After Montenegro, we decided not to risk driving through Albania so many hours on ferries later, we arrived in Greece at the port town of Igoumenitsa.
We slept by the coast watching the ferries, then in the morning headed to the town of Ioannina. This was a nice little walled town, and Eddie biked along the lakeshore to the old city walls and castle where we went exploring.
At pretty much the first Taverna we saw that was open, the menu proved too much to resist and we got one of the main reasons we’d been keen to come to Greece- Greek food! A delicious shared grilled meat plate ans a couple of beers later, we completed our walls circuit through the old town and returned to the playpark by the walls for Eddie to let off some steam and for us to order some sneaky cheese rolls in honey and an ice coffee while he played.
From here we headed into the Pintos mountains, vaguely thinking of doing some walking that evening, plans that were scrapped as soon as we reached the viewpoint at the monument to a Zagorian woman which just proved to be too good a campsite to drive past.
In the morning, we decided to head to the main attraction: the Vikos gorge. We wound along the roads with spectacular views to reach Vradeto with a plan to go to the Beloi viewpoint into the gorge (very happy with our decision to avoid walking the gorge itself having been told by the nice chap in the infocentre it was a good 9 hour walk with no escape routes). Best views were actually from some detours to the main route, where Eddie had a cracking time clambering onto rock stacks to try to see as far as possible into the gorge.
We had lunch at a Taverna with epic views in the village at the end of the trail, we drove on through the park to Gyftokampos via more spectacular winding roads.
Here there was a little sort of open air museum thing with some huts in the style of the nomads who loved there of old and lots of hammocks that we made full use of, Eddie running between the one with me and baby Sam and Adams relaying important queries like ‘Is it time to go for a coffee?’ And ‘do we order snacks from the cafe here?’
After a shock decision against snacks we headed to a playpark with amazing views of the mountains then a taverna in one of the tiny stone paved village squares within a drunken wander of a nice scenic lay-by, allowing for much drinking of wine with which Greek food is even better and leading to the realisation that a litre of wine is not that hard to consume when you’re waiting for 2 small people to finish eating!
We woke up the next morning to another gorgeous mountain day and headed for a ‘hour long walk’ (famous last words) taking in a few of the famed ancient stone bridges of the area, remnants from before the roads were built and maintained as scenic hiking routes. We dropped off a bike at the bottom of the valley to allow us to do a one way trip to make the most of Eddie stamina and see as much as possible of the valley.
The first part was uneventful- first two bridges, Misiou and Kokkorou, found without incident and the well-singned track along the valley followed easily, albeit already taking most of an hour. The next stage was a little more interesting finding the old path had mostly collapsed and following the boulder strewn riverbed- took a while, but the views of the cliffs either side of the gorge well worth the slog!
We were relived to see Plakidas Bridge and find legit path again after another good hour inside the gorge and climbed into the forest edging it until Mylos Bridge with its little mill and tiny ‘Eddie bridge’ over the mill run, where we returned to the road to find my bike so I could cycle back to the van while Eddie and Adam waited patiently in a local Taverna (with the help of ice cream of course) then a massive lunner (somehow less popular than Brunch, a blend of lunch and dinner that happens when you’re having too much fun to stop in the middle of the day).
Not quite done for the day we drove along more spectacular scenic roads to the village of Monodendri for an easy wander to a viewpoint towards the other end of the Vikos gorge and a little monastery, before finding ourselves a nice mountain lay-by for the night surrounded by mountain herbs to mask our lack of showering for a few days now!
Parenting Responsibly 