This weekend I had a couple mind blowing days exploring the mountains a few hours east of me called Vikos. Needless to say, all expectations were greatly exceeded!
I stayed in the beautiful village of Konitsa, where I soon realized the main residents were spring flowers
Views so good even the dogs were dancing
I started off with an amazing hike up this river valley
The end goal was this monastery up on a cliff
Did Matteo cross the super sketchy bridge he found???
No… no he did not. Well, maybe he went about half way until the wobbles made him reconsider his life goals…
The people of the Balkan mountains evidently had a passion for building these amazing stone arch bridges because you see them all over.
They also make cool shadows, that dot you see at the top was my best selfie of the day
Another thing I loved about Vikos were the dozens of amazing stone villages you find scattered around which are all UNESCO
Not sure how the roofs actually stay together but they sure look cool
Then I explored an amazing gorge area called Papingo rocks
This is the biggest valley in the range which sets the world record for the ratio between how tall and narrow it gets at the peak
The aptly named stone forest
Don’t ask me what this is, my best guess is some kind of nature pretzel…
Then I hiked to another monastery on the edge of a cliff
It was at this point that I got lucky and heard some voices coming from up on the cliff. I then found my way past a closed gate to a hidden staircase I which turned out to be the best decision I made all day. It led to an absolutely unreal path on the edge of the 3,000 ft cliff…
It ended at an amazing viewpoint
I was already on cloud 9 but then to my disbelief, I peered around a corner and realized the cliff walk was not exactly over yet… Sorry mom!
Then it just kept going, and going… The adrenaline was pumping and I was laughing hysterically.
Then when I thought I had seen it all, I came across a gate to Narnia…
Don’t ask me who was crazy enough to build this but luckily the door was unlocked because the adventure was not over yet
The path kept going pretty far along the cliff and there were more old ruins along the whole route. This was the view looking back on the “trail”
As you would imagine the stoke level was at an all time high
Made it back safely in time for some alpenglow on the range. Thank you Vikos!
Where's Matteo 
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