The planning of a three days in Volos-Pelion it was by no means an easy task. Although the area is not that big, it has a huge range of gastronomic interest and such a density of topics, to put it simply, has so many scales of everyday culture, that it took a lot of effort to see where to start and where to end and of course what you will choose first. The strong bond was resolved with the decision that it takes at least three three-day trips to get away with the area, so things got more relaxed.

The trip to the destination Volos-Pelion started rainy night from Mezen, the creation of friends Grigoris Helmis and Andreas Diakodimitris. With over ten years of "prosperous" experience in hotel companies and even in the highest positions, they decided - and managed with great success - on the one hand to find themselves and on the other to renew the concept of tsipouro restaurant and meze, implementing a project that distinguished by poetic realism.

In port of Volos we rode on the waterfront at boats, to the fishing boats that fish in the Pagasitikos and that sell their fish on the spot. The protagonists are the crayfish, the shrimp, the brakes (peskandritses), the gossips, the gopes and the horse mackerel. Two steps further on Fish market, where of the twenty fish shops that once existed, we visited the remnants that are barely counted on the fingers of one hand.

Here one will find fish of the Pagasitikos, but mainly of the sea, which arrive with the big boats (bonito, tonia, kolioi, sardine, cod, thrapsala, squid but also fagria, gomaria, sargos and litrinia).

From producers we visited beef factory Straka which in the hands of Nikos Strakas takes new turns renewing its products, the butcher shop of Christoforos Demiris with the exquisite Volio sausages, the Cheesecake Caracana with exquisite cheeses, garlic (in collaboration with Mezen), the spicy feta cheese, the galotyri.

Finally the historical Papagianopoulos halva factory which in 2019 (founded in 1919) will celebrate its hundred years, sweetening for a century the inhabitants of Volos with its famous halva.

For the cuisine of Pelion and Volos you can talk and write for hours. On the one hand, an edible population that goes down in a long history of special cultures that flourished in the area, with great agricultural products (oil, olives, fruits, cheese, cold cuts, meat) and typical dishes (boumbari, spentzofai, milk pie, mushroom pies, omelette with wild asparagus,  melted bread).

On the other hand, the refugees arriving from Asia Minor brought their own eating habits and their own gastronomic culture, which focused mainly on their familiarity with the sea and seafood.

I do not know, after all, if there is one in Greece elsewhere richness of land and sea gastronomy gathered in such a small place.

The tsipouro and Tsipourodika is Trademark of Volos, where of course the whole ritual of sea bream, but also the recording of the most important shops in Volos and Nea Ionia (Demiris, Marina, Filaraki, Karakatsanis, Xifias, Tzimis Kavouras, Dionysis, Fykiada) will be done in detail with the appropriate documentation!

Leaving Volos and taking the road to Milies , our first stop at the emblematic EPSA soft drink industry in Agria which just celebrated its 90th anniversary and which of course produces the best soft drinks in the country. Here we admired the exhibits of her museum - located next to the factory premises - among others a rare collection of bottles from all the local soft drink companies (around 300) that in the 1960s refreshed the Greeks, most of them which later disappeared due to the dominance of monopolies in the industry.

On our return to Volos we passed by Zagora and its facilities Zagorin, where we learned the recipe for how a cooperative can become an extremely successful business with internationally sought after products (Zagorin apples).

In between our passage through villages of Pelion we confirmed that the cafes them - along with hers Lesbos - remain among the most beautiful in the country (a finding I had already made while researching my relevant book, the Cafes of Greece). We drank coffee and sea bream cafes in Agios Lavrentios squareAt cafe of Theofilos in Makrinitsa, at cafe of Ano GazeaAt cafe-grocery store in Agios Georgios.

In Forlida cafe in Glafkos, the most historic cafe in at least Thessaly, we drank coffee where Papadiamantis drank it and finally, we ate apple pie in the modern art cafe of Milia, in Anna to an apple.

The journey ended with a beautiful walk to the train station to see the end of the line train of Pelion and the geysers that De Kyrico's father had designed when he came as an engineer from Italy to build this railway.

From cuisine of Pelion we only got tastes from one tavern - and this one for the price of weapons, leaving the rest for the next trips - the tavern of John the German, a young man who returned from Germany (hence the nickname) and gave life to the remote Niochori. Now, if someone in Volos wants to enjoy Mediterranean flavors and modern creative Greek cuisine accompanied by the most special wines from the Greek vineyard, then in the ultra-elegant restaurant Plagios he will find his favorite hangout.

(Indeed, three years later, the first impressions from our visits turned into articles that last for three years and are the first to be visited, while others have been added… The trip to Pelion, however, I have the feeling that it has not started yet…)