Hiking the Lousios Gorge

Leaving Lagkadia, we head further into the mountains to the hillside village of Dimitsana and hardly saw another vehicle on the road.

They like to give lots of warnings on these narrow mountain roads! Slippery roads, sharp bends to the left, danger ahead and just a bit further on fallen rocks sign - yep, we had it all!

Dimitsana and the Lousios Gorge

Typical Greek mountain road in these parts - potholes and more potholes!

Our first stop was the Open-Air Water Power Museum.  Mel had read up about it and was keen to visit, me on the other hand wasn’t that enthusiastic but to be fair it was quite interesting and only cost €3. It has a reconstructed watermill, remains of an old tannery and gunpowder mill, with a short film on the history (English subtitles).  It is all funded by the Piraeus Bank Group (Greece's main bank).

The water cascading down to the gorge, that provides the power.

Remains of the old tanneries

Reconstructed Gunpowder mill.  During the 1821 Greek War of Independence the residents of Dimitsana supplied the fighters with gunpowder. but most of it then would have been done by hand.

Papastanopoulos Powder Mill that would have been used in the 17th century, about 500 metres below the museum.

The Raki Still - interesting bit of kit that the folks of Dimitsana used in the day.  They processed grape skins, seed and a bit of water to produce alcohol.  Each boiler-load of 60-80 kilos of grape waste produced about 20 kilos of Raki with an alcohol content of 35-40%.  That's a lot of booze!

Dimitsana is very old, with its cobbled streets, old houses and churches perched high on the hillside, overlooking the Lousios River.

Up by the clock tower

As we were in the heart of a traditional Greek village, unspoiled by tourism, we decided to treat ourselves to a meal.  We were hoping to sample traditional moussaka but unfortunately, although on the menu they didn’t have any.  So, it was a traditional Feta cheese salad for starters, then Mel opted for pork and I had the lamb, washed down with a glass of house plonk.

Parking is tight in the village, so we decided to stay put in the museum car park (N37.584862 E22.046589). It says on Park4Night that campers have used it for overnighters, plus the museum is closed tomorrow so it’s not like we are taking up parking spaces.  It has numerous fresh water taps and bins, plus free Wi-Fi if you get close enough to the museum entrance. 

Sonny's spot for a couple of nights just below Dimitsana

We were joined last night by Ellen, a Dutch lady travelling on her own in her camper. She had visited most of the places in the Peloponnese where we were heading and gave us tips on the best wild camping spots that she had stayed on.  She was on her way north and we shared some of our best spots with her.

The next day we took a walk to the old Monasteries in the area.  The route was well signed but steep with some scary sheer drops.  It takes you all the way down into the gorge to then climb steeply up to the monasteries.  It was perfect walking weather, sun half out and around 24°C.

At the bottom of the gorge, before the steep climb

The Philosophou Monastery in the distance, clinging to the edge of the rock. It is split by the old and modern.

There are only 2 elderly monks/priests that have lived here for 8 years.  One of them spoke a little English and asked us to sit with him a while and have some water and what tasted like homemade jellies, which we thought at first was Turkish Delight but I think they were Greek Delights!  It was hard to understand him, but hopefully we nodded and agreed in all the right places of conversation!

The 17th century Philosophou Monastery

Inside Philosophou Monastery

A steep climb down and then up again, takes you to the old Philosophou Monastery, known as the old Philosophers Monastery.  Built in 963AD, it clings to the side of the rock and because of its inaccessibility, was used as a ‘secret school’ to educate the Greeks during the Ottoman period. It was abandoned when the new one was built in the 17th century.

Mel trying to navigate around the narrow entrances to the old monastery.

Narrow entrance to the old monastery

View across to some old cave dwellings from the old monastery.

From here it was a further downhill walk to the floor of the gorge before a steep climb up again to Timios Prodromos Monastery – built in the 17^th century in a crack on the rock face overlooking the Lousios Gorge. 

Timios Prodromos Monastery

Women are not allowed to enter wearing shorts or trousers and so wraps/skirts are provided.  Trousers are provided for men if they are wearing shorts.

Wearing the correct attire - I think I look more like a butcher!

When we arrived, the 3 monks (who were a lot younger than the 2 at Philosophou) offered us Greek coffee, water and some more of jelly sweets.  The Greek coffee was good but was very sweet, it would be considered rude not to drink it though and to be fair a sugar fix was needed for the long walk back! They then let us have a wonder around.  It is free to get in both the monasteries and we're not sure how they fund the offerings of drinks and sweets.  They don't expect you to pay for anything but offer for sale a few religious items and postcards, so we opted for a postcard and paid double for it to cover our refreshments.
The small church is really dark inside but outside there are some old mural paintings on the rocks.

Balcony View!

Don't look down Mel - it's a sheer drop!

By the time we got back to the motorhome we had walked 14.4kms (9 miles), with an elevation gain recorded on our Wikiloc App of 1,546 metres -  we were absolutely cream crackered!  We didn’t see any other walkers on our route and only a few people at Timios Prodromos Monastery.  It was just us, the birds, butterflies, a few grass snakes and some stunning views - very spiritual!

Sally x