Plastira Lake
December 19, 2016
Meteora The Stone Forest
December 19, 2016
Olympus Mountain…the mountaineering “pilgrimage”
It is Greece’s first National Park. A reference point for history and mythology, a paradise for mountain climbers and hikers, a natural refuge for thousands of species of plants and animals.Encased for thousands of years in the haze of myth, Olympus with its history, the varied and changing charm of its nature, gives, to all those who wish to visit it a piece of eternity...
Olympus, much-snowed-upon and covered in snow, much wind-swept and many-folded (with many gorges and many ravines), is the home of the gods, indeed their captivating home, “an ever-sure abiding place for the gods”, as Hesiod says, talking of Olympus with the familiarity of a person who knows it well...
Tall peaks, gorges, streams, springs with crystal-clear waters, vegetation and sounds, all weave together the harmony and grandeur of the Gods’ mountain.
The sun now reigns. Emerging from the large bridge of Larissa, under which the stream of the Pineios sluggishly runs, I go outside the city to see Olympus, in the majesty of dusk. Its peaks are often covered by the clouds, but today the sky is completely clear and one can see all its powerful mass, which stands Titanically in the blue ethers. I sit and watch it for a long while. As with Mt Sinai, it preserves the reflection of the divine. From its peaks the most beautiful legends rolled out all over Greece, and there where its
large crack ends, formed by the waters of Enipeas, was the city of Dion, the ark of the oldest myths. On this mountain, the Greek spirit worshipped its ideal. Even today, when the Gods have abandoned it and the only thing still to be found on its inaccessible peaks are the eternal snows, it remains what it was in antiquity: a “divine mountain”. It takes man’s soul along with it as it rises to the heavens…
Kostas Ouranis, Poet - Journeys in Greece
