Pentalofos and Western Macedonia

I couldn’t have chosen a better time to walk up to the top of Kastoria Hill than 9 am this morning. The overnight mist lying on the lake was just lifting, and provided some fine sights.

After a stock up at the supermarket in town we headed south west, into the mountains of Western Macedonia, known as the forgotten highlands of Greece. My path here is based mainly on the author, Patrick Leigh Fermor’s route from his book, Roumeli. I’ll be coming back to that a few times in the next few weeks.

Western Macedonia is one of Greece’s poorest and least visited regions, wild and beautiful place, defined by mountains and upland plateaus, lakes and rivers, forests and pasture.

It may be the energy centre of Greece, with lignite mines feeding numerous power stations, but it remains largely under-developed and under-appreciated. It is another area that has suffered in the last thirty years from considerable depopulation. Many houses, even villages, lie derelict with the younger population moving to the cities, and the older population dying off.

Third time lucky for me regarding a stopover place, which, on a World Cup Friday, I was desperate for. I hadn’t had time to put my normal research in, and paid for it on the first two occasions. Such things as google maps not being able to tell the difference between asphalted roads and unpassable tracks, and washed out roads, or those in such a state of disrepair that they are no longer passable.

Though google maps should not be trusted, its ‘street view’ function is useful for determining asphalt, as well as other maps, and other internet resources.

Eventually I got to the high town of Pentalofos, at 1100 metres. It’s a whole different question staying overnight in a small town like this in the off-season than in summer. There’s a space slightly above the town main street by the police station. I asked inside, and they said of course it was okay.

It’s a town on multi-levels, with the difference between the lowest and the highest houses of the town being at least a hundred metres. There’s a few new properties, but generally everything looks in need of repair.