Perdika

Perdika is a hillside village in the Thesprotia regional unit of Epirus, on the Greek mainland, set at an altitude of about 224 metres on a ridge that looks west over the Ionian Sea and inland towards the Souli mountains. It lies south of Igoumenitsa, roughly 12 kilometres from Syvota and 15 kilometres from Parga, and since the 2011 local government reform it has formed a municipal unit of the municipality of Igoumenitsa. The 2021 census counted 1,543 residents across a municipal unit of 34.6 square kilometres, which makes Perdika the largest settlement on this stretch of coast; agriculture and tourism carry the local economy in roughly equal measure, and the summer population runs well above the winter one.

From Arpitsa to Perdika

The village carried the name Arpitsa until 1927, when it was renamed as part of the wider Greek programme of replacing non-Greek place names. Before the 1940s the villages of Thesprotia had a mixed population, with a Greek Orthodox majority across the region alongside a substantial Muslim Cham Albanian minority, and Arpitsa was one of the settlements where that minority was strongest. In 1944 the local Cham Albanian community was expelled, an episode that, as in much of this corner of Epirus, still shapes how the war years are remembered locally. What visitors see today is largely a post-war village: a central square ringed with tavernas, cafes and shops, an open-air amphitheatre used for events through the year, and stone-and-plaster houses spreading down the slope towards the coast road.

Dymokastro and the Ancient Town of Elina

The most substantial piece of antiquity near the village sits on a hill above Karavostasi bay: the fortified coastal settlement known locally as Dymokastro, generally identified with ancient Elina, named after the Thesprotian tribe of the Elinoi recorded by Stephanus of Byzantium. The site was founded in the second half of the 4th century BC, and its walls, around 1,600 metres in circumference and reinforced with rectangular towers, went up in the same period as those of the other major Thesprotian centres at Elea, Gitana and Doliani. The settlement covers roughly 22 hectares across three sectors, each enclosed by its own fortification circuit, and a western wall was added in the Hellenistic period to bring a small port inside the defences.

Elina was devastated by the Romans in 167 BC, along with much of Epirus, but occupation continued into the 1st century AD, almost certainly because the position controlled shipping along this part of the Ionian coast. From the top the view takes in the southern end of Corfu, Paxos, Antipaxos and Lefkada, as well as the waters where the Battle of Sybota was fought in 433 BC between Corcyra and Corinth, at the time the largest naval engagement yet fought between Greek states and one of the incidents that led into the Peloponnesian War. Systematic work at the site began as a rescue excavation in the summer of 2000, after three illegal digs were found at the highest point of the walled area, and continued through 2001 and 2002; the finds are held at the Archaeological Museum of Igoumenitsa.

Ten Beaches and the Anchorage at Karavostasi

Perdika's territory takes in around ten separate beaches, among them Karavostasi, Arillas, Agia Paraskevi, Sofas, Mega Drafi, Kamini, Agali, Stavrolimen, Katsonisi and Pramaliki, strung along a few kilometres of indented coast below the village. Karavostasi is the longest beach in Thesprotia, some 800 metres of sand backed by greenery, and its name translates roughly as the place where ships stop, a reminder that the bay served as a natural harbour long before it acquired sunbeds. Boats anchor here in sand in about five metres, though the bay is open to anything from the western half of the compass, and there are submarine cables to avoid near the islet to the south.

Agia Paraskevi, a short way along the coast, is the one most often photographed, with fine sand and pebbles and a small green islet sitting in the middle of the bay. Arillas, also called Skaloma, shelves gently and suits families with small children, while Sofas is quieter and unorganised, reached through a long-established campsite, so shade and refreshments have to be carried in. The coast between Parga and the Syvota islets is one of the busier cruising grounds on the Ionian mainland shore in summer, and many gulet cruises in Greece call in here to break up a passage along the coast with a swim in calmer, less crowded water than at the bigger resorts nearby.

The Monastery of Saint Athanasios and the River Trail

Inland from the square, in an olive grove on the edge of the village, stands the stone-built Monastery of Saint Athanasios, which was moved to its present position in 1811. Local tradition explains the move with a story about the saint's icon leaving the original site each night until it was found in the hollow of an olive tree, on the spot where the monastery was then rebuilt. It is a modest building rather than a grand foundation, but it is the oldest structure most visitors to Perdika will actually walk into.

The other inland option follows the Paramythiotis river through the wooded recreation park east of Karavostasi, a marked route of roughly seven kilometres that passes a restored watermill and an old stone bridge before climbing to viewpoints over the coastal plain and the white sand beaches below. It takes about three hours at a steady pace and is easy enough for mixed groups, which makes it a sensible half-day alternative on a charter itinerary when the wind is up and the anchorages on this exposed western shore turn uncomfortable.