The beauty of Pelion

Pelion (Πήλιον) is a mountain at the southeastern part of Thessaly in central Greece. It forms a hook-like peninsula between the Pagasetic Gulf and the Aegean Sea. Its highest summit, Pourianos Stavros, is 1,610 metres (5,280 ft) above sea level. It remains beautiful all year round with its pristine and diverse beaches, lush forests with miles of hiking trails, skiing in the winter, and picturesque villages. Every year it's visited by thousands of tourists and locals enchanted by the beauty of the region. Amongst them was Canadian director Christopher Dormoy who decided to make a video to highlight its outstanding landscape.

So, why should you be interested in this video? Well, you don't have to do anything, but Mount Pelion is a much featured location in Hellenic mythology and it might be nice to have an image in your head to go with it, right?

According to mythology, two giants piled Mount Pelion on Ossa (Kíssavos or Óssa), another mountain in Thessaly, in order to scale Olympos, but Apollon killed the giants before they could make the attempt. On the high peaks and the dense vegetation of Pelion, the Centaurs found their shelter.

On the peak of the same mountain, in the foliage, the ancient cave of Zeus Ombrios was hidden, visited by the residents of the area, carying animal skins, during the hottest and driest day of the year, in mid July, in order to ask Zeus to rain. Iason was raised in Pelion and was a student of Kheiron the Centaur. When he turned twenty, he left Pelion and went to claim the throne from his uncle Pelias. The ship Argo of the Argonauts allegedly was built of wood from the mountain’s trees.

Pelion is one of those locations that has a story around every curve and tree, and seeing it portrayed with this kind of beautiful cinematography brings them to life with ease. Enjoy!