Lousios Gorge

norway1.gif (248 bytes) Norsk utgave (Norwegian edition) norway1.gif (248 bytes)
Lousios gorge is a deep canyon situated in an impressive mountain area, with small picturesque villages. This valley was one of the places we wanted to visit on the round trip Steinar and I (Jan) took the spring of 1999. Because of illness we never got so far. The reason we wanted to get there was some pictures that showed a Lousios valley with a very fine bridge crossing the river and also several hiking trails in the area. It soon became clear that the valley more than lived up to our expectations. For those that like to go hiking this is a great area. You can walk from one village to another in beautiful scenery with a river that even has some small waterfalls. There are several hiking trails to choose. What fascinated most, however, were all the flowers. Not so tall and boisterous as some places along the coast, but shorter with more intense colours.

 

 

Here we are looking down Lousios gorge from where we left the highway and went down into the valley, just before the village of Stamnista.

Travel diary from day 7 (Thursday April 20th 2000) continues:

We now went on to Tripoli to go on to the mountain villages around the valley Lousios gorge. We tried to find some place to stay for the night both in Stemnítsa and  Dimitsana, typical villages of this area. Unfortunately we were unable to find anything vacant, so we drive on at north at about 15 km where we found a nice, recently renovated, hotel in the town of Langadia. Here we paid 12.000 drachmas. For a big 3-bed room with lots of hot water (not all the guesthouses can provide hot water shower this time of the year) and a colour TV. The hotel also had a tavern with very good local Greek food. On the road towards Tripoli we drove through a thunderstorm. It also grew considerably colder. Up in the mountain villages the temperature was around 10ºC, not very warm when in addition the fog came towards the evening when we arrived. The room had no heating, so we were happy to have our covers brought from Norway.

 

 

 Langadia

 
 


 

The upper one is of Monastery Emialon. It's actually not from the narrow road to the bottom of Lousios George. You will find this monastery close to the village Zighovisti, about 4km south of Dhimitsána

The next on (whit the big cross on the roof) is of Monastery Filosofou at the other side of Lousios George.

Travel diary from day 8 (Friday April 21st 2000):

Next day came with better weather with some sun in between the clouds. We drove back through Dimitsana an on towards Stemnítsa. Just before Stemnítsa the map showed a narrow road which could take us all the way down to the bottom of the valley and then up to the next town named Elinikó. This road was much better than expected. It was narrow, but had newly been covered with asphalt. We therefore had no doubts about taking the trip down to this nice and green valley, where there are several monasteries, churches and ruins. 

However, the macadam soon ended and the road turned into a narrow, bumpy old road. But we continued, with lots of stops to take photos of the beautiful flowers, butterflies and many monasteries. What surprised us most was that we found wild marigold here. They were of course smaller than in our garden back home in Norway, but still with the same intense orange colour.

The bouquet that Anne Grete makes here is one of the greatest she has ever made in Greece, see the photo below.

 

 

 

 

Travel diary from day 8 (Friday April 21st 2000) continues:

We actually got all the way down to Lousios River where there was a fine old bridge across the river. Here it’s possible to take a 30 minutes walk up the river to an old monastery which actually is glued to the mountain wall. But we didn’t have the time to see other than the old ruin by the bridge and then to continue on the old bumpy road towards Elinikó. We couldn’t travel very fast, about 20 km per hour, but it didn’t matter because there were such a nice view. We actually found 2 different kinds of wild orchids in this valley.

 

 

One of the smallest churches we have ever seen we found at the bottom of this valley. Just by the old, very narrow, bridge that crosses Lousios river is the church named Agios Andreas situated.

 

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A fine old bridge.

 
     

 

Anne Grete’s big dream for this trip was to find wild orchids. We found these 2 kinds on this trip and both in Lousios gorge.

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Thanks to Brit F. Rostvåg, Oslo for her translation into English!
© Jan Bergtun, 18. September 2001 Updated, 02.23.2008
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