How to get to Litochoro
We went by train from Thessaloniki to Litochoroa small town at the foot of Mount Olympus. This was our first attempt to get from A to B by public transport in Greece and it turned out to be a little adventure.
The train station of Litochoro is about 6 km outside of the village and there are no buses to the center. You can either call a cab or walk 2 km to the nearest bus stop. We decided for the latter. At 31°C we walked along the road until we reached the bus stop.
But there was neither a timetable, nor could we find any information on the Internet that there was even a bus stopping at this station. But we just waited. I did a little more research and found out that there is apparently a bus that goes to Litochoro from another town and could pass our bus stop on its route. And after another 10 minutes of waiting it really did. A bus turned onto our road and picked us up at the bus stop.
We just got on the bus and paid for the trip to Litochoro, when we heard siren sounds that seemed to come out of our backpacks. And indeed, we both received a warning on our cell phones that the number of infections has increased significantly in the Pieria regional district where Litochoro is located, among others, and that it is now necessary to wear a mask everywhere in public places:
Also our landlady of the accommodation informed us about it and said that this was only decided the day before and should continue for the next two weeks. We didn't mind because we had already gotten used to the mask and for us it didn't make much difference to wear it not only in rooms or in buses.
On the day of arrival we wanted to go shopping after checking in and stock up for the next few days, but we were on our way just at siesta time and all stores were closed. But since we were very hungry, we sat down in a restaurant in the center of town and ate delicious souvlaki!
Hiking around Olympus
The next two days we spent with beautiful hikes in the mountains around Olympus. First we went up a dried out river - we just climbed along the rocks and found the water at some point.
On the second day we had a bigger hike, this time we walked up an officially signposted hiking trail, which was quite a challenge. On the way we took advantage of the small breathing breaks to enjoy the view of the mountains and the sea. In between we passed small waterfalls, where we also had two longer breaks. At the second waterfall we were completely on our own and we cooled down in the icy cold water. Afterwards we could let the sun dry us
In the meantime we have also thought about climbing the highest peak of Olympus (Mytikas, 2.918 m). However, this would only have made sense in several stages spread over a few days (because Litochoro is at 290 m), during which it's necessary also to sleep in mountain huts in between. We didn't have the right equipment for that and we didn't want to carry our big backpacks. Since we liked the landscape there so much, we can imagine to travel to the region again just for that.
We love the mountains and the sea and when both are close together, it is a perfect destination for us. The time in the mountains was wonderful, but we did not want to see the sea only from above anymore.
Therefore we decided afterwards to spend two nights in the village Leptokarya direkt am Meer zu verbringen.
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