Papigo (Zagori Villages) - North to the Balkans - CycleBlaze

May 30, 2018

Papigo (Zagori Villages)

Today we leave Ioannina for a three day side trip to the Zagorichoria (Zagori Villages), in a remote mountainous area near the Albanian border famous for its well preserved traditional villages and pristine, dramatic environment.  Today’s destination is Papigo, one of the highest situated and most visited villages.

But first breakfast, at our hotel.   Which was disconcerting at first, as we received a prisoner’s meal:bread, water, coffee.  Then, a few minutes later, with OJ.  Then small cheese pies.  Then a grilled ham and cheese sandwich.  Then hard boiled eggs.  Then cookies.  Then yogurt and honey.  Quite substantial, once it all arrived.

As we waited for and ate breakfast we visited with our neighbors - especially two couples from Melbourne, who lead a stressful life: half of the year they live in Australia, and the other half on small Paxi Island, south of Corfu.

When we checked out, our host asked questions about our tour and plans for the day.  He was shocked to hear that we were biking to Papigo, with luggage.  He said other bikers make this ride, but invariably send their luggage uphill with a taxi or support vehicle.

On the way out of town, we stopped at the bike store to get a new water bottle (to replace one left at a hotel) and a new pump (to replace one that is failing.  Also, Rachael asked if they had whistles to deter dogs, because someone last night spooked her with tales of dog attacks.  They didn’t, and didn’t seem overly concerned by dogs; but they advised looking large and menacing if a bad animal approaches.  I practiced rais8ng my arms and growling, and Rachael resolved to stick closer to me.

Has anyone seen this symptom? My camera is having storage failures like this periodically. Many of today’s shots were like this. I’ll buy a new camera when we return home, but I wonder if there’s anything to be done in the meantime. (An update: as an experiment, we reformatted the SD card, and the camera works normally again.)
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Bruce LellmanI've never seen anything like this, Scott. I'm glad you figured out how to remedy it. Maybe some setting got knocked inadvertently.
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6 years ago
Scott AndersonTo Bruce LellmanI don’t think it’s a setting. It started about three weeks ago, after a shower - I’ve been thinking water damage. The main symptom is an excruciatingly slow shutter closure and image save, but occasionally there have been spoiled images like this.

Thinking of it as a card problem makes some sense though. I wonder if space fragmentation becomes a probl m over time on cards, and they need periodic reformatting.
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6 years ago
Fethiye Mosque and the fortress, from the waterfront. There were several other nice photos from here, all of which were spoiled by the camera malfunction. I’ll try again when we return in a few days.
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After seven busy, somewhat stressful miles on the highway, we took the turnoff to Kato Lapsista and enjoyed seven flat, absolutely quiet miles.  Then, back up to the highway and a short climb to Kalpaki, where we were all stopped for lunch.  Afterwards I went back to pump the tires and found our new pump missing.  This explained the strange noise I heard biking out of Ioannina  - apparently our new pump fell off the bike and was lost without ever being used.

I’m not sure what has happened here, but it looks like the wheat crop has been blown down by one of the recent thunderstorms.
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A beautiful plant, that grows in sprays up to six feet high.
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Near Neochori, in a beautiful and very quiet spot save for the chorus of birds and frogs from the creek (see the audio/video clip below from this spot).
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A wonderful stretch of road - empty, totally flat for about 7 miles. It ended with a steep climb back up to the highway.
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A few miles after Kalpaki we left the main highway, turned off to the road for Aristi, and left all the traffic behind.  The rest of the ride to Papigo was very quiet, and very contoured.  We immediately started climbing, gaining a thousand feet over the next five miles.  At Aristi we stopped for a beverage break and to take a nice set of truly great photos - but you can’t see them because the camera ate them all.

This immense vertical wall forms the eastern side of Vikos Gorge - the deepest Gorge in the world, based on width/depth ratio. We’ll be seeing a lot of it in the next two days.
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I’m pretty sure this is the this Voidomatis River running through this valley, which extends northwest to the Albanian border. If I’m right, the river originates in Vikos Gorge. I’m pretty sure the mountains on the horizon are at the border of or in Albania.
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Climbing toward Aristi, and the east wall of Vikos Gorge. I have some nice slivers of photos from Aristi, where we stopped for lunch, but they were all spoiled by camera failure. We’ll pass through it again tomorrow and get a do over.
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From Aristi we drop 500’ to the beautiful pristine Voidomatis River, and then head steeply up again, up the knife edge of a ridge through a series of sharp switchbacks.  As we climb, we get increasingly anxious about the skies - there are flashes of lightning and deep rumbling from time to time, and we’re afraid of getting drenched before we arrive.  I’d say that we were racing the weather, but after all of the day’s climbing we’re moving much to slowly to call it a race.  On the way up I take my chances by stopping for a few photos.  Rachael is anxious about both dogs and weather, but I assure her she can go on alone because we haven’t seen a loose dog in two hours.  She continues on alone, and sure enough, a dog is around the next corner waiting for her.Fortunately we’re in luck: we stay dry, and the dog barks but does not bite.

Yikes! That’s our road down there. We’re in Aristi, looking down into the Voidomatis River canyon. We drop down to the river from here and then climb back out through that series of hairpin turns.
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Scary sky. Scary to look at, scary to listen to as intermittent thunder crashed and echoed through the canyons.
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Bottoming out at the Voidomatis River
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The arched bridge over the Voidomatis. Looks like a fabulous swimming hole.
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Crossing the bridge over the Voidomatis. The composition on this and several other pictures on this page is odd, because they were cropped from the undamaged part of the photo.
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The bridge across the Voidomatis
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Going up! 19 hairpin turns ahead.
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Looking down the beginnings of Vikos Gorge. We’ll get better views from Vikos and Monodendri tomorrow.
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In Papigo, trying to find our hotel. We’ve just missed our turn, at the facing wall of the church at the base of this road.
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The bell tower of Agios Vlasios, the main church of Papigo
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Agios Vlasios church
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A doorway of Agios Vlasios church
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A donkey on the Papigo soccer field. We heard him long before we saw him, and would keep hearing him at odd intervals throughout the evening and night.
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A closer look at our noisy friend.
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In Papigo. The whole village feels like an artwork of slate and stone.
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(Note: through some sort of editing failure, all the photos below were deleted.  I’ve restored everything as best as I can remember.)

In Papigo
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In Papigo
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In the Papigo cemetery
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Nigella, a flower I’ve never heard of before. (Credit: Bill Shaneyfelt, whose comment I’ve lost - I apparently deleted this image by accident)
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Bill ShaneyfeltMy sister grows these.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigella_damascena
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6 years ago
Scott AndersonThanks, Bill. I’ve never heard of a nigella. Frustrating that I lost half a page of the journal! Not sure what happened there.
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6 years ago
In Papigo
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We enjoyed a great dinner at our hotel, sitting under a grape arbor and admiring the Mountain View’s.
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In Papigo
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An unusual wine closet
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The ivy covered south wall of our hotel
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Looking northwest toward Albania
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Ride stats today: 42 miles, 3,900’

Today's ride: 40 miles (64 km)
Total: 1,123 miles (1,807 km)

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