When most people think of Mount Olympus, they picture Litochoro, the Enipeas gorge and the sea of Pieria below. But the mountain has a second face. Its southern and western side belongs to Thessaly, to the prefecture of Larissa. From there the approach is quieter, the villages are higher and the view opens onto the Thessalian plain.
A mountain on the border
Olympus rises on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia and separates the prefectures of Larissa and Pieria. It is a compact massif of about 600 square kilometres, almost circular, with a perimeter of around 150 kilometres. Its highest peak, Mytikas, reaches 2,917.7 metres. It is the highest mountain in Greece and the second in the Balkans, only a few metres behind Rila in Bulgaria.
In 1938 it became Greece's first National Park. Its name may be pre-Greek and, by one interpretation, simply meant "mountain".
The Thessaly side
On the south-western foothills lie the villages of Sykaminea and Karya, while to the west the edge of the mountain is marked by the Monastery of Agia Triada Sparmou and the village of Pythio. To the north-west lies Kokkinopilos, a Vlach village on the mountain's slopes.
Further west, at 1,180 metres, Livadi is the main small town of the area, and below it Elassona with the Panagia Olympiotissa monastery. To the east, the Ziliana ravine separates great Olympus from Lower Olympus, home to Rapsani and its vineyards.
Ice, ravines, gods
About a million years ago, glaciers covered Olympus. They carved the plateaus and hollows we see today, and their waters carried stones down to the sea. The result is a mountain of deep ravines and dozens of peaks above 2,000 metres.
For the ancient Greeks, up there above the clouds, lived the twelve gods. The summit was not reliably climbed until 1913, when the hunter Christos Kakkalos from Litochoro led two Swiss, the photographer Fred Boissonnas and Daniel Baud-Bovy, to Mytikas.
Olympus and Kissavos
From the Thessalian plain Olympus is seen together with Kissavos opposite, and folk tradition set the two at odds. "Olympus and Kissavos, the two mountains are quarrelling," goes the klephtic song, over which will bring rain and which snow. Between them opens the Vale of Tempi.
In October the high peaks usually get their first snow. If you head up to the villages on the Thessaly side, take warm clothes and check the weather: the mountain changes mood quickly.
