Ladder of Vradeto

It was discovered the tallest traditional cafe in Greece and is located at Bradet. Vradeto is built on the southwestern slopes of Mount Tymfi in its highest village Of Zagori at an altitude of 1.340 meters. Until 1974 the village was connected to the rest of the world by the famous "Ladder of Vradeto", a stone construction using the "indigenous" stone on the gorge of Vikos, where famous craftsmen built and connected Vradeto with Kapesovo. The passage time of the staircase is about 50 minutes and the view is breathtaking. In 1974 Vradeto was connected with a 9 km long road that bypasses the gorge and since 1988 the staircase together with the two stone bridges between the villages of Kapesovo have been characterized as historical monuments as "Typical examples of local folk architecture and testimonies of the way of survival and communication of the inhabitants of the area of ​​that time".

Reaching the last steps of the stairs of Vradeto, music from the clarinet and from mainland music comes to mind. It is the motto of the village cafe, where for a century now it is located in the square, next to the church of the Nativity of the Virgin (1799) which celebrates with a three-day festival on September 8. We approached the source of the music, an old-fashioned stereo, resting on a wooden serving tray, covered with a plastic, that permanently plays songs from that festival.

«How many times the record did not fill with water, or was not covered with snow, the tape recorder did not stop playing", He tells us Lambros Anagnostopoulos, the owner of the tavern. The shop was formerly run by his father, then by his mother and now he runs it, with his wife and sister.

«The road came in 1974, I was 12 years old, and I was very happy because until then I had to drive the animals, 2-3 times a day opposite Kapesovo to transport things to our village, 8 hours walk up and down", Lambros continues, at the time when a modern mother made small pieces of skewers for her modern 12-year-old son to eat.

The cafe "Skala tou Vradetou" a souda, untouched in time, full of souvenir photos, a stove in the middle. The appetizers are all Zagorian. Flour pies, batsina, giant beans honeyed with onions, galotyri, mutton skewers, wild asparagus, cabbage and sea bream ou are the number.

Have time to listen to Lambros with a musical background, the clarinets and the rain falling torrentially on the sheets!