The Northwest

Pindos Mts. National Park

This National Park, also known as Valia Kalda, which covers 22,661 acres (6930 hectares), may be the least known and least visited of any National Park in all of Europe.

Nor are there any facilities for visitors there, hence attracting those interested in real wilderness.

It is located in the northeastern Pindos mountains and is not near any of the large main roads.

The best road approaches it from the north, from the village of Perivoli (which has a hotel) and there is also a dirt road coming in from the west, from the west side of the Katara Pass off a side road near Milia, though not sign-posted.

The park is, for the most part, a large wooded valley encircled by peaks, all over 2000 meters (6560 feet).

There are many kinds of pines in its extensive forests: most black pine, but also Balkan pine (at higher altitudes), and some Scots pines, which are very rare in Greece.

There is also some beech on north-facing slopes. Other trees, though there are far less of them, include Greek whitebeam and different kinds of maples.

Also Serpentine, like Mt. Smolikas, it also offers good habitat for special plants which only grow in the northern Pindos range and close to it, many of them flowering plants.

Almost eighty species of birds around found here as well, including the Imperial, golden, and short-toed eagles, lanner falcons, Egyptian vulture, and quite a few species of breeding woodpeckers.

This is also one of the areas where bears, wolves, and wild cats are found, as well as red squirrels, wild boar, roe deer, beech martens, and otters (these last along the streams). A large variety of reptiles, amphibians, and insects, complete the picture.