Your destination is Pyrsogianni, 70 kms north of Yiannena or Ioannina, after you pass the town of Konitsa. You drive out of Yiannena heading north, preferably ealry in the morning when the lake looks like glass, sometimes rippled by the landing of a water fowl or if you are lucky by a stork searching for food dipping its long orange beak in the water. You pass the turn off to Perama with the famous cave, the airport, some small villages and you start climbing up the mountain, in a road that goes up and up all the time. To your left you can see the fields of the Yiannena plateau, a few hundred meters drop.

It would n't be long before you come to the other side of the mountains to find more mountains as long as you can see. The road follows small valleys and rivers heading towards Konitsa. A few kilometres out of village of Kalpaki you start going up again till you reach the top of the Vigla (a slavic word for a guard-place). And there in the mountains, directly opposite , is the town of  Konitsa. Perched in the sides of the mountains overlooking the valley of Aoos wher the rivers of Aoos, Sarantaporos and Voidomatis are joined together before they crosses the Greek Albanian borders.

The bridge was built a few hundred years ago (before Australia was discovered!) by stone masons from Pyrsogianni and still stands tall, untouched by time. A climb to the top of the bridge will give you an incredible view of the gorge, the river and the numerous plane trees that shade the river. I suggest you do it during the summer time, the wind coming through the gorge can be rather freezing.

Konitsa

A picturesque town built in the side of the Gymnadi mountain, overlooking the valley of Aoos. This is the Mollosida area, country of Olymbias, mother of Alexander the Great, and later the base of King Pyrros. The Romans constructed the Egnantia Avenue that connected Rome with the Eastern and Northern regions of the Roman Empire.

The name Konitsa is of Slavic origin meaning "horse trading place" or market and during the Turkish Occupation it was a significant town with 7-10,000 people. It was liberated by the Greek army in 1913 but during World War II and the Civil war that followed Konitsa suffered greatly. As a result only 4,000 people live in the town today.

The major industry is animal husbandry but lately tourism has become a growing industry. Cayaking the Aoos river, mountaineering and exploring the gorges and mountains of the region are very popular with Greek and international tourists.So hurry up and go there now, a few year later it may be ruined by hordes of tourists seeking this "unspoilt" place.

In Konitsa you can still see some of the traditional stone build houses, the old mosque , the mansion of Husein Bei, old churches with incredible frescos and the famous Aoos Bridge.

The Aoos bridge is the widest and highest single span stone bridge in the Balkan peninsula, built by Ziogas Frontzos from Pyrsogianni. Building started in 1823 and was finished in 1871. Previous attempts to built a bridge in the same place had failed but Ziogas managed to built a bridge that still stands . The bridge is so tall that there is a bell hunging down from the peak of the span so when strong winds come through the Aoos valley, the bell is moving by the wind rings  warning travellers of the wind hazard. You can still see the beel hanging underneath the bridge.

After a break in Konitsa you head north folowing the Para-Egnantia avenue , named after the original Egnantia Avenue, that joins the Port of  Igoumenitsa in the western coast of Epirus with Macedonia via Yiannena and Konitsa.

The road continues to climb up and up, there are a few "interesting" turns when you climp up the mountains but the view compensates for the driving. Here are some of the virgin forrests in Greece but take care, every so often you will meet a local sheperd with a floc of sheep or goats grazing on the side of the roads or up and down the road reserve. A touch of by gone eras!

The road continuous trhought he forest and you start coming down on the other side of the mountains to the valley of Sarantaporos. It is not a valley really just a wide cut between the mountain ranges made by the river Sarantoporos in its way from the mountain to meet the Aoos river. It is just a few kilometres away from the Mastorohoria and Pyrsogianni.