Last summer during the pandemic, visitation to the region grew to nearly 2,000 daily visitors, “something very promising for the next season,” says Giorgos Ntagkas, deputy mayor for culture, sports, and trade in the municipality of Souli.
The popularity of the region seems to be rising. ( Sport climbing is helping to revitalize this Greek island.) With improved opportunities, most young people now stay in town to work in local businesses. In 2019, 50,000 people visited the region, mostly from April to September, boosting Glykí as a key destination for Acheron tourism. Tourism wasn’t a viable economic pursuit in the region until 2006, when the construction of nearby resorts and motorways provided access to isolated towns like Glykí. Photograph by David Havel, Alamy Stock Photo (Left) and Photograph by Age of Stock, Alamy Stock Photo (Right) The Acheron supports many rare and endangered wildlife, including griffon vultures (pictured here nesting) and Bonelli’s eagles (shown here in flight). In all, the 11,440 acres encompassing the Straits and wetlands are part of the European Commission’s NATURA 2000 network of protected areas. Vulnerable birds including golden eagles, griffon vultures, Bonelli’s eagles, and Egyptian vultures nest at the Straits in Glykí, while Eurasian spoonbills, black storks, and ferruginous ducks shelter in the wetlands of Ammoudiá. ( Tearing out these dams will open rivers for recreation-and save lives.) Nature-and challengesīesides the myriad of outdoor activities, Acheron supports unique habitats that are home to rare and endangered animals and plants in the region. It’s ideal both for families and older people.” “Rafting here accommodates all levels of experience. “Acheron is a mild river ,” says Vivi Markou, who started her tour business, Riverdream, with two rafting boats and two horses.
FABLED LANDS INTO THE UNDERWORLD ZIP
Others take to the sky on zip lines at places such as Zipline Greece, and slide 350 yards at speeds up to 30 miles per hour over the turquoise waters. It’s mesmerizing, says tour guide Giorgos Bitzios, a modern-day ferryman in Ammoudiá.Ībout 12 miles upriver from Ammoudiá, Glykí is known for heart-pumping adventures like canyoneering and river trekking, a popular activity in Asia that combines swimming and climbing boulders, to a gorge commonly called the Straits. Today’s travelers can combine a stop at the ruins with a visit to Ammoudiá, where boat tours explore the wetlands along the river with its waterlilies, emerald damselflies, and trees decorated with fuzzy penduline tit nests. ( These Greek ‘masterpieces’ are actually clever, legal copies.) During their stay, the believers claimed to see shadows of deceased loved ones.Įxperts debate whether the site is the fabled Necromanteion or an ancient farmhouse, yet it continues to fascinate, especially after sound tests conducted from 1997 to 2008 by Aristotle University of Thessaloniki researchers concluded that the subterranean chamber is indeed “dead silent.” Even if it isn’t the ancient Necromanteion, “it certainly is an early anechoic chamber built 2,700 years ago,” claims Panagiotis Karampatzakis, one of the researchers. They ate specific foods-including hallucinogenic plants-and performed rituals in the darkness. Pilgrims typically stayed at the Necromanteion “for a lunar month,” says Spyros Raptis, president of the Friends of Nekromanteion and Acheron and a tour guide at the site for 35 years. They had to follow a specific cleansing ceremony.” “Therefore, pilgrims had to be clean in body and soul. “The world of the dead was considered quite dangerous,” says Anthi Aggeli, director of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Preveza, an expert on the site’s history. Like Homer’s hero, ancient Greek pilgrims made the arduous trip to the oracle to communicate directly with the dearly departed. Millennia ago, the Necromanteion (also Nekromanteion) featured in Homer’s tale of Odysseus sailing into Hades, where he briefly reunited with the souls of many, including his mother, on the banks of the Acheron.
( Parisians want to recover a legendary river now buried under concrete.)
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