Metsovo

Metsovo is the capital of Vlach life in the Pindos, and its pastoral economy is not a museum piece. Sheep flocks still summer on the high meadows around the Katara pass and toward Valia Calda, moving up in late spring and down to the Thessalian and Epirot lowlands in autumn — much of the journey now by truck, some of it still on foot — and since 2023 Greece has been part of the UNESCO listing of transhumance as intangible heritage. The milk becomes cheese at the Tositsa Foundation dairy in the middle of town, including Metsovone, a smoked PDO cheese made a few steps from the square. Aromanian, a Romance language, remains everyday speech among older Metsovites, which makes the town one of Greece's most audible language islands; if you know Grevena on the Macedonian side of the range from these pages, Metsovo is its Epirus-side counterpart, joined by the same shepherd routes over the watershed. What sets Metsovo apart from most Greek mountain towns is money, honestly earned and carefully spent: the Tositsa and Averoff benefactor families endowed the dairy, a winery that brought serious viticulture back to the mountains, a folk-art museum in a rebuilt archon's mansion, and a gallery of modern Greek painting that would not embarrass Athens. Stone roofs, working woodcarvers, woodsmoke and cheese smoke: it holds together because people still live from it, not because anyone restored it for you.

Be honest with yourself about winter: Metsovo doubles as a small ski town, and December-to-March weekends and Greek holidays (Christmas, Carnival, Clean Monday) fill the square, the grills and the hotels with domestic visitors — book ahead or come midweek, when the same snow-covered town is nearly silent. Late May and June are the transhumance shoulder: flocks arriving, meadows green, few visitors. September and October are the best all-round window — grape harvest at Katogi Averoff, autumn colour in the beech forests, flocks heading down. July and August are pleasantly cool at this altitude and moderately busy with Greek families, peaking around the town feast of Agia Paraskevi on 26 July. November and April are the empty months, with weather to match.

There is no railway anywhere in Epirus; the nearest station is Kalampaka (for Meteora), about 58 km east across the mountains. By road, Metsovo sits just off the Egnatia Odos motorway: roughly 45 minutes from Ioannina (nearest airport) and about 2.5 hours from Thessaloniki. By bus: KTEL Ioannina runs services to Metsovo, but the timetable is thin and changes — check eticket.ktelioannina.gr before relying on it (check current frequency). KTEL Trikala's Trikala–Kalampaka–Ioannina coaches (2–3 daily each way) pass Metsovo — confirm the stop when booking (check ahead). Thessaloniki–Ioannina intercity buses sell tickets to the Metsovo interchange, a roadside stop about 6 km below town (check ahead) — arrange a taxi up. The old Katara pass road is often closed in winter; the motorway tunnels are the reliable way in.

Katogi Averoff Hotel is the most Metsovo answer: 15 rooms built literally over the Averoff family's working winery, with barrel vaults below and a restaurant pairing local dishes with the house wines. Grand Forest Metsovo, above town amid black pine and beech, is the region's one genuinely high-end hotel — a former sanatorium site turned quiet forest lodge, better for landscape than for strolling to the square. In town, Aroma Dryos Eco & Design Hotel is a small family-run place mixing stone-and-timber rooms with newer design rooms, a short walk from everything. All three operate year-round; winter weekends and late-July book out well ahead, while November midweek you may have breakfast rooms to yourself.

Start at the Tositsa Foundation dairy shop near the square: Metsovone, the town's smoked, pasta-filata PDO cheese, is made and matured here — buy it at source, and try graviera and butter from the same milk. Tavernas around the square serve mountain food built for shepherd appetites: hilopites (egg pasta) with butter and cheese, boiled goat, kontosouvli turning over coals, wild mushrooms from the surrounding forests in autumn, and winter bean soups. Metsovone turns up grilled almost everywhere, and it earns it. Drink Katogi Averoff: Evangelos Averoff planted Cabernet Sauvignon in mountain vineyards here in the late 1950s, and the winery in town runs daily tours (10:00–16:00, last at 15:00) with tastings if you book a day ahead. Local pies — cheese, greens, milk pie — round out any lunch.

Give a morning to the benefactors' town. The Averoff Gallery holds about 250 works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Greek painting and sculpture (admission 5 euros; guided tours Friday and Saturday at 13:00 — check current opening days), and the Metsovo Folk Art Museum, in the rebuilt Tositsa mansion of 1661, shows how a rich Vlach household actually lived, down to the textiles, the tools and the weapons on the wall. On the square, the church of Agia Paraskevi repays going into for its carved wooden iconostasis, the local woodcarving tradition at full stretch. Behind the church of Agios Georgios, the Averofeios garden is planted with Pindos species and gives you the mountain in miniature. Then eat: Metsovone, Metsovela and the rest are sold a few steps from where they are made.

Walk down through the ravine and up to Anilio, the quieter Vlach village facing Metsovo across the valley; on the way, near the Metsovitikos river, the Monastery of Agios Nikolaos has stood since at least 1380 and keeps seventeenth-century frescoes (access can be irregular, so ask in town). For something longer, the Ursa Trail is a 40 km waymarked network in four loops, each starting and finishing in Metsovo, running up through the Grand Forest towards the Anilio ski centre and out to Politsoara and the Vale di Liosani. It was certified Leading Quality Trails – Best of Europe in 2016, is kept up by the local athletic club and volunteers, and is walkable through most of the year; an annual trail race runs on it (check dates). Tour the Katogi Averoff cellars under the hotel, whose vineyards sit at around 1,050 metres.

With a car, drive into Valia Calda, the Pindos National Park's glacial valley of black pine and brown-bear country about an hour away, or up to the Aoos springs lake plateau above town, a reservoir of roughly twelve square kilometres ringed by grazing flocks in summer and good for a slow paddle. Anthohori, nearby, has restored watermills. In autumn, guided truffle outings with trained dogs go into the forest and usually end at a table (seasonal, check locally); the same weeks bring the grape harvest and the flocks coming down. In winter, Anilio Park across the valley offers unhurried skiing at Greek-weekend scale, its slopes running roughly between 1,650 and 1,850 metres. Come midweek in season and the town belongs to the people who live in it.

• Language: Greek everywhere; Aromanian (Vlach) among older residents; English fine in hotels, patchy in tavernas.
• Currency: Euro. ATMs on the main square; cards widely accepted, cash useful at small workshops and roadside cheese sellers.
• Altitude: Town sits at roughly 1,150–1,250 m — pack a warm layer even in August; snow possible November–April.
• Getting in: No rail in Epirus; nearest station Kalampaka (~58 km). Egnatia Odos exit 'Metsovo' is ~6 km below town.
• Winter driving: Carry chains December–March; the old Katara pass road closes in snow — use the motorway tunnels.
• Buses: KTEL Ioannina and KTEL Trikala services exist but are few; check current times at eticket.ktelioannina.gr and ktel-trikala.gr (check ahead).
• Cheese: Metsovone PDO from the Tositsa Foundation dairy shop; it travels well vacuum-packed.
• Winery: Katogi Averoff tours daily 10:00–16:00 (last 15:00); book tastings at least a day ahead.
• Valia Calda: No public transport into the national park; own car and an early start required, sturdy shoes, bear-aware behaviour.
• Dogs: Livestock guardian dogs accompany flocks on trails and roadsides — slow, calm, wide detour.