Papigo

Papigo, in two parts called Megalo and Mikro, sits at the northwestern corner of Zagori under the limestone towers of Astraka, and it is built the way all these villages are: grey stone houses with slate roofs, cobbled lanes and stone walls, the whole thing the same colour as the mountain behind it. The Vikos gorge ends near here and the paths up onto the Tymfi massif start from the village.

Background

Papingo is a municipal unit of 34.131 square kilometres in the municipality of Zagori, and both its villages lie inside the Vikos-Aoös National Park at the foot of Mount Radovoli. The earliest mention is in a bull of the Byzantine emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos from 1325. After 1430 it served as the capital of Zagori. In the 17th and 18th centuries some villagers worked as folk healers, the Vikos doctors, using local herbs. Money from Michael Anagnostopoulos, a wealthy emigrant in the United States, paid for the Kallineios School in 1897. The 2021 census found 184 people in Papingo and 39 in Mikro Papingo. A path of about 5 hours leads up to Drakolimni, a glacial lake at 2000 m.

Source: Wikipedia, "Papingo"

What's there

• The Astraka towers - the limestone walls standing over the village.
• The stone building - houses, roofs and lanes all of the local slate.
• The two villages - Megalo and Mikro Papigo a short walk apart.
• The mountain paths - the routes up onto the Tymfi massif.

When to go

May to October is the walking season. Autumn colour in the beech is the best of it. Winter brings snow and some access difficulty.

What to expect

The road in is winding and slow. The village fills at weekends and in August, and beds book out. The walks from here are serious mountain routes, not strolls.

Nearby

Vikos Gorge is south, and the Zagori stone bridges are east.

Key facts