Trails
A guide to the trails
How we measure the trails, how to set your own pace, and what to know before you head up.
Five things worth knowing before you head up any Greek mountain.
Each mountain's Safety tab adds what applies there.
112 is free and works on any network, even without a SIM. It answers in Greek, English and French, and a recent phone sends your location with the call. Say the trail’s name and the nearest place you know, like a spring or a peak.
Fire and hunting, month by month
- Fire season · 1 May to 31 October
- Hunting season · 20 August to 28 February
Every day the civil protection publishes a map of the next day's fire risk, from 1 to 5. On the riskiest days forests close: each region decides which areas, most of them from category 3, Attica from 4. Each mountain's Safety tab lists what closes there.
- 1Low
- 2Moderate
- 3High
- 4Very high
- 5State of alert
Forests close: most regions from 3, Attica from 4
Lighting a fire in the countryside is banned in every category, with fines up to €50,000; on a category 4 or 5 day, a fire in a forest means at least a year in prison.
Hunting is open from 20 August to 28 February (decree for 2026–27), except in the cores of national parks and in wildlife refuges.
Most trails have no spring on the map, and a mapped spring can be dry. Each trail page says if it has one, or how far off the nearest is.
Each trail page shows when the sun sets and how long the trail takes without stops. If it isn’t a loop, that time is one way only. In winter it gets dark earlier than you think.
We haven’t checked these trails on the ground. Paths change, springs dry up, signs fall, and a fire can close a mountain overnight.
Ask in the village or at the refuge how the trail is Tell someone where you are going Carry an offline map Turn back if a stretch looks wrong
In one hour: 4 km on the flat, 300 m up or 500 m down.
- Up to 3 h
- 3–5 h
- Over 5 h
- Long-distance
Walking times follow DIN 33466, the German standard for mountain signposts: 4 km an hour on the flat, 300 m an hour uphill, 500 m an hour downhill. We work out the time for the distance and the time for the climb and descent apart, then add half the smaller to the larger.
It is time on the move, without stops. On the list and the map, the number’s colour says how long: up to 3 hours, 3 to 5, over 5, and E/O for stretches of the European and Greek long-distance paths.
Every 100 m of climb counts as one more kilometre.
You enter only your pace on the flat. The climb follows the ITRA rule: every 100 m of ascent counts as one more kilometre. So 10 km with 600 m up counts as 16 km. At 7:00 per km, that's about 1 hour 50 minutes.
Descents and stops aren't counted. Add them yourself: you know your legs.
T1 is a clear path. At T6 you climb with your hands.
- T1, Easy
A clear path, flat or gently sloping, with no risk of a fall. Trainers are enough.
- T2, Moderate
A mountain path, steep in places. You need steady footing and hiking shoes.
- T3, Demanding
The path fades in places, with rocky, exposed bits. You need sure footing and good boots.
- T4, Hard
The path isn't always visible, and in places you need your hands. You need experience on exposed mountain ground.
- T5, Very hard
Easy climbing on exposed ground. Mountaineering experience needed.
- T6, Extreme
Climbing on very exposed ground. For experienced mountaineers only.
The grade follows the SAC scale, T1 to T6. OpenStreetMap volunteers set it on some stretches of trail, not all. We show the hardest grade mapped on the route. A stretch with no grade may be harder. Where none is set, we show nothing. The grade assumes good conditions. Snow, ice or rain make the same path harder.
OpenStreetMap volunteers put the trails on the map. We add the time, the climb, the springs and the races.
- OpenStreetMapThe marked routes as volunteers drew them: number, waymarks, start and end.
- EU-DEM, 25 mThe height, with its noise filtered out: climb and descent.
- Trail BookWalking time, springs, refuges, shelters, hard stretches, and races that run on half a km of it or more.
Every trail here is a marked route on OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, drawn by volunteers. We take the routes as they are: their numbers, their waymarks, where they start and where they end.
To each one we add a walking time, the climb and the descent. Heights come from EU-DEM, the European terrain model, on a 25 m grid, with its noise filtered out. We mark the springs, refuges and shelters on or near the trail, and the stretches OpenStreetMap shows as hard or faint. We also find the races that run on at least half a kilometre of it.
The map data is © OpenStreetMap contributors, under the Open Database License. A wrong trail is fixed on OpenStreetMap itself: each trail page links to the spot, and our next update picks the fix up.
Every trail carries a badge that says where it comes from. From the most to the least vouched for:
Certified trail - Carries the ministry’s certification sign (decision 151344/165/2017) with its upkeep dates. None of ours has it yet: we haven’t found the national registry online.
Marked by the forest office - A named body marks and keeps it, and its own page says so. A mapper’s tag in OpenStreetMap is not enough.
Source: OpenStreetMap - Waymarks that volunteers recorded in OpenStreetMap. We don’t know who keeps them up today. Most trails are in this group, dated by the day we took the data.
GPS track: a hiker’s name - Someone’s GPS line, used with their written permission. We don’t know if it is marked or what state the path is in. We have none yet.
A map path that isn’t part of a marked route gets no page of its own.
107 projects, €41.2 million. The Recovery Fund pays only for those completed by 31 August 2026.
- 107projects approved in 2023
- €41.2 millionmostly from the Recovery Fund
- ≈ 8,000 kmof the mountaineering federation’s network, laid out from 1990 to 1995 and given no money for upkeep since
The sign of a certified trail: 15 × 30 cm, with the ministry’s logo and the dates of upkeep.
Greece is building a national network of hiking trails. The programme is run by NECCA, the Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency, for the Ministry of Environment, and paid for mostly by the Recovery Fund. In 2023 municipalities, regions and church bodies applied for money to open, mark and maintain trails; 107 projects were approved, worth €41.2 million.
Only projects certified complete by 31 August 2026 are paid from the Recovery Fund. Trails built or maintained to the standard of a 2017 ministerial decision count as certified. You’ll know them by a 15 × 30 cm sign with the ministry’s logo and the dates of upkeep. The same decision provides for a national trail registry open to all, which we haven’t found online yet.
On the ground this means new signs and freshly marked paths, but a marked line is not always a maintained one: the mountaineering federation's network of about 8,000 km, laid out in 1990–95, has had no money for upkeep since.
We haven’t checked these trails on the ground. Paths change, springs dry up, signs fall, and a fire can close a mountain overnight.
Ask in the village or at the refuge how the trail is Tell someone where you are going Carry an offline map Turn back if a stretch looks wrong