Greece
Tzoumerka
Stone villages half-emptied on a mountain ridge, wind moving through open doorways.
The road climbs through switchbacks until it runs out, and then there are only stone villages on a ridge — some with thirty residents, some with fewer. Doorways stand open to rooms where plaster falls and wildflowers grow through floor tiles. Syrrako, the largest stone-built village in Greece, anchors the ridge.
Syrrako and Kalarrytes occupy opposing sides of a dramatic ravine and can be linked on foot. The wider national park contains routes of very different difficulty, with signage and maintenance varying. Wildlife lives in the mountains, but the honest reward is the landscape, architecture and village culture rather than guaranteed sightings or solitude.
Solo
Walk between Syrrako and Kalarrites on the cobbled path — two stone worlds an hour apart.
Friends
Share the mountain drive and split the bridges, monasteries and pie stops between you.
- Syrrako and Kalarrytes occupy opposing sides of a dramatic ravine linked by a walking path.
- Bridges, monasteries and watermills reveal a long history of mountain movement and settlement.
- Signed and guided routes exist across the wider national-park landscape, while difficulty and maintenance vary.
- Chamois and raptors inhabit the region, but wildlife encounters and solitude are never guaranteed.
Tzoumerka's wood-oven pies — cheese, leek, wild greens — blacken at the edges; Stavraetos in Syrrako keeps the tradition.
Tsipouro from village stills, drunk in cold mountain air with plates of smoked cheese and cured pork.
Askole
Pakistan
Civilisation's last outpost before the glaciers, where porters load supplies for the walk to K2.
Basaseachi Falls
Mexico
Seasonal water plunges into a pine-lined canyon in Chihuahua's Sierra Madre.
Cerro Castillo National Park
Chile
Black spires cut above turquoise lagoons in the exposed heart of Aysén.
Walls of Jerusalem
Australia
A steep climb opens onto glacial tarns and pencil-pine groves in Tasmania's high country.
Kalymnos
Greece
Chalk-dusted hands on overhanging limestone where sponge divers' grandchildren turned an island into a climbing mecca.
Telendos
Greece
A single dark cliff in the strait, Christian ruins on its shoulder, climbers on its face.
Matala
Greece
Cliff caves once Roman tombs, then a hippie commune — Joni Mitchell slept in these rocks.
Arki
Greece
Forty-four islanders, a handful of quayside tavernas, and Tiganakia's improbable blues beyond.