Dimitsana

Dimitsana climbs a ridge at around 950 metres, its stone houses with slate roofs stacked above the Lousios gorge, and it was a centre of learning and of gunpowder production in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when dozens of powder mills worked the water below the town. The Open-Air Water Power Museum on the gorge road preserves that industry: a tannery, a fulling mill, a flour mill and a reconstructed powder mill, all driven by restored waterwheels running on the original channels, and demonstrations show each process working. The town itself has a library with early printed books and manuscripts, cobbled lanes too narrow for cars, and views down into the gorge. It is the northern trailhead for walks into the Lousios and the start of the Menalon Trail.

History

The ancient Arcadian town of Teuthis stood on the site, and the Philosophou Monastery was founded nearby in 963, with the town's name first recorded in 967 in a Patriarchate document about it. In the middle of the 18th century Bishop Ananias Lakedaimonias built the first gunpowder mills under the guise of a home industry, preparing a revolt that was discovered in 1764, and in the Greek War of Independence its 14 powder mills worked day and night, so that the town was called "the Nation's powder keg", though many of its library's books were used up as paper for cartridges (Wikipedia, Dimitsana).

Highlights

• The water power museum - restored mills driven by original water channels.
• The stone town - slate-roofed houses stacked on a gorge-edge ridge.
• The historic library - old books and manuscripts in the town collection.
• The gorge viewpoints - terraces looking down into the Lousios.

When to go

Spring for green slopes and full streams, autumn for colour in the gorge. Winter brings snow and a fireside season that Athenians favour. The museum closes on some weekdays.

Practical notes

Parking is awkward and the lanes are steep and cobbled. The museum is compact and takes about an hour. The town gets busy on winter weekends, when accommodation prices rise sharply.

Nearby

Stemnitsa is fifteen minutes south; the Lousios gorge monasteries lie directly below.

Key facts