Anyone who has driven through Tempi on the old road remembers the plane trees closing overhead like a tunnel and the water right beside the asphalt. Since the motorway moved into tunnels, many people simply cross the area without seeing it. Yet the valley is still there, and it is worth stopping on foot.
A gorge opened by water
Tempi is a narrow pass about ten kilometres long, between Olympus to the north and Kissavos, ancient Ossa, to the south. Here the Pineios, having crossed the whole Thessalian plain, makes its way out to the sea. For centuries it was the main road from Thessaly to Macedonia: armies, merchants and caravans all passed this way.
The ancients considered it a sacred place of Apollo. According to tradition, the god came here to be purified after killing the Python, and the laurel wreath for the winners of the Pythian Games at Delphi was cut from the laurels of Tempi.
Agia Paraskevi
The best-known stop is the small church of Agia Paraskevi, on the far bank of the river. You cross a suspension footbridge over the Pineios and find yourself on a small slope of plane trees, with a holy spring inside the rock. In summer it is cool, in autumn it has colour and almost no one around.
The other name of Tempi
For many people today, the word Tempi brings to mind neither Apollo nor the plane trees. It brings the railway disaster of February 2023. The railway line runs through the area, and the memory of that night is now part of the place. A trip to Tempi today carries that thought too, and it is right that it does.
Getting there
From Larissa it is a little under half an hour by road. For Agia Paraskevi take the old national road through the valley, not the tunnels. There is parking near the bridge. If you have time, combine the stop with Ampelakia, high on the slope of Kissavos right above the valley.
Bring something warm in autumn. The gorge is shady and the damp from the river makes the mornings colder than on the plain.
