Greece Hiking Tours

Greece hiking tours are trips on foot, led by a host, through Greek mountains, gorges and footpaths. The Pindus range, the Tymfi massif, the Aoos river and the Vale of Tempe come first. Agrafa, Vardousia, Parnitha, the Pangaion Hills, the Nestos and the Rhodope Mountains follow. Later sections turn to long-distance trails, island footpaths and the gorges of southern Greece. Related pages cover Pelion tours, Greece small group tours and a Peloponnese road trip. Further trips appear among these Greece tours.

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What are Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours rest on one plain idea. Hiking means walking outdoors for recreation, either on a trail or away from it. Such trips carry that idea across the Greek countryside, with a host leading a group on foot.

In earlier times, people hiked mainly for practical reasons or as religious pilgrims. Pilgrims are travellers who journey to a sacred site. Hikes made as pilgrimages have a much longer history than walking for pleasure. Recreation, the word behind modern hiking, means an activity done for enjoyment. It belongs to free time, not to work.

Organised hiking clubs appeared in Europe at about the same time as official hiking trails. A club gathers members around one shared pastime. These clubs set up and looked after their own paths in the 19th and 20th centuries. On Greece hiking tours, a trail is simply a marked or worn track across open land.

In the late 20th century, official and unofficial long-distance routes spread widely. A long-distance route is a trail that crosses a large region. Official routes carry formal backing from a public body, while unofficial ones lack it. In the phrase Greece hiking tours, a tour is a trip that moves from place to place.

• Hadrian: The Roman emperor climbed Mount Etna in 125 CE, on a return trip from Greece.
• Peak bagging: This pastime means ticking off items on a list of mountain peaks climbed.
• Thru-hiking: It means walking an established long-distance trail without a break, in one direction.

Greece is a mostly mountainous country with a very long coastline. Mountainous land is ground that rises into ridges and peaks. A coastline traces where dry land stops and salt water starts. For Greece hiking tours, a ridge means a long crest of high land.

How does the Pindus range shape Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours unfold in a country of ranges such as the Pindus. There, the highest elevations belong to the endemic Greek fir and a local form of Austrian pine. Endemic means native to one area and found naturally nowhere else.

A French encyclopedia of 1756 linked the name Metsovo with the Pindos range. An encyclopedia is a reference work made of articles. By 1825, the traveller John Cam Hobhouse wrote that the Metzovo mountains were Pindus itself. For Greece hiking tours, Pindos and Pindhos are simply other spellings of the name Pindus.

Lakmos, also called Peristeri, and the Tzoumerka mountains stand out among the peaks of the Pindus. Villages such as Perivoli and Smixi hold communities of Aromanians, a people also called Vlachs. The Aromanians of these villages were originally shepherds and farmers. A shepherd is a person who herds and tends sheep.

Herons, spoonbills, egrets and pelicans breed in large colonies and fish the mountain lakes of the Pindus. In such colonies, crowds of birds build their nests side by side. A spoonbill is a wading bird with a long, flat bill shaped like a spoon. On Greece hiking tours, the timberline is the level where forest gives way to open ground.

• Timberline trees: Juniper woodlands dominate the ground near the timberline of the Pindus.
• Southern reach: Certain mountains in southern Greece also count as part of the extended Pindus range.
• Large mammals: Bears, wolves and jackals all have homes in the forests of the range.

Pindos stayed the literary name, the one found in books and other written works. Between the Middle Ages and the 19th century, the folk name for the range was Metsovo. For Greece hiking tours, a folk name is the name ordinary people speak.

What does Tymfi, a limestone massif in Epirus, mean for Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours belong to a country whose northwest holds Tymfi, a massif in the Ioannina regional unit. It lies only metres south of the 40° parallel, a line of latitude. A massif is a compact block of linked mountain peaks.

The mountain of Trapezitsa lies north of Tymfi, and Lyngos rises to its east. Tymfi is largely made of limestone from the Palaeocene and Eocene epochs. Limestone, a pale stone, builds up from the shells and remains of sea creatures. An epoch is a long span of time in the history of the Earth.

Younger flysch rocks cover the lower slopes of the massif. Flysch is a mix of thin sandstone beds laid between softer siltstones. About 28,000 years ago, long-lasting glacial conditions covered the uplands. Glacial means linked to glaciers, the slow rivers of ice. For Greece hiking tours, uplands are the high, fairly level lands of a mountain.

Vertical caves near the village of Papingo carry names inspired by mythology, such as the Hole of Odysseus. A vertical cave drops straight down into the rock rather than running sideways. Mythology is the body of old stories about gods and heroes. On Greece hiking tours, the name Odysseus points to a hero of Greek legend.

• Rare snake: Vipera ursinii, a threatened viper, lives in the subalpine meadows, just below the alpine zone.
• First ascent: Giorgos Michailidis and Giorgos Xanthopoulos made the first recorded climb on 7–8 June 1956.
• Climbing fields: Tymfi has 17 climbing fields, a climbing field being a rock area used by climbers.

Around Tymfi, the yearly mean maximum and mean minimum temperatures differ by more than 40 °C. A mean is an average, here taken across a whole year. For Greece hiking tours, that difference shows how far hot and cold readings sit apart.

Which river tales does the Aoos lend Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours are set in a country of rivers as well as peaks. One of them, the Aoos, has a total length of about 272 km. Greece holds the opening 80 km of its course, and Albania the remainder. A km is one thousand metres.

The river rises in the Pindus mountains of Epirus, near the village of Vovousa. To rise, for a river, means to begin at its source. On the upper river, an artificial lake lies at a height of 1,350 metres. A hydroelectric dam has stood there since 1987. A hydroelectric dam is a wall that turns falling water into electricity.

In ancient Greek the river was the Aoos, and Latin writers called it the Aous. Historian Ap. Vakalopoulos names Voioussa as the common Greek name of the river. A historian is a scholar who studies and writes about the past. For Greece hiking tours, Voioussa is pronounced vo-i-usa.

The Thesprotian tribe of the Parauaioi took their name from the river. Their name marked them as the people living beside it. A tribe is a group of families who share descent, customs and leaders. Thesprotian refers to Thesprotia, a land the river crosses. On Greece hiking tours, descent means the line of ancestors behind a family.

• Ancient victory: In 274 BC, Antigonus II Gonatas lost to Pyrrhus of Epirus beside the river.
• Battle of the Aous: In 198 BC, Philip V of Macedon and the Roman Flamininus fought this clash.
• Canyon course: The river runs through the canyons, or deep steep valleys, of the Vikos-Aoos National Park.

Pausanias, an ancient author, wrote of sharks in the Aoos as it flows through Thesprotia. A shark is a large hunting fish with rows of sharp teeth. For Greece hiking tours, an ancient author means a writer from Greek or Roman times.

Which legends fill the Vale of Tempe for Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours link to old poetry through the Vale of Tempe, a gorge in northern Thessaly. The gorge runs between Olympus on its north side and Ossa on its south side. A gorge is a narrow valley walled by steep rock.

Greek poets praised the vale as a favourite haunt of Apollo and of the Muses. A haunt is a place that someone visits time after time. Aristaeus, a son of Apollo and Cyrene, lived in the vale for a time. On Greece hiking tours, a vale is simply an old word for a valley.

Inside the gorge lie the ancient cave shrine and holy spring of Aghia Paraskevi. This Christian saint is honoured as the protector of the eyes. A shrine is a holy place linked to a saint. A narrow footbridge over the river leads to it, and a chapel built about 1910 shelters it.

In his illustrated atlas of 1590, Abraham Ortelius showed the gorge as the Paradise of Tempe. An atlas is a book of maps. Ortelius placed this paradise at the foot of Mount Olympus. A paradise is an ideal place of peace. For Greece hiking tours, the foot of a mountain means the low ground at its base.

• River: The Pineios River runs through the gorge toward the Aegean Sea.
• Old names: Byzantines called the gorge Wolf’s Throat, while the Turks knew it simply as Gorge.
• Poetry: John Keats named Tempe in his 1819 poem Ode on a Grecian Urn.

William Smith wrote about the vale in his dictionary of 1854. He found its scenery marked by savage grandeur, not woodland beauty. Grandeur means great and impressive scale. For Greece hiking tours, savage here means wild and rough, not cruel.

What mountain heritage does Agrafa hold for Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours belong to a land of mountain regions, Agrafa among them. Its people, the Agrafiotes, are known for a fiercely independent spirit of their own. Independent means free from outside control, able to run one’s own affairs.

Agrafa kept a form of self-rule that included its own militias and systems for settling disputes. A militia is a local force of armed citizens rather than a regular army. Greek Orthodox monasteries controlled the surrounding forests for hundreds of years, right through Ottoman rule. Monks, men bound by religious vows, share their lives inside a monastery.

A large number of Agrafiotes, unlike the majority of Greeks, can trace their family histories back for generations. In Greece hiking tours, a generation means the span between parents and their children. In the 20th century, large numbers of Agrafiotes left their villages for big Greek cities. Others settled in the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany.

Before modernisation, Agrafa work included harvesting nuts and fruits from orchards, farming, shepherding and textile making. An orchard is a field of planted fruit or nut trees. Textile making means producing cloth and woven goods. For Greece hiking tours, modernisation means the shift to newer tools, roads and power.

• Crops: Cold-weather crops, or crops able to cope with poor soil, make up the bulk of local produce.
• Timber: Money from timber sales in forests bought from the monasteries still benefits the whole community.
• Municipality: A Municipality of Agrafa, a local council area, covers only a small share of the region.

The largest Agrafiot community outside Greece lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. A community, in this sense, means people bound together by the same roots. Among terms for Greece hiking tours, Agrafiot means a person from Agrafa, and Agrafiotes is its plural.

How do the heights and plants of Vardousia fit Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours sit within a mainland that also holds the high mountain of Vardousia. It spreads across the northwest of Phocis and the southwest of Phthiotis. Both are regional units, the districts Greece uses for local government.

Korakas, its highest peak, reaches 2,495 m above sea level. That height ranks second among the summits of Central Greece, behind only Giona. The summit means the highest spot on a mountain. Vardousia stands as a southern extension of the Pindus range. On Greece hiking tours, an extension is a part that carries a range further.

About 1,200 plant species grow on Vardousia. Of these, 110 are endemic to Greece, and four are found only locally. Endemic to Greece means native to Greece and growing wild nowhere else. Fir forests, mainly of Greek and Bulgarian firs, spread over more than 40% of the mountain. A fir is an evergreen tree with flat needles.

Tributaries of three rivers drain Vardousia. The Spercheios takes water to the north, and the Mornos to the east and south. The Evinos drains the western side. A tributary is a smaller stream that feeds a larger river. As a term on Greece hiking tours, to drain land means to carry its rainwater away.

• Steep west: Western Vardousia is very steep, and its top peak, Soufles, stands at 2,300 metres.
• Length: From north to south, the range stretches for about 25 km, or 25 kilometres.
• Cliff nesters: Common buzzards, golden eagles and short-toed snake eagles raise their young on its cliffs.

Greek stream frogs, fire salamanders and alpine newts count among the amphibians of Vardousia. Amphibians spend part of their lives in water and part on land. In Greece hiking tours, a salamander is a lizard-shaped amphibian with moist skin.

Which forts and gorges does Parnitha, north of Athens, give Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours have a mountain near the capital in Parnitha. Its summit lies 18 km north of Acharnes, one of the towns around the mountain. The summit also stands about 30 km north of central Athens. Athens is the capital of Greece.

The name Parnitha goes back to ancient times. The mountain then lay under the demes of Acharnae and Decelea. In ancient Attica, a deme formed one of the small local districts. Ornio, another of its peaks, rises to 1,350 m. On Greece hiking tours, Parnes is the ancient form of the name Parnitha.

Aleppo pine forests clothe every slope beneath 1,000 m on Parnitha. A pine is a cone-bearing tree with long needles that stays green all year. The mountain is far wetter than the eastern and southern parts of Attica. Attica is the wider region that surrounds Athens. In Greece hiking tours, wetter simply means the ground gets more rain.

In antiquity, fortresses rose on Parnitha to defend Attica and Classical Athens. They guarded against the Boeotians and other enemies from the north. Fortresses are strongholds with thick walls, raised for defence. Antiquity means the ancient past, before the Middle Ages. Classical Athens refers to the city during the Classical period of Greek history.

• Inner fort: Limiko, an old fort, stood well within the mountain, a short way north of the peak.
• Monastery: The Monastery of Kleiston dates from the 13th century and belongs to the Byzantine era.
• Gorges: Near the cave of Panas lie the steep Gouras gorge and the Keladonas river gorge.

Beletsi Lake lies on the east slopes of Parnitha, near Afidnes. It is an important place for migratory birds. A migratory bird travels between summer and winter homes. In Greece hiking tours, the east slopes are the mountain flanks that face the sunrise.

What do the Pangaion Hills, once called Nysa, bring to Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours share northern Greece with the Pangaion Hills, a mountain range. The Aegean Sea lies to their south, and the plains of Philippi and Kavala spread to their north. A plain is a wide stretch of flat, low land.

In Ancient Greek, the range bore the name Karmanion. Homeric Greek, the old form of the language in the poems of Homer, called it Nysa. Later, the Ottoman Turks named the hills Pınar Dağ, which means Spring Mount. At a spring, water from under the earth rises up by itself.

In ancient times this land was the country of Sintice. The hills sit between two rivers, the Strymon and the Xiropotamos. Oriental plane and chestnut trees cover the slopes. The oriental plane is a broad-leaved tree prized for shade, with bark that flakes away. On Greece hiking tours, a chestnut is a tree whose nuts grow inside spiny cases.

The Athenian tyrant Pisistratus lived in exile in these mountains. In ancient Greece, a tyrant was a ruler who seized sole power outside the usual laws. Among words for Greece hiking tours, exile means forced life away from a home city. Athenian means from Athens or belonging to it.

• Farm towns: Nikisiani and Palaiochori, towns of the hills, grow crops such as grain and tobacco.
• Castle ruins: On a peak above Palaiochori stand the ruins of a castle from ancient times.
• Two units: The range spans Serres and Kavala regional units, and Kavala holds the larger part.

Pangaion was famous for timber used in shipbuilding and for the oracle of Dionysus. An oracle was a shrine where people asked a god for advice. Dionysus was the Greek god of wine. For Greece hiking tours, timber is wood prepared for building.

Which ancient passes and canyons does the Nestos river give Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours sit in a land of river canyons, such as those of the Nestos. The river drops through towering canyons cut mostly in metamorphic rock. Metamorphic rock is stone changed by great heat and pressure deep underground.

In Bulgarian the river is the Mesta, and Ottoman Turkish once called it the Mesta Karasu. Claudius Ptolemy, in his Geography, gives the river the name Nestus. He also treats the river as the dividing line of ancient Macedonia and Thrace. On Greece hiking tours, Ptolemy counts as an ancient writer on geography.

Only two passes crossed the river. Cities controlled both: Nicopolis held the middle pass and Topeiros the lower one. A pass is a way through high or rough ground. The pass near Nicopolis linked the valleys of the Strymon and Hebros rivers. Here, for Greece hiking tours, a valley means low land between hills.

An ancient road ran through the pass near Topeiros. Later, the Via Egnatia, a Roman road, followed it too. That road served travel between the East and the West. In Latin, the word via means road or way. On Greece hiking tours, a Roman road means a long, paved route built in Roman times.

• Mountain gorges: The river also forms gorges in the Rila and Pirin mountains.
• Riverbanks: Deciduous trees, which drop their leaves each autumn, mainly cover the banks.
• Roman founder: The Emperor Trajan founded Topeiros, a city near the river’s mouth.

A summit in Antarctica, Mesta Peak on Livingston Island, carries the Bulgarian name of the river. Livingston Island belongs to the South Shetland Islands. Antarctica is the frozen continent around the South Pole. For Greece hiking tours, a continent is one of the great land masses of Earth.

What old forests and myths do the Rhodope Mountains hold for Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours take place in a nation whose far north holds the Southern Rhodopes. These form the part of the Rhodope range that lies in Greece. Such a range forms a long chain of peaks joined by high ground.

The name Rhodope comes from the Thracian language. It is read as an old river name meaning rusty or reddish river. In Greek myth, Zeus and Hera turned Queen Rhodope of Thrace into a mountain. They did so to punish her for offending the gods. For Greece hiking tours, Thrace names the ancient land of the Thracians.

Norway spruce and silver birch grow in the Southern Rhodopes and nowhere else in Greece. A spruce is a tall conifer, a tree that bears cones and needles. A birch is a slender tree with pale, papery bark. In the forest of Frakto stand trees 300 years old and more than 50 metres high.

In the east of the region lies Dadia Forest, a nature reserve. It is home to 36 of the 38 kinds of bird of prey known in Europe. A bird of prey hunts other animals with a hooked beak and sharp claws. For Greece hiking tours, a nature reserve is land kept safe for wildlife.

• Highest Greek peak: Delimposka, at 1,953 m, rises on Mount Frakto near the Greek-Bulgarian border.
• Mineral springs: Thermes, 40 km north of Xanthi, has mineral water springs.
• Mountain oracle: Alexander the Great consulted an oracle that stood on the tops of the mountain.

Over 83% of the Rhodope range lies in southern Bulgaria, and the remainder lies in Greece. The remainder is the part left over after the larger share. In Greece hiking tours, a percentage such as 83 means parts out of every hundred.

How does the E4 path frame Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours share their country with the E4, a European long-distance path. Such a path is a marked walking route that joins places lying far apart. The E4 runs through Bulgaria and Greece and then ends in Cyprus.

On Greece hiking tours, a waymark means a sign that shows walkers the way. The E4 in Greece uses two kinds of waymark. Aluminium signs show a yellow rhombus with a black outline on a white background. A rhombus is a diamond shape with four equal sides. The same signs carry the words E4/6 in black.

The second kind is painted on rocks and trees over a white ground. On that ground, a yellow parallelogram sits to the left of a black one. A parallelogram is a flat shape with four sides, set in two parallel pairs. Parallel lines run side by side at an equal distance and never meet.

From Bulgaria, the E4 enters Greece at the border between Kulata and Promachon. A border marks where the land of one country stops and the next begins. In the Peloponnese, the stretch from Diakofto to Gythio measures 300 km. On Greece hiking tours, a stretch means one long, unbroken part of a route.

• Central Greece: The path runs through Karpenissi, Artotina and Kaloskopi before it reaches Itea.
• Mountain villages: Certain villages along the route stand empty in winter and wake again after Easter.
• Spring: April brings spring to the Peloponnese, while the north and high ground wait until June.

In the language of Greece hiking tours, transliteration means writing a word in the letters of another alphabet. Transliteration from the Greek alphabet gives place names along the E4 confusing spellings. Certain places on the route also carry an official name beside a local or old one.

What is a kalderimi in the story of Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours belong to a country of old stone mule roads, each called a kalderimi. Writers call them cobbled or paved tracks for mules. Cobbled means laid with rounded stones. A mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey.

Each kalderimi was built wide enough for two fully laden mules to pass one another easily. Laden means carrying a heavy load. On slopes, the roads have retaining walls. A retaining wall holds back soil so that it cannot slide downhill. Soil means the loose top layer of earth.

Next to steep slopes, kalderimia, the plural of kalderimi, have parapets. A parapet is a short wall built at the open edge of a path. Such a wall stands between a traveller and the drop below it. On Greece hiking tours, a steep slope means ground that climbs or falls sharply. A drop is a sudden fall in the ground.

The old network ran mainly up and down the mountainsides, reaching the fields of villagers. A network means a web of linked routes. Modern roads link neighbouring villages that lie at the same altitude. Altitude means the height of ground measured from the sea. Within Greece hiking tours, the word mountainside names the sloping flank of a mountain.

• Streams: Where a kalderimi meets a stream, a paved ford serves as a shallow stone crossing.
• Flat ground: On level stretches, a kalderimi sometimes has no paving at all.
• Folk name: A popular story traces the name to Greek words meaning good road.

Greece hiking tours come at a time when old kalderimia are getting fresh care. After years of neglect, overgrowth and damage from road building, groups now map and restore them. Walking tourism, travel made for walkers, is the aim of that work.

Why is Kardamyli a trailhead village for Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours cross a country with a village called Kardamyli. Kardamyli serves as a trailhead for a good number of mountain paths. A trailhead is the point where a walking path or track starts. Mountain paths are tracks that climb through high, rough ground.

Certain paths from Kardamyli climb to the peak of Mount Taygetus. Locally, that peak goes by the name Profitis Ilias, or Prophet Elias. The word peak names the sharp tip of a mountain. On Greece hiking tours, a prophet means a person believed to carry messages from God. Elias is how Greek writes the name Elijah.

The Viros Gorge, close by, runs for 20 kilometres in all. A gorge means a slot in the land, closed in by tall rock walls. The gorge stays dry through the summer months. In winter it floods regularly, fed by snowmelt and heavy rain. Snowmelt is the water that runs off as snow thaws.

Walking paths in the Viros Gorge lead to monasteries nearby. On Greece hiking tours, a monastery means a house shared by a community of monks. People believe that the tombs of the Dioskouri lie close to a hiking path above the old town. The Dioskouri are Castor and Pollux, twin brothers from Greek myth.

• Homer: In the Iliad, an epic poem, Agamemnon names Kardamyli among seven cities offered to Achilles.
• Lava: Much of the town rests on the remains of a prehistoric lava flow.
• Towers: Distinctive tower houses rule the skyline, the outline of buildings against the sky.

Kardamyli is a village on the Mani Peninsula, in the south of the Peloponnese. A peninsula is ground that the sea wraps round on three of its sides. Greece hiking tours are trips on foot with a host through the Greek countryside.

Which old story does the Styx waterfall lend Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours move through a country in which the mythical river Styx has a real match. The name is tied above all to the Mavroneri, a stream and waterfall in Arcadia. In myth, the Styx flows through the underworld, where the dead were believed to dwell.

The Mavroneri cuts through a ravine on the northern side of Mount Chelmos. A ravine is a steep, narrow cleft carved by water. The stream then joins the Krathis river. On Greece hiking tours, a tributary means a stream that feeds a larger river. It is thus a tributary of the Krathis.

The historian Herodotus wrote in the fifth century BC. He placed the water of Styx near Nonacris, a town of ancient Arcadia. He described a small stream that drops from a cliff into a pool. A wall of stones ran round the pool. A historian studies and writes about past events.

Seen from far off, the falling water looks black. The scholar James George Frazer saw an old fable as the reason for that dark look. A fable is a short tale that explains something or teaches a lesson. On Greece hiking tours, a waterfall means a stream that drops over a cliff or steep rock.

• Local names: People today call the fall the Black Water and the Dragon Water.
• Mountain: Chelmos, also named Aroania, rises to 2,355 m, making it the Peloponnese’s third highest mountain.
• Old belief: The ancient thinker Pliny wrote that only a female mule’s hoof resisted the water.

The ancient writer Pausanias visited the water of the Styx in the second century AD. By then Nonacris was already a ruin, partly buried in the ground. On Greece hiking tours, a ruin means the broken remains of an old building.

What does Mount Erymanthos add to Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours run in a land that holds Mount Erymanthos, a massif of peaks linked by ridges. It is irregular and rises in the north-western Peloponnese. A massif means one bulky mass of mountains. A ridge is a narrow line of high ground.

The summit of Erymanthos is a ridge running from north to south. Olenos stands at its northern end. Granitis, at 2,192 m, sits 32 m lower at the southern end. Superficial maps confuse the two peaks with each other. Superficial means quick and lacking close detail. On Greece hiking tours, a summit means the highest point a mountain reaches.

The name Erymanthos comes down from prehistoric times, at least as far back as the Bronze Age. It is not a Greek word. Prehistoric means older than written records. Olenos, by contrast, is Greek for ulna, the forearm. The ulna is one of the two long bones between the elbow and the wrist.

Ravines slice through the whole region and turn its trails into rough going. Rough going means slow, hard walking over broken ground. Broken ground is land full of rocks, dips and loose stones. On Greece hiking tours, a trail means a path that feet or markers have set across open country.

• Roads: The protected area is largely free of roads, with villages only at Platanista and Lechourion.
• River: The lower half of the Erymanthos river runs through the Erymanthos ravine.
• Forest: Spruce, birch, cedar, olive and pine trees form the forest around its edges.

In the works of Homer, the goddess Artemis moves among the mountains of Erymanthus. She delights there in boars and swift deer. A boar is a wild pig. For Greece hiking tours, Erymanthus is the Latin form of the name Erymanthos.

Which island footpaths give Anafi a place in Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours belong to a nation of islands. Among them, Anafi in the Cyclades stands out as an island for walking. The Cyclades are a cluster of Aegean islands. Walking here means travel on foot along paths and tracks.

Old paths wind around the steep hills and lead walkers across to the island’s far coast. Along the south coast, an area around Roukounas and Kalamos is protected under the Natura 2000 scheme. Natura 2000 is a list of protected wild places within the European Union. On Greece hiking tours, a scheme means an organised plan.

Eleonora’s falcon is present on Anafi. This falcon hunts migrating birds and breeds in late summer and autumn. Migrating birds fly long distances between their summer and winter homes. On Greece hiking tours, a falcon means a fast bird of prey with long, pointed wings. Birds of prey catch and eat other creatures.

Tourism on Anafi grew after 1974, the year it gained an electricity generator and harbour works. A generator is a machine that turns fuel into electric power. Harbour works are building jobs that improve a port. Paved roads, begun in the late 1980s, then brought new life to farming on the island.

• Clay: In the 1950s, a local potter worked with clay taken from Vayia.
• Embroidery: Needlework from Anafi is kept in the Benaki Museum and the Museum of Folk Crafts in Athens.
• Dowry: The Pisani family gained Anafi in 1481 through a dowry, wealth brought by a bride.

Tradition claims that William Crispo, a ruler of Anafi, built a fortress on Mount Kalamos. Certain accounts call it Gibitroli. A fortress is a strong building raised for defence. Greece hiking tours are walking trips through Greek country, each led by a host.

On Greece hiking tours, what is the story of Amorgos?

Greece hiking tours sit within a country that counts Amorgos among its Cyclades islands. On Amorgos, the hiking paths are kept in relatively good order for walkers. A hiking path is a track made for long walks in open country.

Of all the Cyclades, Amorgos sits nearest to the Dodecanese. The Dodecanese is a separate group of Greek islands in the Aegean. On Amorgos, the geography holds back mass tourism. Mass tourism means travel by very large crowds to one place. On Greece hiking tours, geography means the shape and features of the land.

In Archaic times, three independent city-states shared Amorgos. Each had its own constitution, yet all three used the same currency. City-states were self-ruling towns, each with farmland around it. A constitution lays down the basic laws by which a state works. The Archaic age came before the classical age of ancient Greece.

Ancient Aigiali stood on the north-east side of Amorgos, close to today’s Tholaria and Stroumvos. Ancient Arkesini lay at the spot now called Kastri. Ancient means from the distant past, here the age of Greek city-states. On Greece hiking tours, a site means the place where an old town or building once stood.

• Towers: Ruins of ancient towers lie scattered around Amorgos, along with old tombs and inscriptions.
• Tripolis: An ancient sailing text, the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, calls the island Tripolis, meaning three cities.
• Later names: Over the centuries, the name of the island shifted to Amolgon and Amourgon.

The 1956 Amorgos earthquake had its epicentre about 30 km south of the island. Its moment magnitude reached 7.7. The epicentre is the surface point above a quake’s start. Magnitude measures a quake’s strength. Greece hiking tours are outings on foot through Greek hills, coasts and islands.

Which beaches and customs of Kythnos matter to Greece hiking tours?

Greece hiking tours range over a country in which Kythnos alone counts more than 90 beaches. A large share of them are still inaccessible by road. Inaccessible by road means that no road for cars leads down to them.

At Kolona on Kythnos, the sand forms a crescent-shaped isthmus. The word isthmus names a slim neck of ground between two seas that links larger areas. Fine sand means sand with very small grains, and the sand at Kolona is fine. On Greece hiking tours, a crescent means a curved shape like the moon at its thinnest.

Kounies, the Greek word for swings, names an Easter custom still kept on Kythnos. Easter is the main Christian feast of spring. On Kythnos, the main musical instruments are the violin and the lute. Islanders call the pair the Zyas. A lute is a stringed instrument with a round, pear-shaped body.

Island legends place fairies, vampires and dragons in old ruins, mills, threshing floors and lonely beaches. A threshing floor is a flat space for beating grain from stalks. Local dishes include fried cheese balls called sfougata, and kolopi, a pie filled with greens. On Greece hiking tours, greens means cooked leafy plants.

• Old trades: In the 19th century, islanders earned their living mainly as shepherds or by fishing.
• Mines: Iron ore was found on Kythnos as the 20th century began, and islanders worked the mines.
• Wind power: In 1982, Kythnos gained Greece’s first wind park, a group of power-making wind turbines.

In the Middle Ages, Kythnos went by the name Thiramna. As early as 1143, the writer Nilos Doxapatris called it Thermia, after its hot springs. The Middle Ages lie between ancient and modern times. On Greece hiking tours, hot springs means water that rises warm from the ground.

How does Kea fit into Greece hiking tours of the Cyclades?

Greece hiking tours stretch across a country that includes Kea, also called Tzia. Kea lies 20 km from Cape Sounio and 60 km south-east of Athens, the Greek capital. A cape is a pointed tip of coast reaching seaward.

Kea measures 19 km between its northern and southern tips, and 9 km across. In 1656, the French traveller Jean de Thévenot counted 700 houses in its main town. That town, Ioulis, is now also called Ioulida. On Greece hiking tours, an island means land ringed by the sea on every side.

In ancient times, islanders made sacrifices to Sirius, the Dog Star, and to Zeus. The aim was to bring cooling breezes while they waited for Sirius to return in summer. A clear rising of the star meant good fortune. A misty or faint rising foretold pestilence. Pestilence means a deadly disease that spreads widely.

A legend says water nymphs once lived on Kea. Their beauty and their lovely island made the gods jealous. The gods then sent a lion to lay the island waste. The Lion of Ioulis, a figure cut in stone, dates from before 600 BC. On Greece hiking tours, a nymph means a spirit of nature from Greek myth.

• Castle: Around 1302, the Venetians raised a castle on the old acropolis, the hilltop citadel, of Ioulis.
• First farmers: Stone Age villagers at Kephala grew cereals and raised sheep, goats, cattle and pigs.
• Burials: Children at Kephala were buried in large pottery jars called pithoi.

The settlement of Kephala also gave evidence of metalworking, one of the earliest cases known in the Aegean. Metalworking is the craft of making tools and objects from metal. In Greece hiking tours wording, a settlement means a place where people have made their homes.

What past does Tilos bring to Greece hiking tours in the Dodecanese?

Greece hiking tours span a country where Tilos holds an old capital, Mikro Chorio, empty since 1960. Its families had left for the harbour below during the 1930s. The capital is the chief town, from which the island is run.

Mount Profitis Ilias, 654 metres high, rises at the north-west end of Tilos. The Monastery of Agios Pandeleimon sits on its slopes. Agios Pandeleimon is also honoured as the patron saint of Tilos. Such a saint is the holy figure believed to protect a place. On Greece hiking tours, Agios means saint, a common word in Greek place names.

Below the mountain, a fertile plain stretches across the island’s full width. Agios Andonis lies to the north of the plain, and Eristos to the south. Fertile means rich enough to grow good crops. Megalo Chorio, the island’s capital, dates from the early 19th century. It grew up below the site of Telos, the ancient city.

A Venetian castle, called a kastro in Greek, was built over the acropolis of Telos. Venetian means linked with Venice, the old Italian city and sea power. The medieval Fortress of Mesaria lies in ruins above Charkadio Cave. On Greece hiking tours, medieval means dating from the Middle Ages.

• Empty villages: Lethra, Ghera and Pano Meri have been abandoned in the same way as Mikro Chorio.
• Southern peak: Mount Agios Nikolaos, 367 metres high, stands to the south of the bay.
• Byzantine years: From the 9th to the 14th century, Tilos belonged to the naval Theme of Samos, a Byzantine province.

Castles have shielded the people of Tilos from pirate raids since the Dark Ages. Agrosikia and Stavrou Lambrou are two of the castles named on the island. In the talk of Greece hiking tours, the Dark Ages means the early medieval centuries.

What do travellers ask about Greece hiking tours, and what are the answers?

Greece hiking tours are walking trips through the hills, gorges and island footpaths of Greece. Each trip has a host, the person who leads and looks after the group. A footpath is a narrow way made by and for walkers.

Before Greece hiking tours, what are the European long-distance paths?

The European long-distance paths, or E-paths, form a network of footpaths across Europe. Each numbered trail crosses a number of countries. The network has 12 paths that cover more than 65,000 kilometres in all. The European Ramblers’ Association gives the trails their official status. A rambler is someone who walks for pleasure.

On Greece hiking tours, how do painted trail blazes work?

Across European countries, waymarks are painted bars or shapes in two or more colours. A trail blaze is one such mark set along a path. Red is a common choice for hard trails or trails that climb to a summit. Arrows painted in the same style show a change of direction.

For Greece hiking tours, what is a mountain hut?

A mountain hut is a building high in the mountains, reached in general only on foot. It gives food and shelter to climbers and hikers. An alpine club or a hiking body is the usual operator. Modern systems of huts go back to the middle of the 19th century.

What does the word phrygana mean on Greece hiking tours?

In Greek, phrygana names the low scrubland plant community known elsewhere as garrigue. It grows on limestone soils, chiefly near the sea, where summers bring drought. White cistus, thyme, lavender and kermes oak are common parts of it. Drought means months of dry weather with almost no rain. Cistus is a shrub known as rock rose.