A Metsovo tour climbs into the Pindus to the stone town of Metsovo, with its museums and benefactors, its smoked cheese and the forests of the national park around it. The tour is one of the Greece Tours on Greece Ville, listed with the other Epirus tours.
This post covers the formats on sale, the town and its history, Tositsas and Averoff, the Aromanians, the food and Metsovone cheese, the Pindus National Park, Vovousa and the questions that come up before booking.
What does a Metsovo tour visit in the mountains of Epirus?
A Metsovo tour visits a mountain town of Epirus in the Pindus range, set between Ioannina to the west and Meteora to the east. Stops cover the old quarter, its museums and galleries, the central square and the forests on the surrounding slopes.
Metsovo serves as a regional hub for small villages and settlements in the Pindus. The town holds shops, schools, offices, services, museums and galleries, and its economy rests on agriculture and tourism.
Tourism in Metsovo flourishes in winter. The Metsovo Ski Centre lies not far from the centre of the town, so a winter Metsovo tour can pair the old quarter with the ski runs nearby.
Two collections anchor the museum stops. The Averoff Gallery shows Greek art, and the Metsovo Folk Art Museum keeps The Stoning of Stephen, a copy of a work by Damaskinos painted by Philotheos Skoufos.
Across the Pindus, the forests fall into two zones. A conifer zone with Austrian pine and the endemic Greek fir covers the high ground, and a mixed broadleaf forest fills the valleys.
- Location: Metsovo lies in Epirus, in the Pindus mountains of northern Greece.
- Old name: Up to the 19th century, folk speech called the central Pindus range the mountains of Metsovo.
- Wildlife: Wolves, jackals and bears live in the Pindus forests.
- Dance: The Metsovitikos is a local folk dance from Metsovo.
A Metsovo tour links the museums, the square and the forest edge in one route. Day trips to the Valia Calda park form a separate format, listed in the next section.
Which Metsovo tour formats are on sale, and where do they start?
A Metsovo tour comes in six formats: a full-day excursion, a private food, culture and wine walk, an off-road and cooking day from Ioannina, a multi-day Meteora and Pindus tour from Athens, a Valia Calda park visit and Lefkada departures.
The first format is a full-day excursion to Metsovo. The town is the single focus of this outing, so a Metsovo tour of this kind stays inside one mountain setting from start to finish.
The second format is a private walking tour on food, culture and wine tasting inside Metsovo. The group crosses the town on foot, with cultural stops between the tastings.
Two formats head for Valia Calda. One is a private off-road and cooking tour from Ioannina; the other is a national park tour that takes in Metsovo and the Aoos springs.
Two formats pair a Metsovo tour with Meteora. A multi-day tour from Athens crosses Meteora and the Pindos mountains, and a private full-day tour from Lefkada covers Meteora and Metsovo.
- Private groups: The walking tour, the off-road day and the Lefkada tour are all private formats.
- Ioannina start: The off-road and cooking day sets out from Ioannina, west of Metsovo.
- Athens start: The multi-day tour from Athens links Meteora with the Pindos mountains.
- Park visit: The Valia Calda tour lists Metsovo and the Aoos springs in its title.
Travellers based in the north can compare a Meteora day trip from Thessaloniki. The tour cards and availability boxes on this page list live dates for each format.
What does a Metsovo tour show of the town and its mountain setting?
A Metsovo tour shows a mountain town in the valley of the Metsovitikos river, once the main passage between Epirus, Macedonia and Thessaly. The town gathers around a central square, and the village of Anilio, also called Prosilio, stands opposite it.
The Metsovitikos is one of the primary tributaries of the Arachthos. Its basin forms a long, narrow gorge inside a closed circle of mountains, with the Politsia plateau to the west and north.
The peaks of Zygos close the gorge on the east side. At Tria Chania the river turns south into a wider valley, and the settlements along this course make up the Municipality of Metsovo.
Administrative documents of the 18th century call Metsovo itself the chora and the other villages the mahalades. The centremost part of town, where the central square stands today, was once the neighbourhood of Flokas.
A Metsovo tour also passes church ground. Monasteries stood in the area as early as the 14th century, and in the 18th century the Flokas family donated land to the churches and monasteries around Metsovo.
- Climate: The town has a temperate climate with snowy winters and pleasant summers.
- Tunnel: A nearby tunnel from the 1980s was the longest in Greece when built.
- Road: Greek National Road 6 between Ioannina and Trikala serves the town.
- Area: The community of Metsovo covers 101.908 square kilometres.
At Baltouma, the Metsovitikos joins the waters of the Vardas and Zagoritikos, rivers that spring in Eastern and Central Zagori. Zagori tours cover that district, while a Metsovo tour keeps to the upper valley.
What history does a Metsovo tour cover, from Ottoman privileges to 1912?
A Metsovo tour covers a town that came under Ottoman rule in the 15th century and gained special privileges in the mid-17th century. Local residents guarded the mountain passes in return, and Greek troops took the town in October 1912.
Metsovo came under Ottoman rule in the 15th century and joined the Sanjak of Ioannina. Records of the Karye-iMiçova tax district list six settlements, and the 1506 census names eight.
From the mid-17th century, residents of the Metsovo region paid one lump sum each year in place of the regular and extra taxes. In return, they guarded the local mountain passes and served travellers.
In theory, the tax regime did not grant self-government, but in practice the exemptions worked as self-rule. Oral tradition credits the chief shepherd Kyriakos Flokas with winning the privileges in 1659.
After 1659, the area left the bishopric of Stagoi and became its own exarchate. Metsovite merchants traded in Constantinople, Bucharest and Vienna, and by the 19th century reached Moscow, Cairo, Malta, Livorno and Trieste.
- Revolt of 1854: Ottoman troops and the men of Theodoros Grivas both plundered the town.
- Balkan War: Raiding bands burnt Metsovo during the First Balkan War.
- 31 October 1912: Greek troops, rebels from Epirus and volunteers from Metsovo attacked the Turkish garrison.
- Surrender: The garrison of 205 soldiers and two cannons raised a white flag and surrendered.
A Metsovo tour visits a town that named a province of the Ioannina Prefecture until 2006. Since the 2011 reform, the municipality of Metsovo joins three former municipalities.
Which benefactors does a Metsovo tour recall, starting with Michael Tositsas?
A Metsovo tour recalls Michael Tositsas, born in the town in about 1787, along with Eleni Tositsa, Nikolaos Stournaras and George Averoff. All four were born in Metsovo and gave large sums to schools and charities in Greece and Egypt.
In 1806, Michael Tositsas took over his father’s fur shop in Thessaloniki with his brothers. He sent his brothers to open a branch in Egypt, while he opened branches in Livorno and Malta.
Mohammed Ali, the Prince Regent of Egypt, made him a personal advisor and put him at the helm of the first state bank. Tositsas also served as Greece’s first General Consul in Alexandria.
Tositsas moved to Athens in 1854 and died there in 1856. His will left large sums for the poor, hospitals, churches and schools, and a Metsovo tour finds his charity in his birthplace too.
Eleni Tositsa, born in Metsovo in 1796, married Michael in 1818. After his death she founded a girls’ school in Metsovo and gave a plot in Athens for the National Metsovio Technical University.
- Nikolaos Stournaras: A nephew of Tositsas, he left sums for the schools of Metsovo.
- George Averoff: Born in Metsovo in 1815, he became the biggest merchant in Egypt.
- Metsovio: The Athens Polytechnic carries the name Metsovio after the hometown of its benefactors.
- Logbook: A record of benefactors’ wills was destroyed in 1854, redrafted, and destroyed again in 1941.
A Metsovo tour meets this legacy in the town’s schools and foundations, and the next section follows the last benefactor in that line, Evangelos Averoff.
How does a Metsovo tour present Evangelos Averoff and the Averoff Gallery?
A Metsovo tour presents Evangelos Averoff as the last of a long line of local benefactors. He ran the Foundation of Baron Michael Tositsas for 40 years and built a gallery in Metsovo for his collection of Greek paintings.
Evangelos Averoff was born in Trikala on 17 April 1910 and died in Athens on 2 January 1990. He led New Democracy from 1981 to 1984 and served as Foreign Minister from 1956 to 1963.
Averoff played a leading role in founding the Foundation of Baron Michael Tositsas. To meet the wish of the baron that the president bear his family name, he added Tossizza to his surname.
The Averoff Gallery, a Metsovo tour stop also known as the Averof Art Gallery of Metsovo, was built in 1985 and inaugurated in 1988. A new wing followed in 1994.
Averoff also invested in local vineyards, bringing abandoned land back into cultivation and creating a contemporary winery. After his death in 1990, the people of Metsovo placed his statue in the central square.
- Collection: The initial collection held 200 paintings and sculptures by Greek artists.
- Dedication: The Averoff Gallery is dedicated to Georgios Averoff, the benefactor born in 1815.
- Corfu: In 1940 he became Prefect of Kerkyra, the island of Corfu.
- Author: His books include Fire and Axe, a work on the Greek Civil War.
A Metsovo tour that stops at the gallery and the central square covers both sides of his legacy, the art collection and the statue raised by the town.
Who are the Aromanians a Metsovo tour meets in the town?
A Metsovo tour meets the Aromanians, known in Greece as Vlachs. They are an ethnic group native to the southern Balkans. Their language, Aromanian, is an Eastern Romance language close to Romanian, and cultural festivals in Metsovo draw over 40,000 participants.
The name Aromanian comes from the Latin Romanus, meaning Roman citizen. The people call themselves Armãn or Rrãmãn, depending on their dialect group. Vlach, by contrast, is an exonym used since medieval times.
The German scholar Thede Kahl divides the Aromanians into two main groups. One subgroup, the Pindeans, is concentrated in and around the Pindus Mountains of northern and central Greece, the range that holds Metsovo.
Aromanian shares morphology, syntax and a large Latin vocabulary with modern Romanian. Romanian took more from the Slavic languages, while Aromanian took more from Greek, its close neighbour throughout its history.
A 2018 estimate counted 210,000 native speakers, 50,000 in Greece. There, the Aromanians count as a linguistic minority, not an ethnic one. Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University has offered Koutsovlach courses since 1994.
- Music: Polyphonic music is common among the Aromanians and follows a shared set of rules.
- Faith: The Aromanians are mainly Orthodox Christians and follow the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar.
- Dress: The community claims the fustanella as its ethnic costume.
- Song: The traditional Aromanian song From Metsovo to Milea names the town in its title.
A Metsovo tour passes through the town where, in 1998, President Konstantinos Stephanopoulos called on Vlachs to speak and teach their language.
What food and cheese does a Metsovo tour taste in the town?
A Metsovo tour tastes Metsovone, a semi-hard smoked pasta filata cheese made in this Epirus town. Metsovo is known for Metsovela and other local cheeses as well, and for its winemaking industries. Agriculture and tourism dominate the local economy.
A large share of the cheese from Metsovo comes from the Tositsa Foundation Cheese Factory, in operation since 1958. Beside Metsovone and Metsovela, the town also produces other types such as Graviera.
A Metsovo tour with a food focus meets typical Metsovite dishes: kontosouvli and sausages, pies with vegetables and mushrooms, and bean soup, all of which pair with local wine.
Aromanian cuisine, the wider tradition behind these dishes, is strongly influenced by Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking. The Metsovone record itself describes Metsovo as an Aromanian village, set in the Pindus mountains of Epirus.
Metsovo has a temperate climate with snowy winters. Precipitation stays high all year, with a drying trend in summer. The Metsovo Ski Centre lies a short distance from the town centre.
- Milk: Metsovone uses cow’s milk alone or a mix of cow milk with sheep or goat milk.
- Status: The cheese has been a European protected designation of origin since 1996.
- Batzina: The Aromanian pie Batzina is popular in the area of Aspropotamos, outside Metsovo.
- Season: Tourism in Metsovo flourishes in winter, when the town works as a ski resort.
A Metsovo tour focused on food meets the Tositsa name on the cheese factory. Michael Tositsas and Eleni Tositsa appear among the benefactors from the town.
What forests and wildlife does a Metsovo tour find in Valia Calda?
A Metsovo tour into Valia Calda, the Warm Valley in Aromanian, enters the Pindus National Park. The park covers 6,927 hectares of black pine and beech forest, rocky ridges, rapid streams and mountain lakes, and it shelters brown bears.
Black pine and beech cover the lower and middle slopes, from 1,000 to 1,600 metres, and include trees over 700 years old. Bosnian pine dominates from 1,600 to 1,900 metres.
Above 1,900 metres, only certain bushes grow in treeless alpine meadows. In total, 415 types of plants and 86 species of mushroom are recorded, and the serpentine rock supports a specialised range of plants.
The park is one of three areas in Greece with a population of Eurasian brown bears, and the region is also called the bear park. Lynxes, roe deer, wildcats, wolves and wild boars also live there.
The 3,360 hectare core zone is a European Council biogenetic reserve. Woodcutting, grazing, hunting, fishing and car access are prohibited there. Since 2003 the Northern Pindus Management Body has managed the park.
- Peaks: Avgo rises to 2,177 metres, with Kakoplevri close behind at 2,160 metres.
- Birds: Over 80 bird species find shelter here, including the golden eagle.
- Woodpeckers: Eight types of woodpecker live in the mature forests, among them the black woodpecker.
- Rules: A Metsovo tour leaves the core before sunset, since camping and staying there after dark are prohibited.
No settlements or facilities lie inside the park. Meteora lies east of Metsovo, and tours on sale pair the two places; a Meteora sunset tour covers that end of the route.
What does a Metsovo tour find at Vovousa and the upper Aoos?
A Metsovo tour that follows the upper Aoos reaches Vovousa, a Zagori village on the river near the Valia Calda park. The Aoos rises in the Pindus close to Vovousa and runs about 272 kilometres before it reaches the Adriatic Sea.
Vovousa lies in the Ioannina regional unit. Since 2011 it has formed a municipal unit of Zagori, covering 51.029 square kilometres. It is one of the original Zagori villages, with 132 residents in 2021.
Vovousa sits on the river and is one of the easternmost villages of Zagori. Its single-arched stone bridge of Misios dates from 1748 and was paid for by Alexis Mitsios from Vitsa.
Vovousa is an Aromanian speaking village. In the early 21st century, elderly residents spoke Aromanian alongside Greek, while residents under 40 did not use it. Sarakatsani, Greek speakers, settled there in the early 20th century.
Near its source, an artificial lake lies at 1,350 metres, held by a hydroelectric dam in place since 1987. The river then flows through the canyons of Vikos–Aoös National Park and through Konitsa.
- Name: In Aromanian, both the river and the village are called Băiasa.
- Ancient name: Aoos, the ancient name of the river, survives in the forms Voosa and Vovousa.
- Course: The first 80 kilometres of the river lie in Greece and the remaining 192 kilometres in Albania.
- History: A Metsovo tour reaches a village that the Germans burnt on 23 October 1943.
The park near Vovousa spans Epirus and West Macedonia. Kastoria, a city in Western Macedonia, carries the Aromanian name Kusturea, and a Kastoria tour follows that thread.
What do travellers ask about a Metsovo tour?
A Metsovo tour raises four recurring questions. Travellers ask whether a food and wine walk is on sale, whether a Valia Calda format exists, what Metsovone is, and which people traditionally live in the town. The answers below draw on listings and records.
Is a food and wine walking Metsovo tour on sale?
Yes. A private walking Metsovo tour on sale combines food, culture and wine tasting in the town. Metsovo is known for local cheeses such as Metsovone and Metsovela, and for its winemaking industries. Other formats on sale pair Metsovo with Meteora or with the Pindos mountains.
Is there a Metsovo tour into Valia Calda?
Yes. One private format runs from Ioannina into Valia Calda by off-road vehicle and adds a cooking session. A second listing covers the Valia Calda National Park together with Metsovo and the Aoos springs. Car access is prohibited in the park core, along with hunting and fishing.
What is Metsovone, the cheese of a Metsovo tour?
Metsovone is a semi-hard smoked pasta filata cheese from Metsovo in Epirus. It is made from cow’s milk or from a mix of cow milk with sheep or goat milk. The Tositsa Foundation Cheese Factory produces it, and it has been a European protected designation of origin since 1996.
Which people traditionally live in the town a Metsovo tour visits?
The town is home to Aromanians, also known as Vlachs, who speak an Eastern Romance language close to Romanian. Records describe a Greek and Aromanian population across the Northern Pindus, and the Aromanian cultural festivals held in Metsovo are the largest such gatherings in the world.