Rising over a kilometer up into the skies on the north side of the Gulf of Corinth and ringed by peaks, there’s a dreamy, evergreen-clad escape. Stone buildings cling to steep slopes. 4×4’s roll leisurely by, but no one is in a hurry here, unless they’re flying through the forests on a mountain bike. The air is sweet with the scent of evergreens. The village gently slopes toward its charming center, home to a small schoolhouse-turned-museum, a church, a couple of cozy cafés and tavernas, and some very very nice places to stay. 

Ano Chora is not one of Greece’s better-known mountain towns, and it’s all the sweeter for it. There are no boutiques or flashy cafes, just the places where the local community gathers to enjoy a coffee or a meal. The town is very welcoming to visitors (lots of them here for hiking and biking), but manages to retain its local identity. Many of those who do find their way up here become regulars, returning weekend after weekend. Ano Chora is easy enough to reach; the road is quite good, and you won’t need a 4×4 when there’s no snow. But few roads twist and turn quite like this one.

The “new” forests of Ano Chora

The first thing that strikes you in Ano Chora (meaning the “upper town” of Nafpaktos) is the emerald mountains, covered densely in firs, the breezes sweet with their scent. It feels as though they’ve been here forever, but they are surprisingly recent. Among the many displays in the charming and compact museum, there are several black and white photographs of the town as it once was. Andreas Papaioannidis, owner of the Crystal Mountain Hotel and volunteer curator of the museum, points out the mountains in the photos – they’re completely bare: “Before the 1950’s, when people started emigrating – mainly to the US – we had two and half thousand people here. The mountains were a precious resource that gave us timber to make charcoal. Families would build special furnaces to turn the timber into charcoal, which they then sold to the railroad. It was a profitable business. And we also terraced some areas to create fields for potatoes. We can grow delicious potatoes here – they love the high altitude and the cool temperatures.” 

Out on the trails, one path leads into the Enchanted Black Forest – named for its thick canopy, formed by fir trees stretching skyward for sun, leaving the lower trunks bare. As ancient as it may feel, it’s reassuring that nature was able to create it in just a few decades. (As for the enchanted part, Andreas points out a tree that looks like something from the Lord of the Rings: “Fir trees usually have just one peak. But that one over there for some reason developed with seven peaks instead, so according to legend the witch ‘Slava’ used to live there.”)

The Mountain Paths

You can spend all weekend or simply an hour or two hiking through the forests around Ano Chora. There are nearly a dozen excellent hiking and biking paths that can be taken on their own or combined for a longer hike or ride. All are color-marked, and many of them are interconnected. The Path of the Deer, which winds through the Black Enchanted Forest, and the Path of the Orchids together make a good combination for an orchid-spotting walk in spring and early summer, their peak season. It is a hike of perhaps an hour, finding and photographing a few orchids included. Remember: orchids in Greece are protected – admire, photograph, but never pick.

Some of the trails begin near a shady spot with several picnic tables by the church of Agia Paraskevi, just outside the village. The parking area is also nearby. Make sure to plan accordingly for a perfect day out in the woods.

Kravara: Adrenaline among the firs

Kravara is the old name for all of these surrounding peaks, still used by locals. You’ll see plenty of mountain bikes on the racks of 4x4s or out in the woods. A local crew of volunteers, led by George Kaltsis and including Dimitris Papadimitriou of the Petrina hotel, has charted and built an impressive network of trails. The Kravara Bike Park consists of about 30 km of hiking and biking trails in total. The trails themselves range from under a kilometer to nearly 3km and are ranked by difficulty. The drop in altitude is also clearly marked for each descent. You’ll find a ramp or two also, along with lots of excellent rides for every level of experience among the dense firs. One of the paths descends almost 400m, but bike shuttles are available to get you to the starting points. Each year in late August, the forest paths around Ano Chora buzz with even more activity for the annual Nafpaktia Mountain Cycling races. The 2025 races are scheduled for the 30th and 31st of August.

The Mountain Paths

The Kravara Bike Park site has info and videos for each of the trails, plus links for places to stay and for bike transport. Hikers have even more choice: Kravara Park, which includes the bike park and additional trails, features over 90 kilometers of hiking paths, all clearly marked by difficulty and color, and all built with love by local enthusiasts like Andreas and Dimitris. 

This user-created  map of Kravara Park includes most of them.

MTBike Uplift

kravarabikepark.com or FB KravaraBikePark, Tel. (+30) 697.321.1146