’ surface follows the shape of the arch. They were designed for pedestrian, or animal, use and there was therefore no need for the usually horizontal surface of more recent bridges. Like the track we walked in the morning the surface was stone with regular raised transverse ridges.

Jane and Bridge

The bridge Jane spotted was a single arch with a modest span. A little further down the road was a much larger single span arch and then we came to the piece de resistance – a bridge with three arches looking like a very early attempt at a roller coaster ride. We stopped to have a close look at each of the bridges and to take lots of photographs, of course.

Isn't That Elegant?

Smarty Passing Bridge

Three Spans

Our guide book informed there was also a three span bridge at Kaloutás. The road on the way there was rough and it didn’t seem to get a lot of use. It was battling with vegetation encroaching on both sides and the vegetation was winning. We couldn’t find the bridge at Kaloutás, but I was more than happy with what I had seen.

Road v Vegitation

We set a course for home that required a long looping drive northwards. We didn’t see any bears in the mountains but did come across a tortoise crossing the road. It was stationary, apparently taking a breather. Jane pulled over so I could get out and take a photograph. The tortoise clearly didn’t like the look of me and legged it, in a tortoisey way, into the undergrowth.

Tortoise Running Away

Back at Mabel Jane felt she hadn’t had enough of her new favourite cheese and prepared baked Feta as a precursor to our bread and dips.

Water Skiing On The Lake

Footnote

That evening I Googled ‘deepest gorges’. It turns out the Guinness Book of Records has a perverse criterion in that they take the width of a gorge into account. The Vikos gorge is narrow and it would appear it has the greatest depth to width ratio of any gorge in the world. However, most right thinking people would surely consider depth as the appropriate criterion for determining deepest, wouldn’t they? Otherwise it’s akin to saying a sheep is heavier than an elephant because the pressure under a sheep’s foot is greater than that of an elephant. My research shows the deepest gorge in the world is the Indus gorge which is over 7,000 metres deep, but presumably very wide.