Zagoria

As with many inaccessible mountainous areas in Greece, the Zagoria villages maintained a high degree of autonomy in Turkish times, so their culture flourished. The houses and the villages, with their winding cobbled and stepped streets, look as if they’ve leapt straight out of Grimm’s fairy tales.

There are 44 villages in the region of Zagoria, north of Ioannina. Many of the villages are now sadly depopulated, with only a handful of elderly inhabitants.

The area is thickly forested with hornbeam, maple, willow and oak, and bears, wolves, wild boars, wild cats, wild goats and rare Rissos quadrupeds roam the mountains. Vlach and Sarakatsani shepherds still live a semi-nomadic existence, taking their flocks up to high grazing grounds in the summer and returning to the valleys in autumn. The Vikos-Aoös National Park encompasses much of this area, which, although popular with trekkers, is untouched by mass tourism.