Article by Dimosthenis Seitaridis
Cover photo by Danis Papagiannoulis
Edited by Harrys Pourouzidis
They say one should combine pleasure with usefulness, and so, alongside a few professional obligations taking place on the western side of our country, we loaded ourselves and equipment alike into the car and off we went to admire new beauties.
This time, our photographic target was the mountainous region of Preveza, a place hiding watery treasures and plenty of history, which is hardly unusual in this land of ours. Looking up at the sky at daybreak, I saw the sun concealed behind thick grey clouds, and I smiled, thinking how ideal the weather was for photographic moments.
So, once we had quickly dealt with my professional duties, we turned the car wheel south and set off for the springs of Louros.
Springs of Louros
Outside Ioannina, we left behind us Egnatia Motorway and took the old Ioannina–Arta national road. Near Terovo, a small sign led us to the springs of Louros, and after five minutes we found ourselves at Lake Viros or, more accurately, in paradise on earth.
The small, almost perfectly round lake, 95 metres in diameter and with a maximum depth of 10 metres, receives water from underground springs and, in essence, feeds the Louros River. Literally hidden inside a lush green landscape, the green of nature gives way to the astonishing deep blue of the lake’s waters.
The Roman Aqueduct of Nicopolis — The Springs of Agios Georgios
Continuing our journey, we crossed the forest-covered valley of Louros until we reached the village of Agios Georgios. At its entrance stands the best-preserved section of the Roman Aqueduct of Nicopolis.
After the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, where Octavian Augustus defeated the combined fleet of Antony and Cleopatra, the victor ordered the construction of Nicopolis, a city meant to remind everyone, enemies and allies alike, of his glorious victory. To populate it, he forced the Greek inhabitants of at least twenty cities to relocate there, and as a result Nicopolis reached a population of 150,000 people.
But there was an urgent need to solve the city’s water-supply problem. And so Roman engineers built the aqueduct, a magnificent work of ancient technology: a 50-kilometre superstructure that carried the waters of Louros river and the springs of Agios Georgios to the great city.
To overcome the difference in altitude — approximately 80 metres — between the river springs and Nicopolis, Roman architects built the conduit with a gradual slope toward the sea. To work around the shape of the land, they used three methods of construction: first, they created a channel along the hillside, sealed and covered with arches, with square ventilation openings; second, they opened a tunnel in the Kokkinopilos area, with tower-like ventilation shafts; and third, they built rows of piers carrying covered elevated channels, which bridged the gaps between the hills and guided the water toward the reservoirs of Nicopolis.
The Red Desert — Kokkinopilos
After the aqueduct, and very close to it, we left the car behind and climbed 500 metres to stand in awe before Europe’s unique red desert.
It is a rare geological phenomenon: a vivid red complex of hills rising between 100 and 200 metres high. The otherworldly landscape calls to mind the volcanic valleys of the planet Mars. The phenomenon is so impressive to researchers around the world that studies into the origin of these red hills continue to be carried out across Europe.
According to the most recent research, the red soil that forms the hills of Kokkinopilos reached the southern Mediterranean as dust from Africa. Strong southerly winds carried it over the sea to our region from the wider areas of the Sahara and the Sahel. Intense changes in weather conditions gradually created the strange formations of Kokkinopilos’s red landscape, known as terra rossa, whose colour comes from the clays and iron oxides found in the subsoil.
Its formation is believed to date back to prehistoric times. Kokkinopilos has been declared a natural monument and a geosite of great geological value. The area was identified in 1962 by the British archaeologist Eric Higgs. Excavations at the site of Asprochaliko involved both British archaeologists and the Greek archaeologist Sotirios Dakaris, professor at the University of Ioannina. Further excavations were carried out by American teams in the 1990s.
Many of the finds date from the Palaeolithic period, though tools from the Bronze Age have also been discovered. A characteristic example is a 2,500-year-old double-sided stone axe, which can be seen at the Archaeological Museum of Ioannina.
Lake Ziros
Continuing our journey a few kilometres farther south, we once again left the old national road to see another hidden jewel of the Epirote land: Lake Ziros.
The lake measures approximately 900 by 600 metres, with a maximum depth of 70 metres. Its name is of Slavic origin — ozero means “lake” in Slavic languages — and is clearly a remnant of the medieval settlement of Slavic tribes in the region.
The lake was once a lake cave whose roof collapsed approximately 10,000 years ago. Its aquifer is the same as that of the Louros River, which means the two water systems are connected.
On the eastern side of the lake, in 1947, the International Red Cross and the Greek government built Ziropolis, officially named “Agios Alexandros Children’s Town of Lake Ziros,” for the care of orphaned children from the Second World War and the Greek Civil War.
From 1949 until 1975, Ziropolis became an important educational, cultural, and economic centre for the poor children of Epirus. It had a primary school, a secondary school, a dining hall, dormitories, a theatre, poultry and livestock facilities, and a fishing station.
Truly, how much history can one small place produce?
