Mount Olympus

The Olympus massif rises alone from the plains and hills of north-east Greece, at its heart a vast cauldron circled by a dramatic ridge of rocky summits, which peaks at the saw-toothed Mitikas.

Mount Olympus is famous as the home of the gods of ancient Greece, in all their power, beauty and iniquity. They feasted, quarrelled and schemed here, raising and destroying their human playthings and proxies below.

The area is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, with four distinct vegetation zones. The usual route starts in the second of these, a forest of black pine mixed with beech and other deciduous trees, climbing into a band of smaller, hunched pines and shrubs, then tough little alpine plants nestling among the rocks of the highlands. The area is hugely rich in flora, with 17,000 recorded plants, a fair number unique to these mountains, as well as having a varied animal population.

Most expeditions start from Litochoro, a cheerful town at the foot of the dramatic Enipeas Gorge which drains the central bowl. The main route starts at the roadhead at Prionia at the top of this gorge, climbing some 1,000 steep metres to Refuge A (Zolotas), a well-run hut with superb views perched on a ledge behind an outcrop. The well-maintained path climbs steadily in beautiful forests of pine, with slender beech around the ravines. The volume and variety of the birdsong here can be miraculous - in early summer, anyway.

The forest gradually thins and the spires of the peaks begin to appear high above. In May and June you will find the bright flowers for which springtime Greece is famous, as more scattered, twisted pines take over.

The second day climbs to the high ridge that rings the central abyss. This is a slog in thinner air, but rewarded by an outstanding panorama as you crest the ridge and discover the 500m cliffs of the Kazania chasm and huge views to the north and west.

On a good day, you can turn right, along the broken ridge to an uncomfortable scramble (gut-wrenching for some) to the eroded spikes of Mitikas, the highest peak at 2,918m and once the Pantheon, the Gods' meeting place; or swing southward round the ridge to Antonis peak. On a cloudy day you can retrace your steps back down the ladder, then turn north along a narrow path which follows striations amid the precipices below Mitikas, emerging on the beautiful Plateau of the Muses, a surprising, rolling grassland which is surrounded by cliffs above and below and dwarfed by the extraordinary formation of Stefani, the throne of Zeus, king of the gods. You can make the difficult scramble to the jagged ridge of Mitikas from the plateau, and then pick your way down a steep path back to Refuge A (not always well marked avoid this in cloud), or stay in one of the refuges on the plateau.

You can start or finish your time on Olympus with a walk through the superb Enipeas Gorge, which drains the cauldron out to the plains by the sea: don't miss this if you can help it.

See Andrey Sal'nikov's excellent panoramas at http://www.360-vr.net/olympus.php