After taking the boat from Kefalonia, driving back through Lefkada and in theory on to Kochani which would take us around 6 hours – depending on the border crossing at Thessoloniki or Bitola, but because we were in no hurry it was tempting to take a detour and break the journey into two, which is what we did!

We had read about Vikos Gorge and decided to head to the mountain village of Monodendri high up in the Pindus Mountains. We left Lefkada island at approximately 13.00 hrs and arrived around 17.00 hrs in Monodendri after a long and very windy drive.

We found a hotel, dumped our suitcase and headed out to stretch our legs.

We walked through the village – stone steps, stone buildings and plenty of tavernas and walked to the monastery of Paraskevi which gave us our first glimpse of the Vikos Gorge

So what is Vikos Gorge?

Nestled in the Pindus Mountains of northwestern Greece – yes back through all those tunnels! the Vikos Gorge is one of Europe’s most spectacular natural wonders. Located at the heart of the Vikos–Aoös National Park in the scenic Zagori region, it holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s deepest canyon relative to its width, with vertical limestone walls plunging over 1,000 meters deep.

A gorge or a canyon? A gorge is a tighter, steeper, and more vertical gap, whereas a canyon is a much larger, wider valley system. All gorges are technically canyons, but not all canyons are gorges.

It is possible to hike through the gorge, apparantly a 12 to 14 km trail links the stone villages of Monodendri and Vikos along the canyon floor. The route weaves through dense plane tree forests and wild mountain landscapes, taking roughly 5 to 6 hours to complete. Not for the faint hearted and also not to be recommended in the middle of August. But no fear, there are plenty of viewpoints where we could look and contemplate whether this should be on our list of “maybe one day…”

After a good dinner of roast pork – fresh off the spit, a cool nights sleep and watching the sun rise over the mountains (thanks to a cockerel who was stationed outside our room) we drove to the stone forest and Oxrya viewpoint.

The Stone Forest of Zagori (Petrino Dasos) is a unique geological formation and are stacks of paper-thin limestone slabs layered horizontally, carved by millions of years of water and wind erosion into rock towers. Unlike typical barren karst fields, these natural stone pillars are scattered directly inside a dense oak and maple forest.

To be honest, we had read about this but as we drove into the forest I did think that building work was taking place and these slabs had been left on the roadside! Then suddenly it dawned on us, it was pretty amazing to see and went on for miles into the forest and along the roadside.

We drove up to Oxrya viewpoint for a walk and amazing views. Its hard to capture the immensity and beauty of the area, seeing is honestly believing! Well worth a visit and for us who knows maybe we will walk the canyon one day.

Now it really was time to head back off the mountain and onto our ‘favourite’ tunneled motorway!