On a Saturday morning in Katerini’s open market, Ana sits under a white tent with a freddo espresso. A cat leans against her leg, asking for souvlaki. A man with a small guitar sings loudly and off-key while a table of older men laugh and pretend to bribe him to stop. A tiny radio in the corner spills Greek songs from another decade. She passes a piece of meat to the cat. She smiles. “This,” she tells me, “somehow became home.”

Ana is 30 years old. She is from Luxembourg. She speaks six languages and now, slowly, stubbornly, she’s learning Greek — φιλοξενία, πλατεία, «καλημέρα ήλιος». She arrived in Pieria for what was supposed to be her last eligible months of European Voluntary Service. She ended up finding something else: rhythm, quiet purpose, human warmth.

Kapnikos Stathmos — where solidarity is daily life

Kapnikos Stathmos (ΚΑΠΝΙΚΟΣ ΣΤΑΘΜΟΣ) in Katerini is not “just an organization.” It’s an ecosystem.
Built and run by active citizens, it supports people in need with dignity, protects the forest, and teaches that solidarity is something you do with your hands — not something you post.

“I wanted something warmer,” Ana tells me. “Not only weather-warm — human-warm. I was close to the age limit for the European Voluntary Service. If I didn’t leave now, maybe I would never leave. Greece called me. Pieria called me.”

“The air here opens your nostrils — and your soul.”

She arrived in Greece on March 13th, one day before her birthday. “It wasn’t as warm as I expected,” she laughs. “I was cold, but I was also sweating from traveling.”

“But from the first days in Katerini I felt… awake. More present. The air — being between Mount Olympus and the sea — it feels different. I saw more colors. More insects. Frogs in the shower. I felt more alive. For the first two weeks, every night in bed I wiggled my feet like a happy dog wagging its tail.”

A day in Kapnikos Stathmos

Most mornings start around 08:00. The kitchen wakes first — coffee, footsteps, Maria’s voice in the hallway. At 09:00, tasks begin.
Some days it’s sorting medicine for the Social Pharmacy. Some days it’s filling baskets with basic goods for families. Some days it’s carrying wood, setting up chairs for a community event, repainting the wooden houses that will become a Christmas village.

There are also shifts at the fire observation tower in Plaka, by the sea at Litochoro, watching for smoke and protecting forest. There are shared meals, shared cleaning, and the small negotiations of living with many people in one place.

“Solidarity is not big speeches. It’s how we live together.”

“Living with so many people means constant coordination,” she says. “Who cleans. Who cooks. Who is tired. Who needs space. It also means helping without keeping score — I wash your plate today because you have to catch a bus, and tomorrow you bring me fries because I’m exhausted.”

She pauses. “But I had to relearn boundaries. To give, but not over-give. To accept that not everyone becomes family. Sometimes we just share a roof for a while. And that has to be OK.”

Coffee, freedom, Eleftheria Square

Her ritual is simple: Coffee Island. Freddo espresso from her barista Dimitra. Sitting on “her” bench in Plateia Eleftherias, Katerini. Watching people. Listening.
“Here, even strangers talk to you. You compliment a grandma’s dress and you’re instantly part of her story.”

Between the sea and Mount Olympus

Some days she took shifts at the fire observation tower in Plaka, Litochoro — a small outpost between Aegean sea and Olympus, watching for smoke, guarding the forest.
“To wake up and see Mount Olympus from the balcony, calling me to the mountain… that feeling stays,” she says.

“People ask: sea or mountains? Pieria has both,” she tells me. “I even looked for apartments in Katerini and in Litochoro. That’s how much I liked it here.”

Agia Kori — water, light, silence

At Agia Kori waterfall, Olympus above us, the sky was heavy and the light was stingy. Then, just for a breath, the clouds opened. A narrow beam of sun touched her face — blue dress, blue bandana, bare feet against white rock, cold water running beside her.

Sometimes a place accepts you and names you as one of its own.

“Almost every day felt like an exploration.”

“I realized I don’t need extremes,” she tells me. “I don’t need constant high-adrenaline events. A small village honey festival makes me happy. Sitting by my creek near Nea Keramidi, barefoot in the water, makes me happy.”

When I ask what she will miss most, she doesn’t answer with one thing. She answers with a chain of living details:
“Parterri the cat and her boyfriend Konstantinos greeting me. Maria’s vegan moussaka. The incense of the Orthodox churches. The smell of Olympus and its butterflies. The sea wind. My usual coffee and souvlaki every Saturday at the λαϊκή.”

“To create, share and give experience — to / for yourself and each other.”

— Ana, European volunteer in Pieria, Greece

Photographing Ana for Experience Pieria felt less like a shoot and more like walking beside someone who is in the middle of becoming. Her presence — in the kitchen at Kapnikos, on her yellow bench in Plateia Eleftherias, under the waterfalls of Olympus — is a quiet reminder:
solidarity is not charity. Solidarity is choosing to live as if other people matter, and proving it every day.

Giorgos Gizelis

Travel Writer & Founder of Experience Pieria

Exploring Pieria & Greece one story at a time — documenting real people, real places, and the quiet power of this land.

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