At the end of May this year, when the flora of the region is at its big festival and the endless living room of Agrafa is adorned with thousands of individual flower gardens, we decided to climb up the most beautiful mountain route that I believe the mountains of Agrafa have. I’m talking about the top of Borleros.

Ascent to the most beautiful peak of Agrafa
Agrafa, one of the most compact mountainous units of our country, is interspersed with a multitude of peaks, valleys, streams and gorges that are perhaps the most beautiful and impressive in the entire mountain range of Greece.
When we say of course Agrafa we must not mean a small and limited dimension of mountains, but two large -and by no means independent- units of an endless mountainous plateau, which is broken up and dissected into many unifying or isolated peaks and many small valleys with diffuse developments in streams, gorges, mountain meadows and numerous vital rivers.
The two units of Agrafa, which, in order to distinguish them more geographically and administratively, we call Thessalian and Euretan Agrafa, are certainly not morphologically and geologically distinct, but constitute a single and unbroken relief of peaks and mountainous outcrops whose common element is considered to be the typical origin and development of the flora and the limestone origin of its mountains.
The groups of villages that have developed in the course of history, here in the Agrabiotiko relief, have more or less the same common characteristics and unified architectural structure and composition, without peculiarities and separate features.
But also the customs, as well as the course of the people through the centuries, the popular culture, the tribal composition, the habits of events and especially music and singing, which evolved according to the tendencies, weaknesses and passions of the people, have shaped the Agrafio culture, which we find almost homogeneous in all the areas we have known in the diverse and multifaceted branch of Agrafa.
With a rough design, within which in a few words we can classify and illustrate the composition and division of Agrafa, we will say that from the north Agrafa is connected to the mountain ranges of the southern Pindus mountains, (mountain range of Avgo) with which it has many features in common.
The first of the mountains that we meet from the northwest is Karavoula (1,862 m), which is separated by the high pass of Argithea from the largest typical peak of Agrafa, Karava or Schizokaravo (2,184 m), to which of course we climb from the other large pass of Agrafa, Agios Nikolaos.
Then Voutsikaki (2,152 m) develops, forming a single mountain peak with Kazarma or Zygurolivado (1,977 m), which rises east of Petrilos and west of Fylakti. Descending further south and a little to the west we come to the beautiful and very impressive Delidimi (2,162 m), an extensive ridge, with many steep peaks, above 2,000 m, located on the border of the prefectures of Karditsa and Evritania, while further to the east the polygonal system of the famous Nyala develops. There, in a truly beautiful basin, you can see the divine peaks of Svonis (2,041 m.), the Five Towers (2,003 m.), Flytzani (2,016 m.), Borleros (2,017 m.), Plaka (1,933 m.) and Katarrachia (2,002 m.) rising steeply and jaggedly above Vragiana.
The entire Niala plateau with the above peaks is now within the administrative boundaries of the Prefecture of Evrytania.
Finally, further south and further west, another long ridge of saw-toothed peaks stands out, which is somewhat isolated, but still has the appearance of being of Agraviotean soil and geological morphology and origin. Here we find the famous Liakoura (2,040 m) and Fteri (2,126 m). Fteri and Liakoura can be reached from Monastiraki and Vlachopoula and to the west are the beautiful villages of Granitsa, Raftopoulos and Lithochori. This ridge is separated from the previous ridge of Niala by the river Agrafiotis, which cuts through the long mountain range of Agrafa and essentially divides it into East and West Agrafa.
The mountain range of Fteri is formed and shaped between two large deep valleys, created by Agrafiotis from the east and Acheloos from the west
Finally, it should be said that the main entrances to the large complex of Agrafa are the following:
α. From Mouzaki towards Pefkoftos, Agios Nikolaos, Petrilos, Leontitos, Moni Spilia and Stefaniada, with exit at Vragiana of Acheloos.
β. After Moucha Tavropou junction for Karvasara, Vragiana Evrytania, Trovato, Tridentro, Agrafa.
- From Kastania, on the road to Anthiro, Karoplesi, Petralona (Saika), Agrafa.
δ. From Karpenisi to Kerasohori, Varvariada, Marathos, Monastiraki, Agrafa.
ε. From Kerasochori, crossing Agrafiotis and then to Voulpi, Granitsa, Raftopoulos, Lithochori.
Three large streams – rivers intersect the total body of Agrafa. The Tauropos or Megdovas in the east, the Agrapiotis in the middle and the Acheloos in the west. These three rivers are, in most cases, also the boundaries of individual units and regions.
At the end of May this year, when the flora of the region is at its great festival and the endless living room of Agrafa is adorned with thousands of individual flower gardens, we decided to climb the most beautiful mountain route that I believe the mountains of Agrafa have. I’m talking about the top of Borleros.
The entrance and access to the small wooden shelter of the Zygoyaneikes is three and a half kilometres after the dam of Megdova, when at a left turn we meet a sign directing us to the settlement of Cedros and the Fire Station.
The route is unpaved for two kilometres and then dirt – for another three – until we reach the shelter of EOS Karditsa, at the location of Elatakos. Do not imagine something serious and official as a shelter. It is a small, one-roomed, shingled wooden structure, which nevertheless makes it quite easy for hikers and climbers. We are now at an altitude of 1,450 metres and here, leaving the car, we head south through the deer gardens on a well-marked and distinct path.
At first the path has blocked out any visibility to the lake, as the wooded view of the fir forest leaves us unable to think of anything other than the beauty and health of the trees that make it up.
So walking through the forest of tall and healthy fir trees for a quarter of an hour, we then emerge on a more dense and rugged trail through sickly pines, but they keep a heavier shade than the fir trees.
In another ten minutes we reach a fountain – a watering-place, with a crystal-clear stream of water, and to which the first rush of an untarnished view arrives. The view of the lake Plastira, which reveals itself as if from an aeroplane, magical, all green and with successive folds and collapses, in an improbable carpet embroidered by divine hands with threads of mauve, olive and wetland meadows.
Our course from here changes direction and becomes easterly. It continues through the dense forest with a gentle uphill. We walk like this for about a dozen minutes, when we finally emerge from the tentacles and tight loops of branches and heavy shade.
In front of us is a magnificent open sacrificial meadow, whose beauty captivates us. Herds of heifers and cattle meander across the pale front of the openness, while the variety of wildflowers begin their own visual and aromatic concert with their multicolored and bony stems slowly swaying in the first breeze that caresses them.
Behind us, the tightly knotted tree canopy blackens, hiding for a while the vast basin of the Thessalian plain and the fluctuations of the mountains and gullies. We turn our course to the west now.
Ahead of us opens up a bare dipole peak that leaves a hint of a passage through its middle. But first we must traverse the meadow, then descend it, and after meeting other wonders of the mountainous agraphic nature, which carves paintings of well-being and happiness, to reach the edge of the grassy divide to take a rough stony path that will lead us to the bottom of the ravine, from where we will begin the ascent to reach the two peaks that fork in front of us.
Alongside us flow and meander a multitude of streams springing from unquenchable waterfalls, supplying an extensive field with the necessary liquid element for a life of floral abundance.
All around rise sloping meadows with all the richness of bulbs and flowering plants. Upright cliffs rise on either side as we cross the gentle gorge. There are two rugged mountain ranges, Butterfly on our right (1,770 m) and Souflistara on our left. When we reach the gap between the two peaks (1,600 m.) we turn west and attempt a ten-minute dirt traverse through a pothole in a pothole, until we reach an exquisite rocky outcrop, where we have our fun on the way out. Ahead of us, a super spectacle of peaks opens up, but through a rockhole, the famous “Gates of Agrafa“… They are two towering panoranic rocks – infillings, which barely leave a passage of two meters between them.
Infinite eagle-eyes unfurl the lace of their peaks and their jagged tendrils with their pyramidal and floating crests. In the lowlands girdle the peripheries with bands of limestone and limestone rootlets.
We move forward with our senses and our gaze is concentrated in this crush of rocks. We cautiously push aside the bushes that clog the passage and then descend through the upright rock pillars, not threatening, but sweet, as if they were opposing each other. At the front of the left one, as we descend, a bush-horn bush emerges, similar to a wild goat, with its branchy horns, planted as if by divine hands on the slab of rock.
The path now descends, having higher and opposite us the steep development of the summit of Borlero, and in between a sudden wooded flood of deciduous trees of unexpected beech and holly.
We enter this forest with its undisturbed composition and the impressive orchids on its edges, the botanical, in other words, paradise of Agrafa. As far as we know, this forest of deciduous beech trees is almost unique in the entire Agrafa range.
Somewhere here is the border between the two prefectures, as we leave the Karditsa lands to enter the Euritanian hinterland.
But nothing changes, only the feeling that we are entering for good the familiar and much loved parts of Nyala.
I have written about Niala in an earlier tribute, motivated by the historic meeting of the Civil War belligerents on 12-4-1947, at that amazing, unexpected and unlikely meeting of opponents on its ridge.
Now I feel the other air that the region exudes, only because I feel captive to a naturalistic memory, one that comes back stronger and stronger each time from the visual-historical bashing in Nyala.
All my thoughts are wedged into this context, as the downhill and the forest ends and now we must begin the final ascent to the solid rocky cone of Borleru.
We quickly emerge onto a freshly opened dirt road that serves sub-alpine pastures. This road ends a little further down, but the signposting of the uphill trail begins at the bend this road makes just before its final bend.
We decide on the last ascent from where we are, the edge of the craggy ridge, without a detour, that is, from the crest of the slope that rises steeply from the bottom of the river valley to the extreme point of the summit.
It is the most difficult part, but also the most mountaineering. The top is not far from us. But the ascent is painful and completely dysfunctional. Sure, we slice the climb into fiercely zigzags, but that doesn’t diminish the hardness of the efforts and the test of endurance.
As we ascend, we see the seeded flower fields with their rare assemblages of botanical richness. We see nothing yet, however, of this explosive mix of the transcendent peaks of Nyala.
We walk with heavy breaths and with the help of the baton. We dig, for the most part, into the soft and tender dirt and get into the effort with the tenacity to gain a few more meters.
Chipped monoliths stand out on the pyramid of the summit. They are pure alpine stones that form and shape the rocky slopes of the conical summit of Borleros.
It’s just a bit more of a challenge to endure to reach the summit. Indeed, in a few minutes, not more than three quarters in total, from the base of the conical pyramid of Borlero, we touch the wonder of this beautiful peak, which of course more than compensates us.
A sudden mountain flood stretches across and around us. Countless rocky towers – pillars of a stone state – spread across the horizon. But this is no ordinary horizon. It is a cast of miracles of allegorical and transcendental signs.
The triple succession of the peaks of the Plaque, the Fountain and the Five Towers perfume our senses, which smell the arch of the earthly idols of the agraphic geoplasm.
The plateau of Nyala, with its five sweet and beautiful peaks rising all around it, is unique in Greece as a primary and uneven plateau, housing the country’s most pastoral settlement, Neraida, and located at the bottom of a orographic horseshoe of five successive and enclosed peaks. The Katarachia, the Plaka, the Flyzani of the Five Towers and its highest peak, the Svonis. (Borlero is somewhat independent and behind the Five Towers).
The sweet bright light of the evening blinds any inappropriate notion and pours everywhere visible, deadening any harshness of the stone cliffs, dressing the waterfalls with evocative shades of light.
Nyala, this beautiful ecosystem, with its chlorophyll meadows, its wavy valleys, its oak-covered ridges, its waterfalls, its graceful slopes and its geological paradox, stands up in its entirety before us and surrenders itself to us, wild and sweet at the same time, terrible in appearance and yet human, wonderful and stormy…
We feel that we have touched the heavenly dome and there is no more to challenge us.
We are in a low-lying oasis, from which we contemplate the full aspects of life and nature. A fertilizer comes into energy and cultivates imagination and dream.
This habitat of life, for so many zombies and wild animals, is hard to consider an impossible framework of approach for the man who tries the daily dull and boring pleasures of a given, predictable and uninteresting life.
We have no more time here. Perhaps it would be best if we spent the night up here. But we’re not prepared. Here’s one of those dull passions that drive us and sustain our “earthly” inhibitions, leading us asphalt “back” to life and “shoulds”…
P.S. In order to reach the area of Borleros Agrafa from Volos, one must travel a distance of 152 kilometers until the turn of Zygogianeika, above the lake, just after the dam (via Kastania) and then climb uphill for just five (5) kilometers until reaching the small wooden shelter of EOS Karditsa. From there the climb to Borlero begins.