12-03-2022 Mesopotamos-Romiri

We start at the plateia from Mesopotamos, where the kafenion is and walk 6 km up to the deserted village Romiri. There we have a break at the church Ag. Nikolaos. After the break we walk down to Kalochori and back to Mesopotamos, where we can have a drink out of the kafenion.

The story of Romiri: Romiri was a prosperous village as it had plenty of water. The farmers could grow vegetables and grain, and even raising animals wasn`t a problem. The summer months were pleasantly cool. The winter months, however, were icy cold and wet. The village is on the north side of the hill, meaning fewer hours of warming sunshine during the winter days. Ill-health was the result, with some diseases wiping out whole families. There was neither running water nor electricity. No-one wanted to carry heavy water buckets to the animals or out to the fields. No-one wanted to spend the long winter evenings with just the light of the candle. In the 1950`s the first of the young people to leave the village went abroad or to a larger town in Greece to look for work. For the old people who stayed on, it became almost impossible to keep going. Even the financial support from their children didn`t help.