Travel Secrets
Valia Calda: Exploring the precious National Park of the region of Pindos
One of the most amazing National Parks in Greece claims your visit and your utmost admiration.
The National Park of Pindos constitutes one of the most significant natural habitats of the country, located at the northern and most isolated corner of mountainous Pindos, very close to the boundary of West Macedonia and Epiros.
The park constitutes a protected area and plots over 68.900 acres in total, thus, spreading a magnificent flora between the cities of Ioannina and Grevena.
The largest part of the National Park of Pindos is also called “Valia Calda” which in English translates to warm valley. Valia Calda represents the most fascinating part of the national park and it took its name from the extreme fluctuation in its temperature during a 24 hour slot, ranging from very high temperatures during the day to very low ones at night.
A walk through its radiant natural surroundings will impress you to maximum.
You will find it hard to forget the perpetual streaming of the unique images that the National Park of Pindos offers. Feast your eyes to its plethora of morphological characteristics and its vast and rare fauna which has found its ideal natural habitat among the rushing streams, the mountain lakes and the huge steep cliffs of the whole scenery.
Most of the Valia Calda is characterized by a dense forest of European black pine as well as of common beech with a specific light-grey trunk and it also hosts a population of the Eurasian brown bear which seems to have found a home in its rich environment.
You will be amazed by the extensive range of trees -some of which are more than 700 years old-, its many types of bushes, its 415 different types of plants and the numerous species of mushroom.
The National Park of Pindos was established in 1966 and constitutes an admirable example of mountainous biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, protected ever since through the initiative of the European Union. If you do visit it, do not omit to fill up your lungs with as much of its precious fresh air as you can...
