A Pieria food tour follows home cooking and local produce from the forest villages of the Pieria Mountains down to the fishing coast below Mount Olympus in northern Greece. More trips by region wait on our Greece Tours homepage.
The sections below cover the bookable mountain day, the food it serves, the villages, the dishes and products of Pieria, fish by the sea, the season, the road and rail to Katerini and the questions guests ask.
What is a Pieria food tour?
It is a guided day organised around the food of Pieria. This regional unit in Central Macedonia lies below Mount Olympus. The guide sets the route, and each stop is chosen for something to taste, cook or watch being made.
The southern part of Central Macedonia belongs to Pieria, which has Katerini as its capital. The regional unit measures 1,516 square kilometres and counts 119,384 residents. Three municipalities share it: Katerini, Dion-Olympos and Pydna-Kolindros. A Pieria food tour works with all of that ground, from mountain slopes down to sea level.
To the west rise the Pierian Mountains, and to the east spreads the Thermaic Gulf. Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece, stands in the south of the regional unit. Plains, high mountains and sandy beaches fill the space between them. A Pieria food tour can therefore move from slope to plain to shore without a long drive.
The name Pieria comes from the ancient Pieres tribe. Wikipedia adds that the name has been connected to a Homeric phrase that means fertile land. Any Pieria food tour starts from that same soil: fields, forest slopes and a coast on the Thermaic Gulf.
A Greek TV food series gave Pieria its own episode. The news site Dnews described it as full of authenticity, surprises, people and flavours. The episode moves between the sea, a farm estate in the Pierian Mountains and the streets of Katerini.
Which Pieria food tour can you book?
GetYourGuide lists “Pieria Mountains: One day trip in Nature with Culinary Delights” as a guided tour of 8.5 hours. It runs for small groups, offers pickup, is offered in English and Greek, and carries free cancellation.
This Pieria food tour is a mountain day. According to the listing, the route covers:
- A walk on the stone bridge.
- A visit to the chapel of St. Nicholas and the old timber.
- A hike to the village of Morna and to the tallest tree in Greece.
- Lunch in Petra, Olympus.
Petra is a former municipality of Pieria. Since the local government reform it forms part of the municipality of Katerini. GetYourGuide marks the tour as a new activity and files it under Central Macedonia. The web address of the listing calls it a hike on hidden trails with a local guide.
The booking form counts travellers from age 13 as adults. Children of 12 and younger have a second category. The adult category takes one to eight travellers per booking. Book this Pieria food tour at least 10 hours before the start, because the form asks for that lead time.
Free cancellation is listed on this Pieria food tour. The summary names no meeting point, lunch menu or inclusions. Read the booking page for those details before you pay.
Wine has its own trip, and our Pieria wine tasting page covers it. Keep the two on different days, because this Pieria food tour already fills 8.5 hours.
What food does a Pieria food tour find in the Pieria Mountains?
Villages west of Katerini offer local meat from the grill and the spit, pork belly and wild boar. Olympus tea, chestnut and plum jam and preserves of forest products complete the list. A Pieria food tour finds the tavernas and both workshops in Elatochori.
The regional tourism site tells visitors to taste the preserves made with forest products in the traditional settlements. The forest behind the villages holds beech, oak, chestnut and both black and red pine.
A Pieria food tour can sit down at three named tavernas in Elatochori alone. Palio Scholeio runs inside the village’s old school building. A travel.gr writer ate local meats from the grill and the spit there.
In the old square, Anoi specialises in pork belly roasted on the spit. Tzivaeri serves mountain cooking. On festive days it adds pork with leek and celery, and wild boar with plums.
Near the old settlement, at the spot called Agioneri, a small chapel stands inside a cave. The walk passes through a small gorge. The return to Elatochori can end with tsipouro and mezedes in a traditional village taverna.
A workshop on the same square sells chestnut jam and plum jam. In New Elatochori, Ktima Althaia runs a workshop that visitors can enter to see how Olympus tea is made. The tea is Sideritis scardica, a mountain herb.
A Greek TV food series filmed a meal at Ktima Bellou, an ecological estate in the Pieria Mountains. The plates paired black pig with Olympus tea, jujube and quince. It shows the mix a Pieria food tour can taste in the hills: pork, mountain herb and orchard fruit.
Which mountain villages fit a Pieria food tour?
Elatochori and Ritini sit on the eastern slopes of the Pieria Mountains, at about 780 and 550 metres. Elatochori carries the tavernas and workshops. Ritini is the larger village, with a view over the Katerini plain and toward Olympus.
Elatochori lies at about 780 metres on the eastern foothills of the range. It splits into an old settlement and a new one, with the old settlement a little higher. Longer trails lead into dense forest of willow, chestnut, fir and plane trees.
The old settlement keeps an 18th-century church of Saint Nicholas, the Trani Vrysi fountain and an old watermill. From the Nikola Pigadi spot, a trail leads to the Sotiri Rema waterfall. Elatochori gives a Pieria food tour its tavernas, workshops and forest trails in one village.
Ritini took its name from pine resin, which people used widely in the past. It lies at about 550 metres, clearly larger than Elatochori. Wikipedia lists 890 residents for Ritini and 447 for Elatochori.
Ritini adds history between meals on a Pieria food tour. The village already existed in the 17th century, as its first church shows. The Monastery of Saint George stands just outside, a single-aisle basilica with a timber roof from the 15th century. A trail from the village leads to the Kremastos Waterfall.
Two more villages belong to the municipality of Katerini. Moschopotamos lies at 460 metres and Agios Dimitrios at 800 metres. Wikipedia lists 457 residents for the first and 520 for the second.
Which dishes and local products does a Pieria food tour bring to the table?
Pies, goat, forest mushrooms, beans and hazelnuts fill the Pieria table. Visit Olympus says meat, pies, cheese and herbs lead the cooking in the mountain villages. The coast adds mussels and fish to the menu.
Pies come first. Visit Olympus names pies of wild greens, leek, pumpkin, spinach, sausage, milk and apple. A Greek TV food series filmed a nettle pie in Dion. The cook baked it in a wood oven with greens from her garden.
Nettle pie and ruins share one village. Dion holds an ancient city, and our Dion tours page covers it in full.
Winter menus add goat stew and fried forest mushrooms with vinegar. Summer brings boiled zucchini with a warm garlic sauce. Each season gives a Pieria food tour a different plate. Fresh hazelnuts come into season around August, and Pieria grows them systematically.
The same TV series filmed a dish with Pontic roots. Alyki, a restaurant in the old railway station of Pieria, cooked it. The plate holds beans with spinach, black cabbage and bulgur.
Wikipedia’s list of Macedonian local products names Pieria for feta, kasseri and manouri. A Pieria food tour draws on these cheeses and on the pies above.
Where does a Pieria food tour find fish on the coast?
The Thermaic Gulf coast supplies the fish. Makrygialos farms mussels, Paralia Katerinis keeps a fishing port, and seaside tavernas fry, grill and steam the catch. Olympiaki Akti lies 3 km south of Paralia.
Makrygialos, whose name means Long Beach, is the mussel village for any Pieria food tour on the coast. It lies 21 km from Katerini. Mussel farming there began in nineteen eighty-seven. Greek City Times says the production of its marine park is the fourth largest in Europe.
The farms are 67 units. Together they produce about 10,500 tons of mussels a year and employ 250 people. Exports take 95 percent to Italy, France and Spain. Only 5 percent is eaten in Greece.
The mussels grow in the brackish water of the Thermaic Gulf. The water needs fresh flow from four rivers, the Gallikos, Axios, Loudias and Aliakmon. One farmer takes summer visitors out on his boat to show them the area and cooks steamed mussels with lemon.
Greek City Times lists steamed mussels, chargrilled mussels, mussel pilaf, saganaki mussels and mussel pie. Visit Olympus adds that mussels are eaten fried, smoked, salted or canned.
The fish list for a Pieria food tour starts on the beaches near Litochoro. There, Visit Olympus names fried squid, sole, cephalopods, shrimp and sea bream. It says a sauce of egg and lemon suits the fatty flesh of sea bream.
In Paralia Katerinis, Nautilos Mediterranean Cuisine is described as renowned for fresh seafood. Reviewers say staff debone the fish at the table. Babis and Babis lists traditional Greek dishes, fresh seafood and grilled specialties.
Roads, sidewalks and bicycle lanes join Paralia and Olympiaki Akti. A Pieria food tour can take in both fish shores. Platamon, 33 km south of Katerini, is a resort and fishing village with a marina.
The listed mountain day names no coast stop. A Pieria food tour for fish is a day of its own. The TV series also stopped at the Kitros salt pans. It watched salt collection beside a wetland with flamingos. Makrygialos belongs to the Methoni municipal unit, together with Methoni, Nea Agathoupoli and Palaio Eleftherochori.
When does a Pieria food tour run and how do you get to it?
The listed Pieria food tour offers Monday and Wednesday dates, and its calendar shows dates in every month. A private van starts the day from Thessaloniki and uses four listed pickup points. Katerini has a Hellenic Train station and sits on the A1 motorway.
Open dates fall on Mondays and Wednesdays, week after week. The calendar lists dates in every month of the year. The booking page therefore offers this Pieria food tour in autumn, winter, spring and summer. The listing shows the start time only after you check a date.
Weather can move the plan. The listing says guests then choose between two options. They continue with the adjusted schedule, or they take a full refund.
Autumn adds local produce around the tour. The apples of Ritini and Elatochori are harvested in late September. The chestnuts of Olympus arrive a little later, and walnuts close the autumn cycle. The listing names none of these crops in its meal.
The listing says the day starts from Thessaloniki in an air-conditioned private van. It names four pickup points: Eukarpidē, Períptero, White Tower and Politechniou 13. The first ride to the mountains lasts 1.5 hours. The description ends with a return to Thessaloniki or Katerini.
Self-drivers who plan a Pieria food tour of their own point the car at Katerini. The town lies 68 kilometres from Thessaloniki. The A1 motorway, part of European route E75, crosses the regional unit.
Hellenic Train runs Katerini railway station. On weekdays, up to two Intercity trains per day in each direction call there on the Athens to Thessaloniki line. The station has a buffet-restaurant on platform one and parking in the forecourt. Hellenic Train’s route finder lists both Katerini and Thessaloniki as stations.
What do travellers ask about a Pieria food tour?
Travellers ask about guide languages, children, footwear, vegetarian meals and refunds. Each answer below comes from the GetYourGuide listing of the Pieria Mountains day trip, run by the provider Hidden Nature. Read the listing once more before you pay.
Which languages does the guide speak on a Pieria food tour?
The listing names a live guide in English and Greek. Its inclusions line repeats this with an English-speaking and a Greek-speaking escort.
Can children and older travellers join this Pieria food tour?
The listing names four groups it is not suitable for. They are children under 4 years, pregnant women, wheelchair users and people over 80 years. It includes child seats in the van. Baby strollers are not allowed.
What shoes and gear does a Pieria food tour call for?
The listing asks guests to bring comfortable shoes, a hat, sunscreen and a passport or ID card. Hiking poles come with the trip. The itinerary lists a 30-minute walk at the stone bridge and 1.5 hours for the village visit.
Does a Pieria food tour serve vegetarian meals?
The listing does not say. It names a main meal, a snack and Greek coffee or water, and the description calls the meal traditional. It lists no vegetarian menu and no allergen list, so contact the provider, Hidden Nature, before booking.
What happens if you cancel a Pieria food tour booking?
The listing promises a full refund when a guest cancels a full day ahead. The same page offers reserve now and pay later. A booking asks for no payment on the day it is made.