Zagori Cultural Landscape

Zagori is a World Heritage Site just the way I like it: a beautiful landscape, vernacular architecture, great hiking opportunities and not crowded with tourists.
The inscription in 2023 was controversial. It was initially proposed as a mixed site, ICOMOS recognised the cultural OUV, but IUCN had concerns about the biodiversity criterion. They proposed extending the core zone to include the entire Northern Pindos National Park. The final compromise was to inscribe Zagori only for its cultural values (criterion v only). Most visitors come to Zagori for the nature, but that may now change after inscription. I came for both, nature and culture, and was not disappointed by either.

Cultural values in Zagori mean in particular the villages, the stone stairways and the stone arch bridges. For centuries, these bridges and steps were the only connection between the villages. The modern road network was only opened in the 1950s. If you find a small car park at the side of the road, you can assume that a stone bridge is not far away. Two of the most beautiful are the three-arched Plakidas (or Kalogeriko) bridge (photo) near the village of Kipoi and, nearby, the Noutsou (or Kokkoros) bridge (photo in Els' review), with its picturesque location between two high rock faces. The area near the villages of Kipoi and Koukouli is a hotspot for these stone bridges. On a loop of about 10 kilometres you can hike to six bridges. All types are represented: one, two and three arches.
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Zagori and the Pindos mountains will be Greece’s nomination for 2023. It will be a shoo-in, I can already see ICOMOS drooling over features such as “traditional villages with vernacular architecture” and “bridges sponsored by wealthy merchants”. It’s a wonderful site to visit as well: this is a region in Northern Greece that for long has been a well-kept secret within the hiking community. It will be a mixed proposal, combining the cultural features of Zagori with the Pindos Mountains. Northern Pindos National Park is a UNESCO Global Geopark already, so it’s well-protected and has an abundance of information panels both on the area’s geology, plants, and fauna as well as on its villages.

I stayed in the area for 2 nights, exploring it by rental car from a guesthouse in a traditional home in Asprangeloi. On the first day, I focused on the northwest of the region, and on the second day on the southeast. Although the distances are short, the driving takes a lot of time because of the winding, minor roads. The roads were never too narrow though and there is little traffic, so it was fun to drive.

I started my visit by going to the village of Vikos in the early morning. It has a good viewpoint of the Vikos Gorge. The town itself, like many others I would encounter, felt deserted. One shouldn’t be too early in the morning for a good look at the gorge, as it is covered in clouds …

We visited Zagori, another name for Zagorochoria, in Summer 2020 during the Corona pandemic and spent three days exploring the area. We felt it was enough time to grasp the site, but I could easily imagine spending an entire week there. Travelling with children, we could not hike a lot, but we still managed to explore different aspects of this nomination.

Steps - There are several stone steps connecting the villages. Until the 20th century they were often the only connection to the outside world. The most famous one is in Vradeto, the highest village, connecting it to Kapesovo (in the picture). We descended the steps, which was worthwhile.

Villages - From the 46 villages we only saw 7, but after a while they all tend to look the same. All of them are built of dark stone with no ornaments. The most picturesque ones were Kato Vitsa, Tsepalovo and Macro Papingo.

Hiking trails - Easy and recommendable hiking trails are the walk along the Voidomatis river starting after Aristi and the popular Papingo rock pools. A very different trail starts at the monastery of Paraskevi in Monodendri. It leads to a cave shelter historically used by the monks. The trail is narrowly located at the edge of the mountain next to a steep abyss. It is not well posted and when we were there I was the only one walking it, which was a special experience.

Museums - We tried to visit the museums in …

I visited this magical corner of Greece in early summer of 2006. After arrival to Thessaloniki by plane from Prague, we went to Ioannina by bus with one change in Kozani. The bus trip was quite lengthy but it was immediately clear and at the same time enchanting that we enter very different part of Greece as compared to touristy coast and islands. Ioannina is the best basement for trips to Pindus Mountains close to the border with Albania, and we stayed in the camp by the Ioanina Lake for a couple of days. On the opposite side of the lake, we could see the mountains, where Zagorochoria starts. The name is of Slavonic origin and thus understandable even for us, Czechs: Zagori = the place behind the mountains, and being by the lake we actually were just on the opposite side.

To reach the area and enter the place behind the mountain, we took an early morning bus to the mountain-village of Monodendri, which is the usual starting point for tourists who want to explore the Vicos-Aoos gorge the main attraction of the area. The gorge and mountains are wonderful there but I would say that the potential OUV of this site is rather the interaction of the Slavonic immigrants from the North with remote mountains that isolated and protected them from the majority population.

From Monodendri, we first went to Paraskieva monastery located on the edge of the canyon. The place was deserted early in the …

This Website currently suggests that Zagorochoria - North Pindos National Park (NP) will be nominated at the 2020 WHC. I can find no evidence for this, and the announcement in Dec 2014 of the intention to go for nomination made no mention of a possible date. However, that uncertainty should not reduce anyone’s interest in visiting it, nor be taken as an indication that it would be any less “worthy” a WHS than many other Cultural Landscapes (CLs) which have gained inscription! We visited in April 2018 and were impressed with what we saw - wishing indeed that we could have given it more time than the half day we had allocated. We travelled by car and targeted 3 aspects - Gorges, Bridges and Villages - but with more time and different interests there is so much more, with fine walking country, flora and fauna, monasteries/churches….

The scenic “star” of the area is the Vikos Gorge. According to the Guinness Book of Records, it is the deepest canyon in the world in proportion to its width - though this is disputed! There is a trek route though it but, travelling by car, 2 good locations we discovered for viewing it were in the village of Vikos in the North (Photo. 39.951248, 20.708274 ) and the Oxya Viewpoint in the south ( 39.906705, 20.751794 ). The latter possesses a rather fine lookout along a 1 to 2 metre wide path in the cliffside past a sign stating “You pass at your …