The Mountains of Greece: A Walker's Guide

by Tim Salmon

I first starting researching this book in the 1970s. It is, as the title suggests, a guidebook, describing walking routes, not monuments and cultural things. This is the third major new edition. In the course of preparing it, Michael Cullen, my co-author, and I have re-walked all the old routes and added several new ones.

For most people Greece means islands, seaside and summer heat. But most of the country is in fact mountains, beautiful ones: rugged, undeveloped and remote. Alpine pastures soften the harshness of the crags, forests fill the ravines, and springs and rivers abound - a startling contrast to the baking lowlands. There is a rich variety of wild flowers and butterflies. And what survives of the ancient pastoral way of life is full of interest too.

The backbone of this edition remains the traverse of the Pindos range, but the guide also highlights several regions of special interest that can provide one to two weeks' walking. Walking the mountains of Greece, in summertime at least, is demanding rather than technically difficult. Most of the routes vary between 1000 and 2500 metres in altitude and are well within the capabilities of a fit and committed walker.

365 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1988

About the author

I grew up in the countryside in England, was educated as a classicist at Oxford University and set off to spend the rest of my life as a bohemian wanderer in the eastern Mediterranean. But we know what happens to the best laid plans... Marriage, children: I ended up teaching, in Greece, Libya, then in London, for the first twenty years of my adult existence. And then I began writing: mostly about travel, mostly about Greece and France; guidebooks, travel journalism, accounts of journeys. My interest has remained the world I originally discovered as a classicist, the countries where Greek and Latin once were spoken, in particular the mountainous bits. I have done translations from and into French and Greek and I have a special interest in schizophrenia because of my own son's plight.