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Images of Greece: the Parthenon atop the Acropolis, viewed from the breakfast table on the hotel roof; Olympia’s massive columns tumbled on the tourist-trampled ground; the Sanctuary of Delphi, surrounded by jagged grey-green mountains; and a small white horse sheltering under the branches of an ancient, gnarled olive tree.

The small white horse was called Ali – a Pilion horse, 17 years old. Ali carried me for six days around the peninsula from which his breed takes its name.  In the company of nine other riders from around the world, we rode, walked and scrambled for up to seven hours a day.

The odyssey started at Katigiorgis, a six-hour drive northeast of Athens, and traversed mountainous terrain falling to the Aegean Sea, which was in sight almost continuously.  The sea, the islands and the sky created patterns of precious-stone-blue: turquoise, cobalt, and sapphire. The vegetation varied from sparse heath to olive groves.

The October weather was warm and sunny with the only wet day coinciding with our surmounting the highest (and windiest) mountain pass on the ride.

Ali was small but feisty. He had recently been replaced as lead horse by a nervous six-year-old, who had not yet the unflinching courage required for leadership. Ali clearly felt that a mistake had been made, and if he could only hurry to the front often enough, the error would be corrected.  He had a most peculiar gait – neither a walk nor jog nor pace, but a bouncy scuttle uniquely his own.  None of the other riders could figure out exactly what he was doing, but all were relieved their own horses did not do it!

We became devoted to our horses and each evening related tales of their bravery throughout the day.  Many of the paths we followed were old pack roads. Often steep and narrow, they were surfaced with slippery slabs of stone. There were places where, had they hesitated, the ascending horses would have slithered back to the bottom of the slope. After a couple of days, we became quite blasé about 18-inch wide paths, bordered on one side by prickly overhanging bushes and on the other side by – nothing: just a near-vertical drop to a rocky valley far below.  On one particularly precipitous descent, Ali lost his hold with his hind feet and skidded down, unharmed, on his bottom.

We dismounted to scramble up the side of a marble quarry, each person and horse for his or herself.  Goats, donkeys, huge trucks and whining motorbikes; nothing rattled the horses – except for a cow!  The pasture is so sparse, that cows are a rarity.

Donkeys work here, ridden side-saddle by the men, or carrying branches collected to feed the ubiquitous goats.  We had roast baby goat one evening. The taste does linger, and I am convinced its mother was outside our guest house window all night bleating her distress and sending wafts of goat-scented air into our room.

On the coast at Lefokastro, I climbed over the balcony rail of the holiday apartment, took four steps across the road and stepped into the Aegean Sea for a moonlight swim. In Vizitsa, a village on Mount Pilion, the four single ladies sat in the square and demonstrated tying a bowline knot to the least experienced of the group, using her wrist as a post. A group of young Armenian men watched from a distance, then collected a radio (to set the mood) and gradually moved in, until the most daring casually sat next to the youngest of the ladies. “They’re getting closer”, she muttered. We hastily untied our knots and returned to the mansion, our accommodation for the night.

We ate fresh tomatoes and cucumber at every meal, with nectarous grapes and apples for desert.  The flavour, sweetness and juiciness are hard to imagine when one is accustomed to supermarket produce.    

We refreshed our horses and ourselves whilst riding by plucking apples, grapes and berries from orchards, gardens and roadside hedges. We ate bread cooked, wrapped in mulberry leaves, in a wood fire oven. The simple things in life are most satisfying!  Of course, the Turkish Delight and the confection of honey, nuts and wafers with which we sustained ourselves whilst crossing the mountain pass in an icy wind and rain, have their place too!

On the last night we were presented with a large plate of tiny fish and instructed to swallow them whole, head first.  I am enthusiastic about local food, but there are limits. I was told, “Bite the head off first.  It makes them easier to swallow.”   I declined!

On the back of a horse, one rides into the landscape, rather than through it, as in a car or tourist bus  The Pilion peninsula is not on the usual tourist itinerary. There are no ancient ruins here and heavy trucks carrying marble extracted by dynamite share the roads with the donkeys. Modern and traditional methods of transport and agriculture are combined to draw a living from the unforgiving landscape. Little Ali, sure-footed and valiant, was as unostentatiously heroic as the people of the land on which he was bred.  

Text and photographs © Jean Morris, except as indicated. 
Reproduction of either the text or photographs is prohibited without express permission of copyright owner.