Pathway to Eden: Down the Vitsa Steps to the River, and Back Again

In Matthew Kneale's marvelous novel, "The English Passenger", the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson is determined to prove that the true location of the Garden of Eden was in Tasmania.

I would be prepared to suspend my disbelief, and adopt another theory, by suggesting the Vikos Gorge (down the Vitsa steps) as a more plausible location. Pairs of Portuguese and Italian hikers we met on the way down could only exclaim with a note of wonder: "It's Paradise". So many species of wild flowers and orchids can be found in the gorge, beside the kalderimi-steps, in the wooded "holloways" and on the paths alongside the river, that it's difficult not to agree. It's my favourite morning walk.

The River

The river flows, cold from the mountain snow,

and on its banks the golden vetches grow.

Sappho, Lyra Graeca 1, Sappho 139

Translated by Theodore Stephanides 

("Sweet-Voiced Sappho", Colenso Books)

 

From Makis Lachanas,

 I Epistrophi tou Odyssea sto nisi ton Phaiakon

And back to civilisation...

See also: Bears in Bliss