GREECE: Riding the Odontotos

January 3, 2026

We take a break from the saddle at Diakopto on the south shore of the Gulf of Corinth and board a midget train to a monastery in the mountains. Called Odontotos (meaning "the one with teeth"), the train is the kind that climbs by tracking into a cog rack between the rails. We were lucky to get tickets. Christmas decorations are still up and the Greeks in holiday mood. Going online, Nadya snapped up the last two tickets minutes before the train departed (despite the woman at the ticket counter saying they were sold out).

The hour-long ride through the twisting Vouraikos Gorge, in spite of the rainy day, is nothing less than spectacular. The gorge opens dramatically with a sandy 200-foot limestone wall so indented it resembles a many storied apartment block that has had buckets of wet sand poured over it. Windows with sagging lintels, warped doorways, melting balconies!

The gorge rapidly narrows, and the train, engaging its invisible cog wheel, begins climbing. Orange cliffs, streaked grey and black, rear up on either side. We strain our necks to see their tops, but fail. The train passes through short tunnels, the clearance so tight, it's a matter of inches. The Vouraikos River tumbles into successive pools to our left, the water milky as though glacial. Plane trees with jagged leaves and barkless green boughs arch over the river.

Each new view of the gorge as the train winds around bends and crosses bridges yields a fresh view of tortured rock. There are many caves, one like a gaping mouth with stalagmite and stalactite teeth. Where the gorge is at its narrowest, we enter a longer tunnel with steel doors, once kept closed to stop pedestrians from having fatal encounters with the train. A metal walkway pinned to the side of the canyon is the alternative to walking along the railway track. A sign tells us that, according to legend, Hercules created the gorge. Wishing to meet Voura, a beautiful maiden who lived near the sea, he took his mighty sword and sliced a path through the mountains.

We disembark at Mega Spilaeon, the ride lasting an hour. The monastery is somewhere over our heads, lost in cloud. The air is chillier here than at Diakopto, the rain still falling. We duck into a café. A man called Milkos is serving spanakopita, a spinach and cheese pastry, and karydopita, a walnut cake drenched in syrup, with Greek mountain tea (tsai tou vounou). We eat the pastry and pack the cake. It is time to return to sea level, a 13-kilometre hike on the railway track, walking fast through the tunnels and listening out for Odontotos.

Tony

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