Litochoro, Olympus & the southern coast

Litochoro is the base for the mountain. The Enipeas gorge starts at the edge of the village, and the road up to Prionia, where the main summit path begins, is a slow climb of switchbacks. You do not have to climb anything for the trip to be worth it: the gorge walk to the old monastery of Agios Dionysios gets you the best of it and comes back the same day.

Dion, on the plain between Litochoro and Katerini, is the sanctuary where the Macedonians sacrificed to Olympian Zeus before marching east — a large, green, waterlogged site with a good museum in the village and almost nobody in it.

South of Litochoro the coast is a string of smaller places: Plaka and Gritsa are Litochoro's own beaches, then Leptokarya, Skotina, Platamonas under its Crusader castle, and Neoi Poroi at the Thessaly border. They are cheaper and plainer than Paralia, and the railway runs behind them.