Sunday, July 11, 2021

Greece 6: Hitting my stride, hiking through Zagori

     With the advice of my hosts, I decided to drive one town over(named Vitsa, three minutes away), and begin a hike.  I would go down into the gorge, and pass several old bridges, on the way to Kipoi(pronounced Kipi I believe).  The decline was slow, so the walk began easily.  At first there were mountain views, and then there were views into the gorge.  As I don't like to look over the side, I decided to hunt for insects.











    Eventually, I reached the first bridge, Misiou.  I was able to walk below the bridge, as the river had dried up.  I named it "rock river" in my head.  After taking photos, I had to figure out how to get to the other side, as it was required to continue the hike.  After some investigation, I decided there was no way to climb up the rocks on the other side.  I was forced to cross.  There was a short barrier on either side of the bridge as you walk across, but it was not super high.  After preparing myself for about five minutes, I hastily slunk across.



        After a distance, I encountered the second bridge, the Bridge of Kokkoros.  There seemed to be even less railing here.  Luckily, I would not have to cross this bridge or any of the others.  It was a bit hard to decipher where the trail on my app wanted me to go next, but it turned out I simply had to follow the rock river.  


    The rock river curved left and right, up and down, before the last bridge finally appeared, the three arched Plakida-Kalogeriko bridge.



    I hiked the path that led up to the road and a few minutes later I was sitting at a cafe in Kipoi, drinking water and refilling my bottles.  There were two more bridges within a seven minute walk from town, so I walked on.  Before arriving at either, I encountered my first tortoise of the trip.  The first bridge was so unimpressive, that I will not bother posting it here.  The second one was only mildly more interesting.







    My choices were to find a taxi or to walk back.  I decided to walk back, but rather than taking the same trail that I took coming, I would walk the main road until it crossed a hike down to meet up with the path just before the very first bridge.  Cicadas were pretty loud after I crossed the bridge.  I noticed at one point that after I had walked past a loud area, it went silent.  I thought that perhaps I was close enough that a cicada sensed my movement.  And there it was.

    I arrived back near the hotel and picked up two small Gatorades from a local shop.  I took it easy for a while and then walked into the old town for dinner.  Edit:  I confused the dinner with the following night.  On this night I tried a pie restaurant and got a vegetable pie and a mushroom pie, which tasted quite different from each other.  The mushroom pie was better.

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