Olympos

Olympos is a charming village in the north of the island lying between the mountains of Profitis Ilias and Koryfi. It is located about 58 km from Pigadia. In Olympos, impressive nature scenery is wedded to very interesting traditional architecture. Even nowadays, life conditions for its 350 permanent inhabitants are harder than elsewhere. The village pins great hopes on tourism. yet the question is to what extent and how fast the traditional and way of life of this once closed community will change with the influx of tourists. 

History:

Olympos has been permanently inhabited since the 7th/8th century when the inhabitants of the original coast settlements of Vourkounda and Tristomo refuged to the mountains to hide from the Saracen and pirate attacks. The remote character of the place helped to preserve a local dialect (in which more than 3 000 words of Doric origin were discovered).

Places of interest:

• Church if Panagiá on the square with a rare iconostas from the 1st halt of the 18th century
• little church of Ag. Onoufrios from the 12th century
• local museum
• windmills
• little church of Ag. Triada on the west cliff under the windmills
• don´t forget to taste a home-made sourdough bread baken in stone ovens, or the local speciality of makkarounes
• souvenirs shops where you can buy especially dried herbs and mountain teas, delicious honey, or the very original bread stamps. Be careful when purchasing embroidries - often they aren´t hand-made but  machine embroideries made somwhere in Asia, so watch the irregular stitches typical for handicrafts. 

How to get to Olympos?

To the picturesque ancient village-town of Olympos, you can get by boat from Pigadia to Diafani and then continue by bus. The journey on the ferry takes about 3 hours. If you are coming by car, you will need to rent an offf-road vehicle since the path is unpaved and difficult; but beautiful. You can also reach the village walking on an unpaved road or through the dried-up brook bed. There is almost no traffic and the surrounding landscape is truly remarkable.

Video from Olympos

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More information on Olympos

Olympos also has it own website, see Olymbos.