The Pilion peninsula, land of the mythical centaurs, lies east of the city of Volos, and curves somewhat like Cape Cod around the huge Pagassitic Bay north of Athens and Euboea. A unique and beautiful world of its own within Greece it is sizeable, heavily forested, rugged and has mountains and sea in close proximity.
These last two distinct features, the high mountains peaks of Mt Pilio (1551meters / 5,089feet), and Mt. Ossa further to the north (1978meters/6488feet) and many miles of rugged coast line broken by enchanting swimming spots make Mt. Pilion a popular spot with the Greeks themselves and it does not receive mass foreign tourism. The beaches of the Aegean side are longer, sandier and more wind swept and less popular but they are superior and worth the extra driving time.
Pilion is forested with stands of pine, beech, oak and chestnut and also possesses orchards of cherry, walnut, peach, apple, pear and olive trees. Picturesque Pilion's villages have developed, with such wood at its disposal, a unique traditional architecture of timber-framed houses with projecting upper stories and balconies supported by wooden corbels, and slate roofs with overhanging eaves, and narrow cobbled streets. The villages squares often have a magnificent Plane tree or several as center pieces and to provide a very pleasant kind of protection from the sun.