Ramanat is a naturist guesthouse in the state of Minas Gerais, Brasil.
The guest house is no longer affiliated with the naturist federation,
but it is still a great place for a rustic getaway with pools and numerous trails to explore the forest.
However, the website of Ramanat is not functioning at the moment, and we haven’t been able to reach them by phone either, unfortunately. Hopefully it’s just a renovation!
André
We continue with Berlin series (it’s not over yet!), and here is something for winter time, and looking at the calendar – particularly suitable for Valentine’s Day, if you’re up for a hot date… Literally! I’m talking about two of my favourite saunas in Berlin (one of them doesn’t seem to be open this winter, however).
Thermen am Europa Center is located in the centre of Berlin. It’s easy to see why I loved it, with multiple types of saunas including 2 hamams, several pools of different temperatures, and large outdoor terraces with views over some of Berlin’s landmarks like Gedaechtniskirche.
The biggest pool goes partially outdoors and is very warm. Due to the narrow shape of its outdoors part though, don’t expect to do laps when there’s more than a couple of people. But if you go there primarily for relaxation, you will definitely get it! Thermen am Europa Center is open throughout the year, so it can be also a good idea for a chilly summer evening, which is not a rare thing in Berlin either…
Well, the description below, is for historic reference, as of now… hopefully they’ll reopen it next winter!
Another option is was Badeshiff 
, which from November till the end of March becomes used to turn into an oasis of warmth with saunas and partially open-air swimming pool with transparent walls over the Spree River! This not only allows-ed you to enjoy the views, up to the tallest city landmark – Alex TV-tower
– but also to appreciate the warmth of saunas in contrast to the chilly winter weather outside.
However the water in the pool could be warmer
unless you’d swim intensely 🙂
But why not, keep yourself active in winter too, and you’ll enjoy the sauna even more!
Orient Land Trust is an amazing piece of land between San Luis Valley and Cottonwood Peak of Rocky Mountains in Colorado; it encompasses wildlife corridor with numerous hiking trails to explore, pristine spring waters – including geothermal springs for you to relax, an abandoned mine that now hosts the state’s largest bat colony, and rustic cabins and camping area for you to stay. And what makes this place truly natural, relaxing and liberating is that it is very much nude-friendly! When we went there in July, the weather was just perfect for that – it only cools down at night, but then you’d hang out at the hot springs 😉
We stayed at the Oak House community lodge, but if I come again, I think I’ll go for tenting next to one of those natural hot springs.
This place is perfect if want to connect with nature at ease – it’s everywhere around you, and even such luxury as hot baths are natural there. On my first walk around, I was amazed to see several deer right off the trail that seem to be quite tame. I didn’t have my camera that time, but when I grabbed it, there was a rabbit instead, but it was a bit shier.
I saw quite a few deer on a random trail afterwards, and it looked like they felt pretty much the same as human visitors of OLT – relaxed 😉
Fawns, however, seemed to be more alert and cautious,
so as squirrels (unlike their Central Park counterparts).
As I continued going up the mountain, I also apparently scared the whole flock of grouse, as they noisily took off the ground and sat on the trees around me.
The views from the trail were beautiful: multicolored hills and mountains,
magnificent San Luis Valley,
and cute tiny settlement of Orient Land Trust itself…
At the top of the nearest peak to OLT, there was a primitive stone construction by a dead tree – not sure about its purpose, but it could protect you from the wind if you decide to camp there.
As I looked down at the forest on the opposite slope, it caught my attention how various the vegetation appeared to be, with patches of different broad-leaf and coniferous trees sticking to each other, and other parts covered by grass or bushes.
Aspen trees with their white barks stood out in the sea of green.
As aspens let a lot of light to reach the ground, a lot of other plants can grow in such a forest.
And if aspens caught my eyes’ attention, my nose was pleased with conifers –
many of them released sap on their young cones, and it provided a pleasant aroma.
Too bad I didn’t see any edible fruits. This one below looked like a gooseberry, but I wasn’t sure.
This plant below had beautiful leaves,
but the main attraction was of course flowers,
which were in abundance all over the mountain but especially on non-forested slopes.
Colors spanned the whole spectrum.
My favorite was probably this one below.
Flowers mean butterflies (and hummingbirds, in this part of the world, but we’ll get to them later).
But not all butterflies were busy pollinating flowers.
Cactus flowers seemed to be more popular among bees though.
I was surprised to see so many cacti species so far up north and at relatively high elevation,
but they were clearly at limit of their ecological tolerance,
as all of them were very short.
I wonder if sticking together helps cacti survive winter.
Well, at least some of them clearly showed their love to the place ❤
And as much as I love cacti, I don’t like stepping on their spikes… oh, have I mentioned that hiked not only bare but barefoot too?
The terrain was quite rough even without spikes, but all that pain made relaxation in hot springs only sweeter.
So, finally I’m getting to describe you what Orient Land Trust is probably most known for – geothermal springs in truly natural setting! There are a few pools with different temperature of water, different levels of accessibility and seclusion. The uppermost of the upper three pools has an extra feature: air bubbles seep through its bottom caressing your body on their way to the surface.
The middle of the upper pools is one of the smallest, but its depth is just perfect to lie down and enjoy the flow of warm water over your body.
After that, I was ready for another hike! (I’ll get back to description of other hot springs of OLT in a bit.)
At around 18:00, together with many other visitors and a guide, we headed out to the abandoned Orient Mine turned home to the largest bat colony in Colorado to see the spectacle of thousands bats leaving their cave to prey on insects at dusk.
The views on the way were stunning again.
The excavated red earth stark perfect contrast to the green, whereas the valley literally on the other side of the road was covered by dry grass.
Typically for OLT, we were greeted by a deer chilling by the bush.
I snacked on ‘Bear Naked’ energy bar (I see an ad potential here!)
The trail was very easy, with only one decent uphill hike, after which we had a break at a cliff with magnificent view of the valley.
The sea of dry grass spotted by green trees and bush thickets presented a beautiful picture.
Then, the beams of sunlight coming onto the valley between the mountains and clouds created yet more splendid view.
As the last sun rays of the day touched our skin, we hurried to the Orient Mine cave.
While we waited for the bats to emerge, I was try it to figure my at-the-time-new-to-me camera settings, that would work well for a fast moving small object in dark conditions.
I could certainly catch the colors of sunset,
and an airplane gaseous trace,
but I failed to take any decent photograph of bats.
You’ll just have to believe my word or go to OLT webpage about their bats to see photos and videos.
It was a mesmerizing nature’s spectacle! As we were told by our guide, these bats were mainly males of a tropical species that migrate there for the summer, it was funny to think of the cave as a huge bachelor resort for bats and their huge night feast in the valley.
By that time, it got substantially colder and I was the only one left naked. It was still ok for me, especially after we started walking, but I was looking forward to the hot springs. At night, we only went to the pools that were closer to the campground, and although they were pretty full, it was still easy to find a nice spot for yourself. At the biggest pool, we were treated with yet another amazing nature’s spectacle: incredibly bright starry sky and fireflies ‘dancing’ around us. Unfortunately I didn’t even try to photograph this, but the whole experience was magic.
Next morning, we went to the upper pools again and enjoyed the views from the lowest of the three. By the way, there was mint growing right next to it, so it smelled nice around too.
This geothermal infinity pool is just priceless, and I hope I’ll enjoy it again some day!
Right before our departure, I found hummingbird trapped in the bathroom.
Luckily, I have a lot of experience handling birds,
so I easily caught it while it was bumping into the window and set it free outside.
I must say that I myself felt pretty much free as a bird at Orient Land Trust, I wish there were more places like that!
We had a very short hike last summer in Dream Canyon, west of Boulder, Colorado, but it was clear why it was called so – breath-taking views awaited us there, and to add some more dreamy atmosphere, we hiked in the buff.
Dream Canyon has a bit of history of nude outdoor recreation probably thanks to the fact that it’s somewhat complicated to navigate there while also being close to Boulder, one of the hippest cities in America whose dwellers love outdoors. It took us a while to find a convenient parking lot with numerous trails coming down.
At first, the beauty of the canyon was concealed by the pine forest. We took one of the least used trails, and after just a few minutes of pretty steep descent
we got to an open space with the view over the canyon.
But not only the majestic views impressed me, it was interesting to see such a multi-colored plant! (Which I later found out was Oregon grape holly.)
We continued our hike down, however,
and found even better spots to enjoy the views and have our lunch, somewhere midway between the top of the canyon and the creek in its bottom.
This place is well-known among rock climbers, and it’s obvious why!
We didn’t have any climbing equipment, but it was also fun to run down and up those steep trails without it, and any clothes either.
It certainly helps being flexible, and I can see why Mateo has a nickname of Spider-Man in some circles 🙂
Next time we should spend a bit more time there and perhaps find a place for [naked] bouldering. When in Boulder… 😉
Painted Canyon in California is yet another place for a nice hike in the buff; it’s not an official naturist territory, but it has a history of naturist excursions and feels quite secluded.
This place is also known as Mecca Hills, but Painted Canyon makes better justice as its name – the rocks are quite colorful there!
Shortly after then entrance (parking), you’ll have to get up the ladders on another level of the dry riverbed,
but otherwise it’s pretty flat. Except for the vertical rock walls around! It’s difficult to imagine how this place is transformed when the river gets full here, but you can get a rough idea when you see the traces of its work, such as the base of this rock wall being washed off…
I posed both as a Titan supporting the whole thing and being succumbed to some kind of gravitational force pulling me deep in the Mother Earth…
We continued the hike,
and after a brief clothed break as we let some school group pass by, we got naked again.
Here is just a brief overview of the variety of rocks that you may see there.
I have no idea of their composition and geological names, so I can only offer to enjoy the esthetic aspect of their colorful variety:
dotted
and striped,
green
and pink-red!
As we continued, there were a few bifurcations – dried estuaries of the dried river – and we were taking the left ones, but I imagine they all look similar.
I climbed up one of the hills to get a view from above, and it was quite spectacular with all those rocks zigzaggedly eroded by rivers.
After that we headed back, but then I saw something I’d been trying to photograph for years –
a hummingbird!
I knew that they could be around as soon as I saw elongated red flowers that this pollinating bird loved.
I managed to take a few pictures, as you can see, even while it was hovering,
but the light was quite low already, so given the speed with which hummingbird flaps its wings, they become invisible on the photo 😀
There was also a plant with red stems, but I’m not sure if that is to attract any kind of animal.
Once I started paying attention to plants, it was quite fascinating to see such a variety,
and many of them blooming, in such arid conditions.
Some cacti though looked somewhat squashed, as if they used up almost all their water cache.
This one seemed to be very well protected.
Close to the exit, Don knew of another trail that was rather special. As all passages here, it was a dried riverbed, but the river that carved this canyon must have been nothing more than a narrow creek. It looked very surreal.
I’ve only seen such kind of terrain in the movie ‘127 Hours’. It was like a winding labyrinth, sometimes very narrow,
where you never knew what you’d see at the next turn –
perhaps a naked man? 😀
Mostly the walls looked too steep to try to climb up, but in one place I was tempted to do so, as the cliff wasn’t entirely vertical and had a lot of dents and bumps.
It was quite easy to climb up,
but I didn’t dare to go all the way up that tower-like rock.
I still felt like king of the hill (or king of the castle?)
But as it often happens, it was much scarier to go down than to climb up, and the ground seemed suddenly shaky…
I made it down without problems though and even went back up half-way to take a picture of the slot canyon from above.
It was a lot of fun to walk through that labyrinth,
and it didn’t just turn all the time, we had to go up and down a few times too.
It was good though that there was a clear main path, as you wouldn’t want to get lost there.
After we reached a relatively wide part, we decided to turn back.
The sun was just about to set, but it was getting dark in the slot canyon already. We headed back fast, as we still needed to set up the camp,
but we still got the last sun rays.
I guess we were so inspired by the views of the Painted Canyon, that despite being quite sleepy we spent a couple of hours painting each other… with light! I actually posted the results of our light-painting frenzy a while ago.
Next day, we visited Morongo Valley,
where we could refresh in the remains of the river that was still flowing (and was very cold too).
The following night and morning we spent in luxury at Vista Grande Resort in Palm Springs; nudity combined well with luxury too, as it turned out 🙂
In case you thought this photo depicts DeAnza Springs Resort, don’t worry, it’s in much better condition. This is just one of their sites of interest, where some scenes of a 1988 movie Heartbreak Hotel were shot. The resort hosts a resident nudist community, as well as a motel and RVs to rent; it’s actually the largest clothing-optional resort in North America, according to their website. Below is a photo with the view of DeAnza resort and its surroundings taken from a rocky peak nearby.
But before I get to tell you how I got to that peak, a couple more words about the resort itself. Typically for a nudist resort, there is a sauna, hot tub and two pools – open-air and indoors, where water volleyball is played. There are also tennis courts, and perhaps the best equipped gym I’ve seen at a nudist resort so far!
However, the most attractive thing about DeAnza Springs Resort is its nature surroundings and possibilities for outdoor recreation: bouldering, and miles of hiking and mountain-biking trails. I was a bit disappointed they didn’t have a bike rental – it would be useful when we explored the ‘rail-trail’, which I described in my previous blogpost. There’s definitely a lot of potential for outdoor activities at DeAnza, and I think they should put more emphasis on it on their website.
The Peak Trail, which was called so for obvious reasons, is a lot shorter than the ‘Rail-trail’ (about a mile), but it’s very diverse in terms of sights and experiences that you get on the way. It starts right off that Heartbreak Hotel movie scene site and goes around a rocky peak.
Right off the start, there are some enormous boulders,
and some rocks with Native American art. There is apparently a lot more of it, but we couldn’t find where… (Better self-guide maps and markings on trails would be my other suggestion to DeAnza Springs resort for improvement!)
The trail is quite easy to lose; it’s not like you can get really lost, as everything is quite visible and in the open there, but you should watch out for those cacti and other spiky plants.
There’s actually quite a lot of vegetation. Lichens may not seem as interesting at first, but it’s quite amazing how they manage to live on bare rocks in the desert.
We lost the trail a couple of times and my travel buddy decided to go back to the campground, while I was determined to climb up the peak. As I was coming up behind the peak, I noticed a few small caves, where I thought I might see more of Native American art or could pose for a picture, so I was looking for a rock on which I could leave my camera on self-timer… I reclined, trying to find the best angle, and then turned around
and saw a rattle snake right behind me!
I jumped away in a split second. Oh well, it was just chilling in the crack between the rocks and didn’t seem to be bothered by my presence. I spent quite a lot of time taking pictures of it, and it barely moved at all.
We were warned about rattle snakes, but after that I was certainly a lot more cautious even just stepping over rocks, as I was also reminded of my first encounter with a rattle snake which was also chilling behind a rock in a forest near New York City… Nevertheless, cautious doesn’t mean anxious, so I continued exploring and enjoying the surroundings.
As I mentioned, there were a few small caves that looked very cozy with their rounded smooth edges. Now it was my time to chill on the rocks 😉
This could be a nice little community of natural studio apartments 🙂
Well, I’m not sure about living in caves, but cooling down for a bit in one of those was nice.
The one on the photo above might be perfect for camping, maybe next time!
I’ve seen pictures with nudes in the rocks of this sort by some photographer, but cannot recall who… I wouldn’t be surprised if the pictures were taken here (please leave a comment, if you know the artwork). So, even though this landscape was kind of desolate, it made me at the same time feel comfortable and willing to interact with it.
The next step was to conquer the peak itself. Here, I saw the rope I was told about at the reception, and it certainly made climbing a lot easier. Here is how it looked like and what I saw from up there 🙂
This post would have suited last weekend more, as there is a bit of a necromantic element to it… Better later than never, so here it is, another hiking story, but very unusual in a way, as the landscape through which this trail goes is deeply influenced and modified by people of the recent past. I call it a ‘rail-trail’, as it runs along an abandoned railroad, which in its initial times used to be called ‘Impossible Railroad’ due to difficulties with which it was built (in 1919). It was abandoned and then reused a few times in its history with last operation as late as 2011. As nowadays it is not in use, hikers and bikers are free to explore it. Although it might have been [nearly] “impossible” as a railroad, it is obviously very much possible as a hiking and biking trail, perhaps the easiest one in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, with as little change in elevation as it possibly gets in a mountainous terrain.
We started at DeAnza Springs Resort (I’ll review it in the next post), which is the largest clothing-optional resort in the US by territory. I don’t think I should even mention what option we chose in terms of clothing (none!) – the weather was perfect for that, as it usually happens in Southern California. Just the fist couple of minutes of the trail go away from the railroad through cacti and shrub.
The first ghostly train was already behind the first hill.
The train seemed so out of place there, that the fact that we were entering it in the buff didn’t make it much odder than it was…
How often do you get a chance to ride a train naked?
As it should be expected from a ghost train, there was a ghost floating through the aisle… 😀
The cars were still in quite solid conditions,
but nature is slowly taking over. Clearly some birds were happy to have this shelter.
We felt like we could spend a lot of time taking pictures in the train, but our hike had barely started!
This view from the back side seemed irresistible to pose with,
so we had to stop for a couple more pics.
It’d be fun to ride a train like this, but the train didn’t move.
Even when we tried to push it!
… after which we were too tired to hike, so we decided to hitchhike instead…
Our train never arrived, we had to walk after all.
The first bridge was soon followed by the first tunnel, of which I wasn’t aware at all. This was just the beginning!
This tunnel was very short though,
with enough light passing through. Tunnel’s repeating geometry and symmetry were sort of mesmerizing.
After that straight tunnel, the road started winding quite a lot.
The valley of Carrizo Creek, which was dry at that time, was still relatively green compared to the rocks above.
Nevertheless, even the rocks were full of desert vegetation,
such as cacti and yuccas.
This dead stem of yucca looked as if it was made of metal.
But then we saw a “skeleton” of a cactus!
The skeleton was actually sticking out from a cactus that was still alive… so it was half-alive, half-dead… a ZOMBIE cactus! I knew something was wrong in that place…
But we continued walking, and there I remembered about an episode of ‘Walking Dead’ TV series that I watched on the flight… In those post-apocalyptic scenes, people were walking on an abandoned railroad towards a refuge center. Once they had to go through a tunnel, and of course there was a zombie ambush! If you look at this view below closely, you’ll see entrances to four tunnels that we had to cross…
Here is a zoomed photo of the farthest two, if you couldn’t see them…
And just like in the series, there were encouraging signs on the way.
Luckily, these tunnels were pretty short and enough sunlight could pass to see without torches.
Here we saw another ghost train.
And if that wasn’t odd enough on its own,
this train turned out to have been used in the city of Montreal! This is probably the most unexpected place to see a metro train from Montreal, and we could only guess why this train was brought here from across the continent and then was just left in the middle of the desert…
We got creative again with photography, so here is a scene of me typically being late and trying to catch the train in the last moment (would the train be more likely to wait, if I were naked?)
… and a bit of goofing around.
No zombies were spotted there, and only later on pictures did I notice that we were actually watched by the devil… However, judging by his mischievous smile, he was happy about the mooning 😀
We continued our walk and were approaching another tunnel. There seemed to have been some construction planned but never finished.
Here, the railroad was at the edge of a very steep slope, and this was clearly a site of an accident…
After entering through that massive gate,
we realized that tunnel was quite different from the ones we had seen before. It looked more like a cave.
And it actually looked more like on the photo below, as brightness on the one above was adjusted. It was very dark, especially after leaving the bright sunlight, and we could hardly see the light on the other side of the tunnel… I wasn’t entirely sure if there was one at all…
And of course we didn’t think of bringing torches, when we planned a day hike in the desert… In this cave, if anywhere, zombies would definitely have caught us! We had to rely mostly on the tactile sense in our feet and could only hope not to step on a corpse or bump onto some kind of “walking dead”! This tunnel was half-mile long! Luckily, pretty soon it was evident that there was indeed light on the other side of the tunnel. The only problem with it is that once you pass the middle of the tunnel and there is more light coming from the front than from the back, you practically can only see this light and nothing else around you… Nevertheless, zombies missed all those wonderful opportunities to get us, and we were outside in the broad daylight again. Only cacti looked like they were gathering for an attack, but they were certainly not walking, and they were certainly not dead 🙂
We didn’t have to wait long for another tunnel, and then yet another right away, but these were much shorter.
One more weird abandoned/unfinished structure…
Leaving the last of those tunnels, we came to a fork on the railroad with an option to either continue the road or enter yet another tunnel…
Although tunnels provided shade and coolness from blazing sun, we picked the open road, as that tunnel on the side looked particularly uninviting… We were rewarded with a spectacular view,
but soon had to go through a different tunnel. This one was was very short though, and we could see the goal of our hike right after it!
I think I forgot to mention that our hike actually had a goal to see “the tallest curved wooden trestle ever built in the world”, the bridge over Goat Canyon. Yeah, it’s quite specific, but how often do you get a chance to hike naked to the biggest something of the world?
Here it was, but we decided to cross it, as the other side seemed to provide a better view. It was quite scary to walk on that grid 60m (200′) above the ground! And frankly, the fear wasn’t unreasonable, as not all of the grid plates looked stable.
We saw a group of bikers who continued their way further (and who were utterly over-dressed for that place in my opinion!)
For us though, it was the final stop, as we still had to make the way back before sunset.
It was funny to see those messages on the cargo container: “longest hike of my life… brutal” and “I’ll be back when there’s helicopter service”. I’d have to agree with the one in between, who called the authors of the other two “wimps”. 11km one way is a good exercise, but it was still more of a long stroll than a “brutal” hike!
By that time, we forgot about threat of zombies, but I was a little afraid to look inside that wagon. There was… nothing! A much scarier sight revealed on now the opposite side of the Goat Canyon – a crushed tunnel. It was actually that same side tunnel that we saw at the railroad fork a little earlier… I hope no one was hurt in that disaster.
But then, from the corner of the Goat Canyon, we could see the bridge in its full glory.
The tallest curved trestle in the world!
Certainly not recommended for people who are afraid of heights… or zombies!
After posting about our splendid hike at Mt Olympus, I probably shouldn’t call the activities I describe in this post ‘hikes’ – a ‘stroll’ may be a better word. Regardless, Athens has quite a few hills at its borders, and they provide magnificent views of the city and an easy escape into the wild-ish. Not many people seem to be aware of that, so it was easy for us to find trails where we could hike naked without “disturbing” anyone.
Alsos Skopeftiriou hill at the eastern edge of Athens provides an immense panoramic view.
It’s covered by a nice mix of trees, shrubs and grasses.
It is nice to sit and relax there on a later autumn or an early spring day, which would be too cold for a beach but good enough to sunbathe there.
There are lot of different flowers,
some manage to thrive just in a crack in the rock!
We weren’t the only ones enjoying those flowers though 🙂
Just in case you don’t like sitting in the grass, there’s a cozy rock that lets you to recline and enjoy the perfect view of Athens!
Then we also found a base a column – doubtfully from the times of Ancient Greece, but it gave another opportunity for nude photography with an obvious influence from Greek statues.
It’s certainly worth staying there till sunset, as you’ll be rewarded with yet another beautiful view with a silhouette of Acropolis!
Oros Egaleo hills lie in the opposite part of Athens, at the western boundary of the city. So, you’ll have a view of the city and aforementioned Alsos Skopeftiriou hill as well as mountainous area of Dasos Kesarianis behind it.
This time, I was under Ancient Greek influence too: wearing nothing but sandals. I got a pair of Spartan-styled sandals from the ‘poet shoe-maker’ in Athens, Stavros Melissinos.
This hill was full of flowers too, but interestingly of mostly different species than at Alsos Skopeftiriou.
And again, we weren’t the only ones enjoying those flowers 🙂
There’s a pretty dense coniferous forest at the foothills,
so you need to go higher to get the best views.
With numerous trails and intersections, it may be hard to choose where to go,
but it probably doesn’t matter much – as long as you go up, you’ll end up with magnificent views of Athens.
Although I am not a big fan of using nude imagery in advertisement of clothing, I think it is very appropriate to give some props to Stavros Melissinos‘s sandals again with the photo below (I hope he’d approve it :-)). I really like how light and open they feel, and yet they stay firmly on your feet thanks to long laces. You will have to visit Stavros Melissinos‘s store in Athens to buy them, as he wants to make sure they fit well to every customer.
In any case, whatever you wear (or not wear), I highly recommend hiking up the hills around Athens.
Most of our Greek adventures have involved sea and beach in some way, and this one is no exception, but the primary goal was to hike/climb up Mount Olympus. It is also the home of the twelve Olympian gods (according to Greek myths, that is), most of whom, at least male ones, used to hang out naked; so, no wonder Joe and I wanted to visit them wearing that divine attire. Mount Olympus is also among the most topographically prominent mountains and is located next to the sea, so we decided to go all the way from the sea level (at 0m) to the top (at 2,917m).
We just checked out the beach right across the road from the Litochoro train station, and it was fantastic! Long beach edged with wooded cliffs and just a few people around. What could be better?
Some fresh blackberries perhaps? We didn’t have too much time stay at the beach, however. After a brief swim, we were ready to walk up to the village of Litochoro.
Almost immediately after we got on the road (not naked), we got offered a lift to the village on a pickup truck by three brothers from there. Since that would have been the least interesting part of our trek anyways – just some fields at the foothills of the mountains, we took on the offer, which saved us an hour or two of walking.
We got some more food at the village and headed to the start of E4 trail (it’s a trail that crosses most of Southern Europe, and we’ve used it in Crete too).
Shortly after the entrance into Olympus National Park (at ~400m above sea level), I felt comfortable to get naked again. As we started our hike quite late in the day, we didn’t expect to encounter many people on the way. Also, from what what we read online, it appeared that most hikers preferred to start much higher, driving up first to Prionia; to me, this part of the trail – from Litochoro to Prionia – seemed actually the most beautiful.
On this trip, I mastered the technique of traveling really light. The only unnecessary weight was the clothes, though the weather in mountains is unpredictable… I liked the idea of carrying some stuff on the belt, which released a lot of weight from my back.
My backpack was very small too, and I appreciated Deuter’s ‘aircomfort’ configuration: it leaves space between the backpack and back for airflow and distributes some weight from shoulders to lower back.
Some parts of the trail are quite steep and aren’t very stable,
but overall it’s a very pleasant hike of moderate difficulty.
Views like these make any challenges on the way rewarding.
As the trail got more comfortable, I even took of my sandals and hiked barefoot:
I wanted to experience this legendary place with all senses.
If you divert for any reason (like we did on a few occasions),
make sure to go down to E4 trail, which is marked regularly.
Even though it feels like summer in most of Greece till mid-October or so, at higher elevations autumn colors appear earlier.
On the other hand, there were also a few pretty flowers along the trail as well.
The trail winds along the Enipeas river crossing it several times.
So, you’re likely to see some frogs and maybe even salamanders too (we weren’t lucky enough for the latter).
After sunset, we decided to camp at the first place with flat surface, preferable by the river. We were lucky to find a spot like that pretty soon!
It was a perfect quiet night only interrupted by the river murmur and occasional noise of falling rocks (somewhere far!)
We woke up to see the sun shining over the mountain slopes already.
After a brief refreshment in the river, we took off.
The trail went through the woods for a while, opening to some more stunning (and now sunny) views.
The next river crossing was via pretty wooden bridge.
At this point, we realized we had lost our map. Although, it was pretty clear how to follow the trail without it, I decided to run back, as we looked at it not too long before that. I heard many voices approaching (it was the first big group of people on that hike), so I put on my shorts, but it turned out to be a bunch of Czech guys, who probably would have been only slightly amused if they’d seen me naked. Turned out they picked the map, so I didn’t even have to look for it. We let them pass ahead and enjoyed the trail to ourselves most of the time again.
As the day was warming up, it was nice to refresh in the river again.
The natural views were amazing,
but it was also nice to see a bit of old (medieval) craft – a tiny monastery Agio Spileo.
Here we saw more people, as it was already pretty close to Prionia, so some of the hikers who started/finished there might go down to see this cave.
Still, the trail up from there was not crowded at all,
and we took advantage of those small pools in the river for some more skinny-dipping.
The last and best spot was at the Enipea waterfalls.
We had just a brief return to civilization at Prionia (at 1100m), as we aimed to reach Spilios Agapitos Refuge aka simply Refuge A (at 2100m) by night.
This part of the trail is probably the most visited,
we didn’t dare to hike naked for the most part. I didn’t mark it on our map of naturist locations either, but this bit and other trails from Prionia are shown on google maps.
The sign indicating that we were on the way to gods was encouraging,
so as the views, that indicated that we were approaching the forest borderline.
One of the meadows had plenty of raspberries that were in their prime ripeness and tasted divine!
Among the few animals that we saw around were a friendly robin
and a timid lizard.
By nightfall, we reached the refuge, totally exhausted. It was really cool to be able to see our starting point – the sea and the town of Litochoro.
In the morning I felt a bit mountain-sick, so I had a slight envy to those lazy hikers who trekked with/on donkeys 🙂
However, we took off shortly after breakfast, as the gods were calling us 🙂
We knew they must have been somewhere close!
Most hikers traveled in huge groups,
so we decided to divert onto a side trail.
Now we could see top of Mt Olympus and its base all the way down to the sea in one view!
At this point though, the only way up to the top from this side trail was to climb up.
We saw a couple of guys do that in the distance but decided not to follow: we still had to go down all the way to Litochoro on that day, and I felt pretty weak from mountain sickness at this altitude. We’ll have to return on another occasion to go all the way up and say hi to the Olympian gods.
As we turned around,
we saw the sunlit valley in mist, a view that could be appropriately described as divine.
Now, if we only could fly!
Red Beach near Matala, Crete, has a perfect combo of picturesque location and laid-back atmosphere. As the rumor goes, it was first discovered by hippies, and luckily it hasn’t been discovered by mass tourism yet. Perhaps it helps that you need to walk up and down a trail to reach the beach, but it’s worth every step. Thanks to it, you also get a bird-eye view of the beach itself and surroundings.
You can see that its sand isn’t exactly red, rather dark orange, and it changes its shade when wet.
I enjoyed lying in that warm big-grain sand without a towel.
Mr Sandman and the purple rock 🙂
The water was perfect for swimming and snorkeling: clear, calm and balmy.
We took a different trail on the way back, which provided yet another great view. We stayed there for a day, but there is a campground nearby, if you want to stay longer.
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Active Naturists 