Exploring Parnitha & The Tatoi Estate

With nothing planned for Saturday (for once!) and sunny skies overhead, I decided to plan an afternoon escape from the city.  As it still felt a bit too early for a dip in the sea, I called up a friend and made a quick decision to head north to Mount Parnitha. We loaded our bicycles on the back of the car and drove the quick 30minutes on the national road.

 

Parnitha is a forested mountain range north of Athens, the highest on the Attica peninsula, with an elevation of 1400m. It has something for all nature lovers: endless forest, walking trails, off-road bicycle trails, picnic areas, etc. There are several ways in once you get to the area, with parking lots and maps posted. On this day, there were numerous other families and groups enjoying the day.

 

Parnitha is the location of the Tatoi estate. Tatoi was the summer home and 10,000 acre estate of the former Greek royal family, and the birthplace of King George II of Greece. You can walk around and see the old buildings of the estate. These are all derelict now, and in need of some attention – but you can get a bit of a sense of ‘the past’ from your visit.

There is a great history of the estate written by Kostas Stamatopoulos, here: http://www.tatoi.org/?page_id=69 (scroll to the bottom of the page for English).

 

Parnitha is also the location of the popular Regency Casino, accessible by cable car/teleferik. As our day was about exercising our bodies vs exercising our luck, we did not visit the casino on this trip, but made a mental note to come back ;)

 

I would describe the section of Parnitha that we visited as ‘rough and wild’ vs ‘groomed and cultivated’. Of course, we didn't see the whole area in one afternoon, but it certainly felt like a nice escape from the city, some good exercise and some fresh mountain air. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

 

Until next week,

 

Jack

 

 

Parnitha Visitor Overview

 

Tatoi Info (in Greek, some English):

www.tatoi.org

 

Regency Casino