On January 9th, 2026, we didn’t plan anything ambitious.

No summit.
No checklist.
Just a short winter walk close to home, under Mount Olympus.

I went out with Christos Kyparissas — a talented local chef from Litochoro, deeply rooted in place and craft.
Despite living so close, he had never visited the waterfall of Agia Kori, near Vrontou in Pieria.

That alone felt like a small reminder:
Sometimes the most powerful places remain unseen simply because they are familiar.

We entered Vrontou slowly, driving at the pace that allows you to actually notice a village —
stone walls, winter gardens, quiet streets carrying decades of human footsteps.
I shared fragments of what I knew from previous visits.
Not facts.
Stories.

At the trailhead, winter was honest.
Cold air, damp ground, water louder than words.

I carried a small gas burner with me — the Scorpion-Burner (230g cartridge).
Not for show.
Just to make coffee and tea the way I prefer it outdoors:
unhurried, with cold fingers wrapped around warmth.

Christos was curious about photography.
So the walk slowly turned into a small, improvised workshop.
We talked about light in winter forests.
About patience.
About how older lenses — like the old Russian ones he owns from his grandfather — don’t rush you.
They ask you to slow down.

At the waterfall, he took out his lyra.

Not to perform.
Just to let sound meet place.

Later, at Agia Triada, something rare happened.
Christos played The Seikilos Epitaph.

The oldest surviving complete musical composition in the world.
Words carved in stone almost two thousand years ago, still speaking clearly:

While you live, shine.
Have no grief at all.
Life exists only for a short while,
and Time demands his due.

For those unfamiliar with it:
the Seikilos Epitaph is not folklore.
It is a direct voice from Ancient Greece —
a reminder carved for someone who knew how brief life truly is.

As the melody echoed through the winter air,
news spread quietly through the region.

A 59-year-old shepherd from Vrontou —
one of the oldest professions in Greece, still alive today —
had taken his own life.

Days earlier, authorities had ordered the slaughter of his entire flock,
over a thousand sheep and goats,
as part of disease control measures.
The financial and psychological weight proved unbearable.

He was found by his mother.

No spectacle.
No explanation that makes it easier.
Just absence.

The timing was impossible to ignore.

The oldest recorded song in human history,
telling us to shine while we live,
echoing through a place where a man had just reached the end of his strength.

There was nothing to comment.
Nothing to explain away.

Nature didn’t offer comfort.
It offered truth.

Water kept falling.
The forest stayed still.
The melody faded.

This is not a travel story with a happy ending.
It’s something more honest.

A reminder that slow travel, nature walks, music, and presence
do not exist to decorate life —
they exist to help us stay connected to it.

Sometimes they remind us of beauty.
Sometimes they remind us of loss.
Often, both at once.

If there is one thing the Seikilos Epitaph teaches us,
it is not optimism.

It is responsibility.

To notice.
To care.
To protect human lives with the same seriousness we show to landscapes.
To remember that tradition, nature, and community are not separate things.

While you live,
shine.

Giorgos Gizelis

Travel Writer & Founder of Experience Pieria

Exploring Pieria & Greece one story at a time — sharing authentic places, people and tastes.

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