A freezing night, a stone forest and the world's deepest canyon! 9/4-2013

It is off season for the hotels in Monodendri, when I woke up this morning it was freezing in the room, I had two thick blankets over me and was freezing my ass off.

While I thought the hosts of Hotel Ladias was among the nicest ones I've had so far my experience at their hotel was dragged down by a few things. Firstly they turned on and off the radiators, most likely to save power costs, and that's why it was so cold this morning. The breakfast was excellent but since they seem hellbent on saving power they hardly had heating in the main restaurant either nor decent light, in my part of the hotel ( a separate building to the restaurant ) as soon as you left your room the lounge and corridor was freezing cold and not particularly inviting to use. Their wifi was horrible as well, in went up and down and I had to try and find a sweet spot in my room to use it at all, lastly their was some type of insects that got into my room - I caught 6 small bugs.

But again, the hosts was great, the breakfast was very generous and in all fairness should they have fixed the heating so you felt more welcome and get rid of the bugs it would have been at the top of my hotel list so far.

I got the lovely cheese pie for breakfast among many other delicious things!

I had planned to visit the Vikos gorge while on this visit high up in the Greek mountains, my hosts suggested a shortcut through the forest and even tho it was early spring here and leaves and whatnot hadn't shown their faces yet it was a beautiful, healthy nature that hugged me as I trekked through the woods.

On my way to the Gorge I passed through the Stone forest, it was similar to the pictures above with less trees, some parts looked like someone put a keg of dynamite in the middle of the rocks and just let everything fall as it wanted after the explosion.

After that I came to the Vikos gorge, as I walk towards it I shot video and you can hear on the video that I am scared of heights... It is the world's deepest gorge, see the wiki link up above.

It was a tiny path of like 1,5 meters without any fence or protection against certain death!!!
A tiny wall protected my lower legs at the designated "view spot".

Despite my terror it was a truly impressive place, massive is the word your are looking for.

After that I went back and took the hotels advice on where to eat, the town on Monodendri is really beautiful and I can see myself going there during summer at some point.

Piglet boiled in wine with fries and a Mythos beer, I also got a oven baked apple with liqueur and whipped cream as a complimentary desert, good food, the restaurant was called Frosa's pies.