Anavasi with Penelope Matsouka

Anavasi with Penelope Matsouka

In this episode Jason König interviews Penelope Matsouka, co-founder of Anavasi [https://anavasi.gr/], about map-making in the mountains of Greece.  We start by talking about Penelope’s experience of the mountains as a student, and about the first steps in setting up Anavasi, which has had a transformative impact on the accessibility of the mountains of Greece over the last few decades. She discusses the past and future challenges for cartography, including the inaccessible and incomplete military maps which were the only option available before Anavasi, the early days of working with GPS and GIS, the hard work of walking along mountain paths with children in tow, and the importance of maintaining map-reading literacy in the future, in an age where we are more and more dependent on ‘following a dot on a screen’. Penelope talks about her favourite mountains in Greece, especially Mount Olympus, and about the extraordinary experience of photographing Olympus from the air, after many years of walking backwards and forwards over the paths. We discuss Penelope’s experience of climbing outside Greece, in the Alps and the Himalayas, and also her love of the small islands of Greece. Finally Penelope offers some thoughts on the challenges and possible solutions for mountain regions in Greece faced with depopulation: ‘When there are no people living in the mountains, no one is present to defend them. And then those who wish to exploit them, they appear, and they are indifferent to their beauty and to the sustainability of the resources … Hikers and mountaineers are the custodians of the mountains. So the priority for the future is to create the conditions that will allow more and more people to get to know the mountains’. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/ [https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/], or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk [https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/], or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

The Greek Herbalist with Maria Christodoulou

In this episode Jason König interviews Maria Christodoulou about her work as a herbalist and about the mountain plants of Greece. Maria is a clinical herbalist. She runs ancient herbal medicine courses and herbal tours around Greece. Her book Herbs of Greece: Four Seasons of Ancient Plants for Modern Health is forthcoming with Timber Press in 2027. You can see more about Maria's work at her website [https://www.thegreekherbalist.com]. We talk first about Maria's experience of moving to Greece as an adult, encountering a landscape she had heard about from a distance throughout her childhood. Maria then talks about the educational goals at the heart of her work as The Greek Herbalist, and her interest in the continuities between ancient and modern botanical knowledge. She gives us a glimpse of the research processes involved in her forthcoming book, which has involved immersing herself in the work of the ancient medical writer Dioscorides and travelling around Greece to find photos of all fifty of her plants. Maria then offers two case studies from the mountains, discussing the physiological effects and cultural significance of hellebore and mountain tea, and their role in ancient scientific writing. Finally Maria offers some reflections on the threats facing the botanical heritage of the Greek mountains, from over-development, and on why education matters for helping people to understand and protect these places. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/ [https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/], or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk [https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/], or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

Under the Forest with Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou

In this episode Jason König interviews Faidon Moudopoulos-Athanasiou [https://www.bsc.es/moudopoulos-athanasiou-faidon] about his work as a landscape archaeologist in the mountainous region of Zagori in northwest Greece. Faidon is Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Researcher in the Computational Archaeology Research Group at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, working on a project entitled ‘Under the Forest’. His 2022 book, The Early Modern Zagori of Northwest Greece [https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-early-modern-zagori-of-northwest-greece] offers a very wide-ranging reassessment of the landscape archaeology of the region in the Ottoman period and beyond, from the 15th-20th century.   Faidon talks first about his family connections with Zagori and his experience of visiting there in summer holidays as a child. We discuss Faidon’s book on early modern Zagori, work on uncovering local archives in the villages of Zagori, and also his collaborations with the Boulouki Collective [https://boulouki.org/] on a series of architecture projects in the region. We then we turn to Faidon’s current project, ‘Under the Forest’, which aims to shed new light on the archaeological heritage that is increasingly concealed by afforestation. Faidon describes the ‘remote sensing’ archaeological techniques that allow him to bring that heritage to life, and talks about the tradition of giving special protection to ‘sacred forests’ in the Ottoman period. We talk about Faidon’s work on the region’s successful UNESCO world heritage bid, before turning finally to some of the challenges facing local communities in the mountains of northern Greece, including wildfires and depopulation. Faidon offers some closing reflection on ways in which the creation of cultural trails through the landscape can help with tourist development. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/ [https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/], or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk [https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/], or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

Lifelines with Julian Hoffman

In this episode Jason König interviews Julian Hoffman [https://julian-hoffman.com/] about living in the mountainous region of Prespa in northern Greece, and about his latest project on the Aoos river.  Julian is the prize-winning author of The Small Heart of Things (2012), Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save our Wild Places(2019), and most recently Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece (2025), which tells the story of his move to Prespa, where he has lived for the last two decades. We start by talking about how Julian’s fascination with mountains first developed on a trip to the foothills of the Himalayas in India. Julian then gives us a sketch of the Prespa region, with its ancient lakes ringed by mountains, stretching across the borders between Greece, Albania and North Macedonia. He describes the hospitality he and his wife received when they moved there from London, the changing relationships between the local population and the mountain landscapes they live close to, and the animals and especially the birds that are such a powerful presence in the experiences he describes in Lifelines.  In the second half we discuss the Aoos/Vjosa river, the last surviving large, free-flowing river in Europe, which runs through northern Greece and Albania. We talk about the amazing variety and environmental richness of the waterways across the whole Aoos river basin, and Julian describes a visit to the Sarantaporos (a tributary of the Aoos) in January 2026 to see the river in flood. Finally we discuss the challenges facing the region – including not just depopulation and the effects of climate change, but also the policy of siting wind turbines in mountain landscapes that are ‘largely pristine, biologically alive, and hugely ecologically important’. We also talk about hope for the future, especially Prespa’s character as a place that can transcend borders and national differences.  This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/ [https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/], or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk [https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/], or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.

Boundary stones of Mt Taygetos with Socrates Koursoumis

In this episode Jason König interviews Socrates Koursoumis [https://ypppo.academia.edu/SocratesKoursoumis] about his archaeological work in the mountains of Greece, especially on Mount Taygetos. Socrates is an archaeologist of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. He has been a staff member of the Central Department of the Ministry, as well as the Ephorates of Lesbos, Attica, Elia, Messenia and the Corinthia. He has undertaken several excavations in Attica, the Peloponnese, the Aegean islands, and Crete, and carried out three surveys at Lavreotiki, on Mount Taygetos (Messenia) and on Mt Lykaion (Arcadia). We start by talking about Socrates’ early experience of the mountain regions of Lesbos in his childhood, before moving on to discuss the first steps in his archaeological work in the mountains. Socrates talks about his work on Mount Lykaion and the mountains of Arkadia, and about the importance of walking if we want to understand the history of these places. We then to turn to his excavations on the site of the ancient silver mines at Laurion in Attica. In the second half we take a look at Mount Taygetos, particularly Socrates' work on the sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis in the northern Taygetos region on the borders with Messenia, his decades-long research project on the ancient boundary stones on the Taygetos summit ridge, and finally a recent project on the continuities between ancient and modern wine production in the region. Socrates ends with some final reflections on the (sometimes dangerous!) challenges of mountain archaeology, and its value for local communities. This episode was edited by Zofia Guertin. To learn more about the Mountains of Greece project you can visit our website https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/ [https://mountainsofgreece.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/] and subscribe for regular updates, or follow us on Bluesky @mountainsofgreece.bsky.social.  For the broader Mountain Stories, Mountain Futures project please visit our website https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk [https://msmf.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/] and subscribe for regular updates, or follow us on Bluesky @futuremountain.bsky.social.