Ioannina Zagori Tour

An Ioannina Zagori tour is a trip from the city of Ioannina into Zagori. Zagori is a region of old stone villages among the Pindus peaks in Epirus. The sections below explain the words and ideas around that trip. They begin with Zagori, then add Ioannina and the Pindus.

Four earth topics follow: the canyon, the glacial lake, the geopark and the voussoir. Slate, the black pine and the European beech come next. The brown bear, the chamois and the Sarakatsani shepherds follow. A final section gives four brief answers about a lake, a people, a battle and a mountain.

Facts come from Wikipedia and stay general. No section claims what a trip shows or includes. Hard words are explained in plain terms. Travellers who want other trips can browse the Greece tours from the home page.

What is an Ioannina Zagori tour?

The Ioannina Zagori tour is named after the city of Ioannina and the region of Zagori. Zagori sits among the Pindus mountains in Epirus, in northwestern Greece. The Pindus is a chain of mountains, and Epirus is a part of the country.

The region behind the Ioannina Zagori tour covers roughly 1,000 square kilometres and has 46 villages. A square kilometre has four sides, and each side is one kilometre long. The region is shaped like an upturned equilateral triangle. That is a triangle with three sides of equal length, turned upside down.

Ioannina serves as the capital of the regional unit named after it. A capital is the seat of government. Greece is divided into regional units, a kind of district. The city borders the southern point of the triangle. The Ioannina Zagori tour carries both place names, and the two places are neighbours.

The Aoos river forms the northern boundary of Zagori, the line where the region ends. Zagori has about 3,400 people, a density of 3.4 per square kilometre. Density is the number of people divided by the area they live in. That is 3.4 people for every square kilometre.

Zagorisians, the people of Zagori, ran their affairs through a Council of Elders called Demogerontia. A council is a group of people who meet to make decisions together. Elders are the older leaders of a community. The history behind the Ioannina Zagori tour therefore includes this form of local self-rule.

• Municipality: The Zagori municipality, its local authority, is seated in the village of Asprangeloi.
• Heritage: UNESCO, the culture body of the United Nations, put Zagori on its list of Cultural Landscapes.
• Gorge: The Vikos Gorge, a narrow valley between steep walls, is 990 metres deep near Monodendri.

Zagori’s economy flourished thanks to expatriate merchants working abroad, in Romania, Ukraine, Russia and Constantinople. An expatriate is someone who has moved to live in another country. Their story is part of the background to the Ioannina Zagori tour.

What does the city of Ioannina bring to an Ioannina Zagori tour?

An Ioannina Zagori tour is named for Ioannina, a city in northwestern Greece. Ioannina is the largest city of Epirus and also its capital. It heads the regional unit around it too. A regional unit is a county-sized part of Greece.

The 2021 census counted 64,896 residents in the city behind the Ioannina Zagori tour. A census is a nationwide headcount, taken by the state. The city lies on the western side of Lake Pamvotis, at a height of about 500 metres. Height is counted from the level of the sea.

Tradition ascribes the city’s foundation to Justinian in the 6th century AD. To ascribe means to credit a person with a deed. Wealthy Byzantine families fled to Ioannina after the 1204 sack of Constantinople. A sack is the capture and looting of a city. Byzantine refers to the empire ruled from Constantinople.

The modern Greek Enlightenment had one of its main centres in Ioannina during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Enlightenment was an age of new ideas. The University of Ioannina started in 1964 and became independent in 1970. This learning past is part of the city named in the Ioannina Zagori tour.

Feta, a white cheese, is a well-known product of the Ioannina region. The area around Ioannina is famous for its spring water from Zagori, sold throughout Greece. Spring water is water that flows naturally out of the ground. Both products belong to the places named in the Ioannina Zagori tour.

• Rainfall: Of the mainland Greek cities with over 50,000 inhabitants, Ioannina is the wettest.
• Sport: Ioannina is home to a major sports team called PAS Giannina.
• Winters: Frosts are frequent in Ioannina, where winters are colder than on the coast.

Until 1867, Ioannina was the administrative centre of the Ioannina Eyalet, a large province. An administrative centre is the place from which an area is run. That past belongs to the city behind the Ioannina Zagori tour.

What do the Pindus mountains bring to an Ioannina Zagori tour?

An Ioannina Zagori tour is linked with the Pindus, a mountain range nicknamed the spine of Greece. The nickname fits because the range stretches from north to south through the Greek mainland. A range is a line of mountains joined together.

A mixed broadleaf forest fills the valleys and canyons of the Pindus at middle and lower heights. Broadleaf trees have wide flat leaves, and a canyon is a deep, steep valley. The highest zone of the range holds conifers, trees with cones, such as the endemic Greek fir. Endemic means native to one area.

The Pindus National Park, also called Valia Kalda, lies north of Metsovo. It was established in 1966. The Vikos-Aoos National Park lies south of Konitsa, in western Zagori. It was created in 1973. Zagori is the region named in the Ioannina Zagori tour. A national park is an area the state protects for nature.

Samarina is a Pindus village with one of the highest elevations in Greece. Elevation means height above sea level. Mountain settlements with long histories and distinctive architecture lie throughout the range. Architecture is the style of buildings. These settlements belong to the mountain world behind the Ioannina Zagori tour.

Sheep were raised by Sarakatsani and Aromanian shepherds in a traditional pastoral economy. A shepherd looks after sheep. A pastoral economy is built on herding animals. The main groups of the Pindus are Epirotes, Roumeliotes and Vlachs. These groups are part of the story behind the Ioannina Zagori tour.

• Wildlife: The Pindus is among the European areas where the rare Dalmatian pelican is found.
• Juniper: Juniper woodlands dominate the Pindus near the timberline, the height above which trees stop growing.
• Peaks: Mount Gramos, Mount Vasilitsa and Tymfi are among the range’s notable mountains.

In the 12th century, John Tzetzes wrote that the range was called Metzovon. That name adds to the long history of the mountains behind the Ioannina Zagori tour. A century is a period of one hundred years.

What does a canyon bring to an Ioannina Zagori tour?

An Ioannina Zagori tour page can start with one plain word: canyon. A canyon is a deep valley with steep rock walls. Canyons get different names by where they sit and how they form. Each name has a clear example.

Not every canyon sits on dry land. Steep-sided valleys on the seabed of the continental slope are called submarine canyons. The continental slope is the sloping ground where the shallow sea floor drops toward the deep ocean. Anyone planning an Ioannina Zagori tour learns the word canyon in a wider sense.

Box canyons are the next kind. A box canyon is a canyon inside mountains, or a gorge open on only one side. A gorge is a narrow, steep-sided valley cut by water. A box canyon has steep walls on three sides. Access is only through its mouth, the open end.

Provo Canyon in Utah and Yosemite Valley in California are examples of mountain-type canyons. Large rivers can run through canyons that formed by gradual geological uplift. Uplift means the land rises slowly over a very long time. An Ioannina Zagori tour reader can use these examples as a simple map.

Frost wedging is a process on canyon walls. Water freezing in rock cracks breaks large chunks off. The Cotahuasi Canyon and Colca Canyon in southern Peru vie for the deepest canyon in the Americas. To vie means to compete for the top place. Deepest means the greatest drop from rim to floor.

• Mars: Valles Marineris on Mars is the largest-known canyon in the Solar System.
• Titan: Vid Flumina on Saturn’s moon Titan is the only known liquid-floored canyon besides Earth’s.
• Greenland: Greenland’s Grand Canyon is located under an ice sheet, a huge layer of ice that covers land.

Kali Gandaki Gorge in midwest Nepal has a 6,400-metre difference between river and peaks. Tara River Canyon, about 1,300 metres deep, is the largest canyon in Europe. These numbers help a reader of an Ioannina Zagori tour judge size.

What does a glacial lake bring to an Ioannina Zagori tour?

An Ioannina Zagori tour can raise one plain question about lakes: what is a glacial lake? It is a body of water with origins in glacier activity. A glacier is a thick mass of ice that moves slowly over land.

Glacial lakes form when a glacier erodes land, then melts and fills the hollow it made. To erode means to wear away. Drumlins, moraines and eskers surround glacial lakes as signs of the glacier. Drumlins are smooth hills, moraines are ridges of loose rock, and eskers are long winding ridges.

Glacial lakes are classified into six kinds, including ice-blocked, moraine-dammed, supraglacial and subglacial. Ice-blocked means blocked by ice, and moraine-dammed means held back by a moraine. Supraglacial means on top of a glacier, and subglacial means below it. The names give an Ioannina Zagori tour reader quick clues.

Suspended minerals in glacial lakes support large algae populations that make the water look green. Suspended means floating in the water, and algae are tiny plant-like living things. Glacial lakes also store fresh water for a region’s supply. They can produce hydropower, which is electricity from moving water.

Earth has lost more than 50% of its glaciers since the Little Ice Age, a cold period. The Southern Tibetan Plateau is expected to see the greatest increase in glacial lake formation. A plateau is raised ground that is level on top. Anyone planning an Ioannina Zagori tour can set these two facts side by side.

• Iceland: Thousands of tourists visit Iceland’s Jökulsárlón, a glacial lagoon, each year.
• Sacred waters: Manasarovar Lake is considered sacred, or holy, in four religions: Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Bon.
• Life in glacial lakes: Biodiversity, the variety of life, tends to be lower here, since only cold-tolerant and cold-adapted species survive.

Hemkund Lake is sacred to Sikhs and Hindus. Facts about glacial lakes cover ice, water, rock, power, life and belief. A reader of an Ioannina Zagori tour page gets plain words for each of these topics.

What does a UNESCO Global Geopark bring to an Ioannina Zagori tour?

An Ioannina Zagori tour can borrow one plain meaning for the word geopark. A geopark is a single, unified area where landscapes of international geological significance are managed. Geological means relating to the rocks and landforms of the Earth.

UNESCO is the United Nations agency for culture, science and education. A UNESCO Global Geopark is certified as meeting the requirements for the Global Geoparks Network, or GGN. Certified means officially confirmed, and a network is a group of linked places. An Ioannina Zagori tour reader can take this as a sign of approval.

The network exists to conserve Earth’s geological heritage and promote sustainable development. To conserve means to protect and keep. Heritage is what earlier ages leave behind for people today. Sustainable development means growth that does not use up what later generations need. An Ioannina Zagori tour page can state this aim in plain words.

A geopark must meet UNESCO criteria, as nominated by its government, before joining the GGN. Criteria are the tests a candidate must pass. One criterion is a management plan designed to foster sustainable socio-economic development. Foster means to help grow, and socio-economic means about people and their money.

China has the largest number of global geoparks of any country. GGN member geoparks are situated on five of the seven continents. A continent is one of Earth’s great land masses. Africa has two UNESCO Global Geoparks: Ngorongoro-Lengai and M’Goun. Such numbers give an Ioannina Zagori tour reader a sense of scale.

• Committee: Criteria are evaluated by the Geoparks Committee, known as the International Conference on Geoparks.
• Partner project: The GGN works closely with another UNESCO project in the Ecological and Earth Sciences Division.
• 2015: In 2015, UNESCO Member States, the countries in UNESCO, formally approved the change to the current name.

The first GGN members were announced at the first International Conference on Geoparks in 2004. Announced here means made known to the public. That year gives an Ioannina Zagori tour page a clear starting point for the network.

What does a voussoir bring to an Ioannina Zagori tour?

An Ioannina Zagori tour gains a useful word in voussoir. A voussoir is a wedge-shaped stone used to build an arch or vault. An arch is a curved structure that spans an opening. A vault is an arched roof.

The keystone is the central stone at the top of an arch. It locks the voussoirs in place. A masonry arch, built from blocks of stone, cannot support itself until its keystone is placed. Anyone who plans an Ioannina Zagori tour can learn the word keystone before the trip begins.

A springer is the lowest voussoir on each side of the arch. It sits where the curve of the arch leaves the wall or the pier. A pier is a solid upright support. Each voussoir passes the thrust, or push, of the stone above down to the springer’s bottom face.

Voussoir arches spread weight well, as in an arch bridge. They do this by using the compressive strength of stone, meaning how well it resists being squeezed. The outer boundary of a voussoir is called the extrados. Words like extrados help a reader prepare for an Ioannina Zagori tour.

Joggled voussoirs have notched edges that lock into the stones beside them. They were first developed in Roman architecture to strengthen the structure. Islamic architects adopted joggled voussoirs to let arches sway in earthquakes and return to position. These ideas make useful background reading before an Ioannina Zagori tour.

• Keystone stress: The keystone carries the least stress of any voussoir because it sits at the apex, the highest point.
• Decay: Old keystones can decay from weathering and vibration, a condition called bald arch.
• Dropped keystone: A dropped keystone projects lower than the other voussoirs in the arch.

Builders of the Great Mosque of Córdoba used voussoirs of alternating brick and stone. Knowing the voussoir, keystone and springer gives a reader three arch words for an Ioannina Zagori tour. Each of these three words names a stone in the arch.

What does slate bring to an Ioannina Zagori tour?

An Ioannina Zagori tour page can use one handy word: slate. Slate is a fine-grained metamorphic rock, meaning one changed by heat and pressure. It splits easily into thin slabs and plates. It comes from a shale-type rock made of clay or volcanic ash.

The way a rock splits is called its cleavage. Slate’s cleavage follows regional compression, which means squeezing across a wide area of rock. It does not follow the sedimentary structures of the original mudrock. Mudrock is hardened mud, and its sedimentary structures are the layers formed as it settled.

Slate occurs in a variety of colors, even from a single locality, which is one particular place. Roofing slate is a type of roof tile that a slater installs. A slater is a trade worker who fits tiles onto roofs. Both facts are plain background for an Ioannina Zagori tour reader.

Water absorption index measures how much water a stone soaks up. Slate has an index of less than 0.4%, which makes it resistant to frost damage. Frost damage is harm done to stone when water inside it freezes. The figure is easy for an Ioannina Zagori tour reader to remember.

Slate booms occurred in Europe from the 1870s until the First World War. A boom is a period of fast growth in a trade. Blaenau Ffestiniog and Bethesda in Wales still have buildings constructed entirely of slate. These facts give an Ioannina Zagori tour reader a wider picture of slate.

• Producer: Spain is the world’s largest producer and exporter of natural slate.
• Game stones: Slate was the traditional choice for black Go stones in Japan, where Go is a board game.
• Switchboards: Slate is a good insulator, which blocks electric current, and is fireproof, so early switchboards used it.

Slate has been used for laboratory bench tops and billiard table tops. A bench top is the flat work surface of a table or counter. These facts give a reader a fuller basis for an Ioannina Zagori tour.

What does the black pine bring to an Ioannina Zagori tour?

An Ioannina Zagori tour gains a useful name in the black pine. Pinus nigra is the scientific name of the European black pine tree. It is a conifer, meaning a tree that bears cones, in the pine family called Pinaceae.

Black pine is native across Southern Europe, from the Iberian Peninsula to the eastern Mediterranean. Native means the tree grows there naturally, without being planted. Greece is one of the Balkan countries listed for the eastern subspecies of black pine. A subspecies is a regional form of a species.

At maturity, meaning when fully grown, the black pine spreads 6 to 12 metres wide. Its bark is grey to yellow-brown and splits into scaly plates. Scaly plates are flat pieces, like the scales of a fish. These size and bark facts are plain notes for an Ioannina Zagori tour reader.

Black pine is light-demanding, meaning the tree needs plenty of light. It is also intolerant of shade, which means it does badly in shadow. It is resistant to wind and to drought, a long spell with very little rain. Facts about light and wind suit the notes of an Ioannina Zagori tour reader.

Black pine is divided into two subspecies, each split into three varieties. A variety is a smaller group inside a subspecies. Black pine can be long-lived, meaning it lives a long time, with trees reaching over 500 years old. Both facts make good notes for an Ioannina Zagori tour reader.

• Timber: Black pine timber, meaning its cut wood, is used for general construction, fuel and paper.
• Street tree: In the United States and Canada, black pine is planted as a street tree.
• Far north: Black pine is planted with success as far north as Edmonton, Alberta.

Black pine seeds are carried by the wind when the cones open, from December to April. A cone is the hard, woody case around the seeds. For a reader of an Ioannina Zagori tour, that seasonal fact rounds out the tree’s story.

What does the European beech bring to an Ioannina Zagori tour?

An Ioannina Zagori tour story about the European beech starts with two plain facts, size and bark. The European beech can grow to a height of more than 40 metres. Its bark is smooth, and its colour is silvery-grey.

Age gives an Ioannina Zagori tour a long story to tell about the European beech tree. Lifespan is the number of years a living thing lasts. Undisturbed, the European beech has a lifespan of 300 years. A tree at the Valle Cervara site was more than 500 years old.

The European beech is native to much of Europe, where it grows in humid climates. Native means that a plant grows in a place by itself. Humid means damp, with plenty of water hanging in the air. A climate is the pattern of weather in a region over a long time.

Around the Mediterranean and Sicily, beech grows only in mountain forests at 600 to 1,800 metres. The tree tolerates varied soil types, so it copes with different kinds of ground. It still requires a humid atmosphere. Facts about height and ground give an Ioannina Zagori tour clear points about the beech.

The beech forests on the UNESCO list comprise 93 component parts across 18 countries. UNESCO is the United Nations agency that looks after world heritage lists. A component part is one piece of the whole listing. That list of beech forests is a fact an Ioannina Zagori tour can share.

• Nuts: Beechnuts, the small nuts of the beech tree, are eaten by both humans and animals.
• Timber: The timber, or cut wood, of the beech is used to make objects and implements, meaning tools.
• Carpentry: Beech wood is particularly well suited to minor carpentry, meaning small woodwork, and furniture.

The native range of the European beech extends north to Sweden, Denmark and Norway. In the Balkans, the tree crosses with the oriental beech, and the hybrid trees have their own name. Such facts place the beech in a wide setting for an Ioannina Zagori tour.

What does the brown bear bring to an Ioannina Zagori tour?

An Ioannina Zagori tour story about the brown bear starts with plain facts about size and colour. Brown bears weigh 80 to 600 kg, with males outweighing females. The brown bear’s fur ranges in colour from cream to reddish to dark brown.

Food is a good topic when an Ioannina Zagori tour page turns to the brown bear. A diet is the set of foods an animal eats. The animal derives 90% of its diet from plants, contrary to popular belief. From summer through autumn, a brown bear can double its spring weight.

The brown bear is a large bear native to Eurasia and North America. Native means the species first lived there, and Eurasia is Europe and Asia joined as one land mass. Throughout its range, the brown bear inhabits mainly forested habitats up to 5,000 metres. A habitat is an animal’s natural home.

In 2010, Europe had 14,000 brown bears in ten fragmented populations. Fragmented means split into separate groups. A population is a group of one kind of animal. In Greece, the brown bear population is around 900 animals. These figures give an Ioannina Zagori tour clear numbers to quote.

The longest-lived brown bear on record was a male named Andreas, living in northern Greece. The brown bear has an average lifespan of 25 years in the wild. Lifespan means the number of years an animal lives. Andreas gives an Ioannina Zagori tour a simple way to talk about age.

• Cubs: Females give birth to an average of one to three cubs, the young of the bear.
• Winter: Both sexes prefer to den, or rest in shelter, in a protected spot during the winter months.
• Status: The brown bear remains listed as a least concern species by the IUCN, a nature conservation group.

The name Ursus arctos comes from the Latin ursus and the Greek arktos, which both mean bear. In Ancient Greek mythology, bears seemed similar to humans because they can stand upright. That Greek link suits an Ioannina Zagori tour.

What does the chamois bring to an Ioannina Zagori tour?

An Ioannina Zagori tour story about the chamois starts with two facts. The chamois is a goat-antelope, a hoofed animal, native to mountainous parts of Europe and Western Asia. A fully grown chamois reaches a height of 70 to 80 cm.

Male chamois weigh 30 to 60 kg and are slightly larger than females. Both male and female chamois have short horns hooked backwards near the tip. Hooked means bent into a curve, like a fish hook. Weight and horns give an Ioannina Zagori tour two easy details about the chamois.

In summer, the chamois has rich brown fur that turns light grey in winter. The chamois lives in rugged, rocky terrain at heights of up to at least 3,600 metres. Terrain is ground, and rugged means rough and uneven. Fur and ground give an Ioannina Zagori tour plain facts.

In Europe the chamois spends summer in alpine meadows, the high grasslands above the tree line. In winter the chamois moves to around 800 metres, into pine-dominated forests. The tree line is the height where trees stop growing. Pine-dominated forests are woods where pine trees are the main trees.

In summer chamois eat highland grasses and herbs, and in winter conifer bark and needles. A conifer is a needle-leaved tree that bears cones, such as a pine. Herbs are soft plants that have no woody stem. Plant food gives an Ioannina Zagori tour a clear topic about the chamois.

• Herds: Female chamois and their young live in herds, or groups, of up to 15 to 30 individuals.
• Gestation: A pregnant chamois has a gestation period of 170 days, which is the span of pregnancy before birth.
• Age: The average recorded age of wild chamois ranges from 15 to 17 years.

The chamois is native to the Dinarides, the Balkan Mountains, the Rila-Rhodope massif and the Pindus. These names are all mountain areas, and a massif is a compact group of mountains. An Ioannina Zagori tour can use them to place the chamois.

What do the Sarakatsani bring to an Ioannina Zagori tour?

An Ioannina Zagori tour carries the story of the Sarakatsani. They are an ethnic Greek population subgroup who were traditionally transhumant shepherds. Transhumant means that herders moved their flocks from one seasonal grazing land to another and back again.

Historically, the Sarakatsani centred on the Pindus mountains and other ranges in continental Greece. Continental Greece means the mainland, where the Pindus is a mountain range. The Sarakatsani speak a northern Greek dialect called Sarakatsanika. A dialect is a regional way of speaking a language. Its words add a voice to an Ioannina Zagori tour story.

The Sarakatsani migration started on the eve of Saint George’s day in April. The eve is the evening before that day. Traditional Sarakatsani settlements stood on or near grazing lands in both summer and winter. Grazing lands are pastures, which means open ground where the flocks feed on grass.

The characteristic dwelling was a domed hut framed of branches and covered with thatch. Thatch is a covering of dried straw or reeds laid over the frame. The floors and walls were plastered with mud and mule dung. The hut gives an Ioannina Zagori tour story a plain image of Sarakatsani homes.

The Sarakatsani settlement cluster, a group of homes, is called a stani. The same term also names a group that shares leased, or rented, land. In the mid-1950s the Sarakatsani in Greece were estimated at 80,000 people. The word stani is worth knowing for an Ioannina Zagori tour story.

• Costume: Decorative stitching, called embroidery, on traditional Sarakatsani costumes resembles the geometric art of pre-classical Greece.
• Ritual: Easter week is the key ritual period in Sarakatsani religious life.
• Heritage: Sarakatsani settlements, dress and costumes make them a distinct social and cultural group within Greek heritage.

Small communities of Sarakatsani still live in southern Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria. So the Sarakatsani story told for an Ioannina Zagori tour is not only about the past. That story lives on today in three countries.

Beside an Ioannina Zagori tour, which four questions get brief answers?

An Ioannina Zagori tour raises four questions about a lake, a tribal community, a battle and a mountain. The answers below cover Lake Pamvotida, the Souliotes, the Battle of Bizani and Mount Smolikas in plain words. Each answer is short, plain and clear.

Before an Ioannina Zagori tour, what is Lake Pamvotida?

Lake Pamvotida ranks as the biggest lake in Epirus. It lies in the central part of the Ioannina regional unit, the district around the city. The lake has no surface outflow. Karstic sinkholes, holes in dissolving rock, drain it towards the rivers Arachthos, Louros and Kalamas. The tsima fish lives only there.

Behind an Ioannina Zagori tour, who were the Souliotes?

The Souliotes were a tribal community of the Souli area. The community lasted from the 16th century until the early 1800s. In the mountains of Epirus, they formed a self-governing alliance and resisted Ottoman rule. When the Greek War of Independence broke out, they were among the first to take up arms.

On an Ioannina Zagori tour, what was the Battle of Bizani?

Greek and Ottoman forces fought the Battle of Bizani in the last stages of the First Balkan War. The fighting revolved around the forts of Bizani, which covered the approaches, or ways in, to Ioannina. In the battle, the Ottoman positions were breached, or broken through, and Ioannina was taken.

Near an Ioannina Zagori tour, what is Mount Smolikas?

Smolikas is the highest mountain of the Pindus, a long range that runs through mainland Greece. In all of Greece, only Mount Olympus rises higher. Smolikas consists of ophiolite, a rock that began as ocean floor. A small high-mountain lake called Drakolimni Smolika lies near the summit.