The Vikos Gorge is a gorge in the Pindus Mountains of northern Greece. It lies on the southern slopes of Mount Tymfi, with a length of about 20 km, depth ranging from 120 to 490 m, and a width ranging from 400 m to only a few meters at its narrowest part.

Vikos is listed as the world’s „deepest relative to its width“ gorge by the Guinness Book of Records among others.

Wildlife

Flora

A significant number of herbs of the Vikos Gorge and adjacent areas within the Vikos-Aoos National park were regarded to have medicinal properties and were once harvested by local healers, colloquially referred to as „Vikos doctors„. These herbal healers used special recipes that were often copies of ancient Greek recipes of Hippocrates or Dioscorides and became famous beyond the borders of Greece. The plants used in these recipes include the lemon balm Melissa officinalis, Tilia tomentosa, the spearmint Mentha spicata, the gas-plant Dictamnus albus, St John’s Wort Hypericum perforatum, absinth Artemisia absinthium, the very popular Sideritis raeseri, known colloquially in Greece as “mountain tea”, and the elder bush Sambucus nigra. A chemical screening of these native plant species has shown that a high number of them are characterized by biologically active ingredients. A collection of 2,500 dried species of local plants and herbs is exhibited in the local natural history museum in the village of Koukouli.

Fauna

One of the special local attractions is the existence of the chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra), a rare species that lives at higher altitudes far from human activity, especially at the rocky cliffs, for example in Megas Lakos, a secondary ravine of the Vikos Gorge.

Recreation

There is a natural viewing platform over the deepest part of the gorge at Oxia, a location 3 km by a newly constructed road from the village of Monodendri. Another viewpoint over the gorge is at Beloi, on the eastern side of the gorge, accessible from the village of Vradeto.

A hiking trail descends into the gorge from Monodendri. The trail then leads north through the gorge to the springs of the Voidomatis river, from where paths lead out of the gorge to the village of Papingo on the north side of the gorge, or to the village of Vikos on the south side of the gorge. It is also possible to hike south through the gorge from Monodendri to the 18th century stone bridges near Kipi.