Where to stay in Zagori

Zagori is a region rather than a place: forty-six villages scattered across the Pindus mountains north of Ioannina, built of grey stone with slate roofs. So the where-to-stay question here is not which hotel, it is which village, and the roads between them are narrow and winding, so the answer shapes every day of the trip.

Papingo and Mikro Papingo, under the Astraka towers. The best known and the busiest, which is both the recommendation and the warning. They sit under the most dramatic rock faces in the region and they are where most visitors head, so you get the setting and the company at once.

Monodendri, if the gorge is the point. It sits at the southern end of the Vikos through-walk and near the Oxya viewpoint. Basing here puts you at a trailhead rather than a drive from one, which matters if you intend an early start on a four-to-five-hour mountain route.

Vitsa, Dilofo, Kapesovo, Vradeto and Tsepelovo. The others people name, and the pleasure of Zagori is that they are all worth an hour. Any of them works as a base, and the quieter ones are quieter precisely because they are not Papingo.

Vradeto, and the thing to see from it. The Vradeto steps, a zigzag stone staircase up a cliff, were the only way into that village until the 1970s. It is the single most impressive piece of engineering in the region and it is on the doorstep if you sleep up there.

How to choose between them, honestly. If this is a first visit and you want the famous view, Papingo. If it is a walking trip, base at the end of the route you intend to walk. If you want the region rather than a highlight, pick any of the others and let the days find you.

What the region asks of you, whichever you pick. A car is essential, the roads are narrow and winding, and in winter they can be snowbound. Zagori is reached from Ioannina, half an hour to the nearest villages and more to the far ones, so the village you choose really is the one you will use most.

How long. Three nights minimum, and people who walk stay a week. That is the hub’s own sizing and it is right: a region of forty-six villages punishes a two-night visit.

Before you commit to the through-walk. Monodendri to Vikos village is roughly six hours across rough ground with a serious descent and ascent. It is a mountain route, not a stroll, and people are helicoptered out of it every season. We describe the ground rather than certify it: this is remote terrain with no phone signal in the bottom of the canyon. Things to do covers it in full and hiking in Greece is the country picture.

We name no hotel on this page. Properties in a region of forty-six small villages change hands, and the site’s venue standard needs two independent platforms and a review floor Zagori does not clear. What lasts is the villages and the roads between them. Our Zagori guide has the practicalities.