﻿ Mount Olympus

Mount Olympus

Mount Olympus (Greek: Όλυμπος ; also transliterated as Ólympos, and on Greek maps, Óros Ólimbos) is the highest mountain in Greece, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 kilometres (62 mi) away from Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city. Mount Olympus has 52 peaks.[2] The highest peak Mýtikas, meaning “nose”, rises to 2,917 metres (9,570 ft). It is one of the highest peaks in Europe in terms of topographic prominence.


In Greek mythology the mountain was regarded as the “home of the gods”, specifically of the Twelve Olympians, the twelve principal gods of the Classical Greek and Hellenistic worlds.Climbing

Olympus’ highest peak, Mýtikas or the “Throne of Zeus” Mount Olympus with Stefani Peak (2009m) and Mytikas peak behind it – view from Olympic Beach of Katerini.

Climbing Mount Olympus is a non-technical hike, except for the final section from Skala summit to Mitikas summit, which is YDS class 3 rock scramble. It is estimated that 10,000 people climb Mount Olympus each year, most of them reaching only the Skolio summit. Most climbs to Mount Olympus start from the town of Litochoro, which took the name City of Gods because of its location on the roots of the mountain. From there a road goes to Prionia, where the hike begins at the bottom of the mountain.


Mount Olympus and the national Park around it were recently selected as the main motif for a high value euro collectors’ coin: the €10 Greek National Park Olympus commemorative coin, minted in 2005. On the reverse, the War of the Titans on Mount Olympus is portrayed along with flowering branches on the lower part of the coin. Above the scene is written, in Greek, “National Park Olympus”, while on the bottom of the coin, close to the edge, is the issuing year.


The deities believed to have swelled upon the mythic mount were Zeus, the king of the gods; his wife Hera; his brothers Poseidon and Hades; his sisters Demeter and Hestia; and his children, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Athena, Hermes and Hephaestus. It is interesting to note that these Olympian gods and goddesses were understood in ancient times as archetypes representing idealized aspects of the multi-faceted human psyche. Worship of the deities was a method of invoking and amplifying those aspects in the behavior and personality of the human worshiper. Zeus was the god of mind and the intellect, and a protector of strangers and the sanctity of oaths; Hera was a goddess of fertility, the stages of a woman’s life and marriage; Apollo represented law and order, and the principles of moderation in moral, social and intellectual matters; Aphrodite was a goddess of love and the overwhelming passions that drove humans to irrational behavior; Hermes was the god of travelers, of sleep and dreams and prophecy; Athena was spiritual wisdom incarnate; Hephaestus was the god of the arts and fire; and Ares represented the dark, bloodthirsty aspect of human nature.
