“Cyclamen in the crevasse of the rock
Where did you find colors and are blossoming,
Where did you find a stem and you undulate?”
Yiannis Ritsos – Poet

“Modern man is living daily one of the most profound, tragic and unresolvable problems that he has ever faced, that of the ecological crisis and the destruction of the environment[…]from manager and guard, as he had been appointed by God, is now its usurper, tyrant and abuser. The ecological crisis is reflected, now in the most revealing way, in the corresponding spiritual crisis of modern man, the loss of his spiritual orientation.[…]

The Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Great Meteora,
Archimandrite Athanasios Anastasiou

Thessaly is the ideal place to come in touch with nature and its miraculous works,getting to admire and learn the wealthy Thessalian flora..

Starting to the west of Thessaly, the grandeur of the “stone forest” of Meteora can only be explained as the product of architectural inspiration and the wavy Pelagic mountain morphology of the landscape of South Pindus, nature gifted this blessed corner of the Thessalian land with a rich and exceptional flora. Its diverse composition includes all the plant varieties that cover the area of the strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) and the coniferous pine (Pinus Heldreichii), in our mountainous sup-Alpine zone. Thousands of common and rare wild flowers  adorn the area, with their colorful and fragrant images, so as to turn it into an earthly paradise. Each January, when the ice first melts, until February or, at the latest, early March, a miracle takes place. Within a few days the wildflowers,  overcoming every difficulty with the terrain, begin to adorn the rocks of Meteora with their intoxicating blossoms.

They proceed further up, towards the higher forested areas and the mountain slopes copvered with fir, pine and beech, as far as the thousand-sung peaks of Kozakia, Zygos, Aspropotamos and Agrafa, up to the east of the Thessalian land, to mythical Olympus with the Jankaea heldreichii, a rare and exceptionally beautiful small violet flower that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

Kissavos, or Ossa, with its aesthetic forest, is a true botanical garden and a little further south, the herb mountain, Pelion stands with more than 3000 herbs and 1,500 species of plants, the rarest being the two endemic species of Pelion, the sultanella, growing on the banks of the streams at two sites only, and the Centaurea cyanus, which according to the myth is a plant that was known to the Centaur Cheiron.

We have created a holiday program of 8 days/7 overnights with daily tours including Meteora, Olympus, Kissavos and Pelion with the cognitive object the flora of Thessaly.  The program includes detailed presentation by experts of the flora with rich photographic material, visits in Natural History museums and tours in the land of Thessasly.

The services included in the program: The program includes 3 overnights in a 4 star hotel in Larisa and 4 overnights in a 3 or 4 star hotel in Pelion, with daily breakfast and dinner, escort, presentations by specialized agriculturists that well educated on the flora of Thessaly.

Changes in the program are possible as per the participants’ interests or the program can be added in other holiday programs.

Program Identity

Code: GREX08

Description: The flora in Thessaly and the rare wildflowers

Category: Theme Routes

Type: Tour in the nature, Educational

Area: Meteora, Olympus, Kissavos, Pelion-Thessaly

Duration: 8 days / 7 overnights

Accommodation: In 4 or 3 star hotel

Board: Halfboard (dinner)

Traveler Type: Sightseer 

A TRAVELER’S EXPERIENCE

Nature contributed and gifted this blessed corner of Greece, the Thessalian land, with a rich and exceptional flora. Thousands of common as well as rare wild flowers have undertaken, with their colorful and fragrant images, to adorn the area so as to turn it into an earthly paradise.
I had my vacation with friends in early May.
The wildflowers, having overcome every difficulty with the terrain, had begun to adorn the rocks of Meteora and the foothills of Olympus with their intoxicating blossoms.
The attentive presentation by the specialists and our guide of the subject of the class was amazing and brought us much closer to nature and its secrets.

Sofia Papatheodorou
Private employee
Thessaloniki May 2016