Greece: E4 European Long Distance Trail from Meteora to Karpenisi

This is the route I took in trying to follow the E4 Long Distance European Walk from Kalampaka (Meteora) to Karpenisi in late April over 8 days. Owing to snow above 1500 metres I followed some lower level routes in places. In general I took the Anavasi maps as showing the path of the E4, however this was not always possible or desirable. Between Kalampaka and Argithea I followed routes suggested by Nicolas Kroupi of Hotel Kroupi in many places and also some from Spazieren.de.

From Kalampaka to Glykomelia I followed a route which took me via the Agios Ioannis church, shortly before the church there was no path, I just pushed through the trees, otherwise this section of route was on tarmac and forest tracks. After Glykomelia I tried to reach the Koziakas Refuge but the snow proved too icy and steep so I walked down to the road to reach Elati. Later in the year you could follow tracks such as wikiloc trail https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/diaskhise-koziaka-notia-pindos-30061676.
From Elati to Psarro the route follows vehicle tracks and paths. Some of the paths are overgrown. The route I took down the mountain to Psarro is not the best, you could try following the route given by wikiloc trail https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/karatzouni-apo-psaro-31553001.

From Psarro towards Argithea I took a low level route on vehicle tracks rather than the official E4 to avoid snow on Mount Tourla. After rejoining the official E4, a path, largely invisible on the ground, and a vehicle track took me down into Argithea. After that I stuck to vehicle tracks and roads to Agrafa and onto the bridge at Varvariada. To avoid more road walking I followed an alternative route from Cicerone's "Trekking in Greece" to Kerasochori. Not long after Keraschori I attempted to follow a path that is part of the E4 but struggled to find it among the thorny bushes. However the path after Viniane bridge proved to be in reasonable shape and this led me onto the route into Karpenisi. A section by a stream was washed out, but it was relatively easy to find a way down.

This route follows on from my previous walk into Kalampaka https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/greece-e4-european-long-distance-trail-from-kokkinopelas-to-kalampaka-29379990, the GPS trail for the next section is at https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/greece-e4-european-long-distance-work-from-karpenisi-to-delphi-and-itea-38024332. More detail can be found in my blog JohnPonE4Greece.blogspot.com.

For my complete trek on the E4 across Europe read my book "Six Pairs of Boots: Spain to Cyprus on the E4 Trail" by John Pucknell available from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, the Bookdepository.com, lehmanns.de, bookspot.nl, and other good online bookstores.