It’s difficult to think that it was less than a week ago, Thursday of last week, that I was rushing around at home trying to get things sorted before I came away.  This Thursday I was wandering footpaths, in some places barely clinging to the mountainside as soil slips took them out, looking at dramatic volcanic rock scenery.

The walk took me from Nikia on the edge at one end of the main caldera, Lakki, around the inside of the caldera to Emborios on the edge at the other end of the 4 km long caldera and then further round before crossing into the ‘Kato Lakki’ caldera and eventually back to Mandraki.

It was mesmerising with giant pinnacles of lava and views down into the craters.  It was all spectacular but perhaps nowhere more so than the ancient castle of Parletia built into some of the highest pinnacles towering above the caldera floor.

The walk took considerably longer than planned simply because I stopped so often to take photos.  So this blog is really just a series of photos trying to give a flavour of the place.  It only covers the first part of the walk, the second part, including the gigantic lava bubble near Emborios, will have to wait for another day.  It reached the point where I put the cameras in the rucksack and left them there in order to make progress.

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The main crater ‘Stephanos’ and the others clustered behind it with Oros Diavatis behind

Zooming in on the ‘Polyvotis’ crater

The floor of the caldera in summer colours

Lava rock overhanging the path

The western end of the caldera

Looking back to Nikia with rock pinnacle silhouetted against the morning sun

Diversion to the monastery of Ioannis Theologos. The bell tower is carved lava.

The church is built into the rock

….. so the ceiling is solid rock

Just a bit of arty colour in the courtyard outside

Photographer in the well

Another lava pinnacle towering over the path

Approaching the Parletia pinnacles with marker stone at the side of the path

The Parletia lava pinnacles

Some of the remains of the Parletia castle

Hole in rock

Lava pinnacles at Parlatia

Zooming in

Photographer on the edge ….. and part way down

… and on the other edge. Stephanos crater in the distance