Arachova is a mountain village that is located in the foot of Mt. Parnassos. This is a favorite winter destination for celebrities, ski and snow board lovers in Greece or if you just want to have a dreamy "traditional" village atmosphere with amazing restaurants and bars to pair it with.

​We are so stoked to have already started our adventures this year, hooray! 

​It was rainy right before and after the new year so we patiently waited and once the weather cleared up, we were ready to be on the road again. The photos above is what we were seeing throughout the trip, it's our "movie" for hours of driving to the snowy mountains.

Tzoumerka is a lesser known destination even for locals. This might just be the Greeks' best kept secret! Stone mansions, cobblestone streets, scenic vistas and quaint squares with Greeks drinking their fave coffee! Every corner of this place is instagrammable. This place is also a paradise for outdoor activities : trekking, hiking, canyoning​, rafting and even just by looking what is around you.

The Lake below is called "Limni Kremaston" and it was in our way to Tzoumerka

​​Summer is here so we packed all our camping gear and got ready for the road! 
​​This is the first time that we are bringing anyone with us for such a long trip. This is also Ntak’s first time in a road trip and camping trip: Challenge accepted!

A quick summary of our Scandinavian trip, we spent one week in Sweden for Christmas and 20 days in Norway for New Year until mid January. In Stockholm, we were going around the sites, but also balancing and making sure that we will be in our hosts at certain times and places because we were Couchsurfing.

Every year for G's birthday, his gift to himself is to be in the mountains, peace and quiet and away from any phone signal! (G has a rule that if the phone rings, it must be important so he always answers it, and only if there is no signal is a good excuse not to answer the phone :)) 
This year we spent it at Lake Nevropolis, about 180 kms north of Athens.

There are 2 major things Greeks celebrate on their life, their birthday and their name's day. For G's name's day, we drove to Central Greece to go camping. This is how he likes celebrating things! 
It was like an RPG adventure game that if you talk to NPCs in the correct order and the correct timing, you will unlock quests and get a treasure chest at the end.

So, G was able to talk to the locals in the correct order and they then directed us to go this guy that lives in that mountain (he stays there with his wife and have been living there for 20 years without electricity!) close to karpeta village in Peloponnese you can find a google map inside the post. He then accompanied us where we can camp and also trek in the morning. This place is their own and it is private, so there were no roads! See below:

A day after it rained, G (Giorgos) said it's time to use the dirt bike. Btw, the dirtbike only meets road maybe 3 times a year - if lucky , mostly it's only twice! Anyway, We were riding in mountains -- actually G was riding and I was mostly hanging for my life!
G likes to do stunts in bikes and he did it competitively some years ago. Even though the bike is only supposed to be for one person, there I am as a carry on sitting behind him. Full gear was needed, well just in case. 
This church sits on the top of this mountain with a majestic view of the surrounding towns and mountains. 

We were hanging out in the house and then one of G's friends, Giannis, called and told us that their friends for climbing is going to Dirfi for the weekend and if he wants to tag along.

So we went up to Athens, met them and drove all the way to Dirfi. We arrived at the refuge at around 7pm. It was unusually packed because 2 climbing schools are also staying there for the morning climb. The refuge is about 1120 meters high and the peak is 1730 meters.

We wanted to celebrate the New Year camping! I think by now you can say that we celebrate everything by camping :)
We drove around 220 kms west to find our campsite. This is also my first time seeing snow! As I have mentioned earlier G is a little bit overacting, so instead of just seeing snow, we camped there.

I have never camped in my life, other than the mandatory camping from primarschools, where you have your parents outside your tent and it's on school grounds.
I was really excited and shocked at the same time because it wasn't planned and it was a 15-day free camping trip, for a first timer, it's kinda scary. Also, I don't know why I was scared, maybe because I was not used to it :)

So it began, the photo above is from our 3rd campsite. The first one was up in the mountain. There was no light pollution so the stars at night were crazy bright. 

We have all the dramatic (we use this word for everything to add more flare 🔥)  cooking stuff: pots, pans, stoves. We even have olive oil from home! Everyday we will eat at a really good place ( we were cooking all the time) a bench with a table on a cliff. A rest stop with a water fountain and a glorious view, and so on.. We always eat at a different place every time.