Ending Our Travels in Ikaria, Greece | Walking Tour of Perdiki Village in Blue Zone

Ending Our Travels in Ikaria, Greece | Walking Tour of Perdiki Village in Blue Zone

So this is Periki or Periki. That’s how they say perki. I’m thinking maybe this is the restaurant in town. This church is very beautiful. Very big for a small town. Mountain town. Um but it does look like the plants are just starting to bloom. So we encounter these apples. I think they’re apples. Oh, they’re apples. Our travel started with forests. Yeah. And ended with forests. Yeah. Very similar landscapes. So, our journey is complete in a wonderful journey. I learned a lot, thought of a lot. Less stress, more fun. We’re in nature. That’s all we learned. [Music] That’s a church. What was it? Matrona. Matrona. A matron. A matron. So, St. Matrona. And we left our luggage at our Airbnb. Very beautiful here. We came a bit early right where the other people checked out. So, I’m going to just walk around for see where the cool spots are. But it’s amazing. You can see both sides of the sea of the Korean Sea. You can see here to the right where Agio’s Kirikos is. And to the left when we’ll go there, we’ll see where the the north side where we came from, Kavostamo. And yeah, we just loved uh our Airbnb in Kavosimo. And wow, the host was the best host we’ve ever had. I mean we have had great hosta also but she was oh my god like even more generous than we expected right there at the top also there’s the basketball court by this church it’s very beautiful here peaceful also in partiki I don’t feel like there are many olive trees But a lot of trees in general. Look at that vintage truck. Wow. Periko. Very interesting. It’s just the entrance to the church, but maybe the building on the left, the same building where that’s probably Yeah, that’s fair enough with the uh civil and everything. So, it’s the only place that opens up at after 7:00 p.m. So, if you came here without food, then you’ll just have to do some fasting until 7:00 p.m. You can see the the wind turbine on the hill right there because it’s pretty windy here, which is really nice because uh even on a hot day, it’s going to Also, I also read about the uh the government of Greece. They’re pushing to have more renewables. Yeah. Uh energy on the island. Mhm. So, I think they’re pushing more like uh winds, turbines, you know. Um I mean, that’s the main thing that they can do, I guess, here cuz it’s quite windy. Yeah. So, it’s suitable for that because mostly they burn here. I think oil. I think they’re burning oil to generate electricity. Maybe coal. No, I don’t know. I think it’s just oil based on what I read. But could be coal as well. So, is that all of Periki? Just this area around the church, I guess. So, or maybe I mean, there are probably some houses scattered here and there. Yeah, maybe we’ll look at the map and see because I think there’s probably another area we’re missing. Oh, look at look at that tunnel. It’s just like canopy of trees. Yeah, very green. Maybe we’ll just walk around the trees. Maybe find some mberries to snack on. Mhm. There should be some here. But even though it’s I mean up higher here, right? Mhm. That doesn’t mean that the fruit is uh going to ripen later because it’s still pretty warm here. What’s this? Oh, look at those. It’s a strange looking fruit. Can take a picture of it. Yeah. And there’s something inside. Let’s find out what it is. It’s like you discover every day something. Yeah. you all these oleander flowers everywhere. Are these just starting to bloom here? You can see the yellow flowers just blooming in full bloom on the mountain high mountain side. But yeah, I guess we’re going there. So, I’m not sure if that was uh the restaurant or not, but supposedly there’s a restaurant somewhere. Isn’t a acacia kata is is that’s it, right? Yeah. And is it’s poisonous, right? Um I I think like there’s you never add it or anything. I know that honey is made from the from the flowers, but they have pods, so they’re like kind of like a pe. I just remember like uh stories of people eating acacia and dying from Russia that I heard. So I’m not sure if it’s this or not because it if it is this it had like very sweet u it’s very sweet very sweet taste and that’s why people ate it and died. Yeah, I think that’s it. Acacia check that but I have no internet. It’s okay. Internet is sporty around period. So, we found a malberry tree here cuz they are everywhere. So, it’s uh late June and it’s perfect here right now. Perfectly ripe malberries. So, just walking down the road. I think this is the restaurant because you can see a lot of tables and chairs and uh these crates right here for food. So, this is probably the restaurant. What’s interesting is the there are no signs. No signs. And I wonder if you can see anything inside. Hopefully it I mean there are dreams. So these bottles and stuff. Oh, look at this old house. Wow. Oh, the house similar what we saw in Carvosta. Very pretty with the flowers, the sparta flowers. Yeah, we saw these uh flowers in the store in photos. They were dried and it looked like it was for tea or something, but we asked our host in Karavosta and she said that it’s these uh plants, the sparta plants, flowers, I guess, for are for the livestock, not for human consumption. So maybe it’s medicinal. I don’t I’m not sure. I don’t know because I mean if livestock can eat it, there’s like a 90% chance we can eat it too. So maybe there’s some medicinal quality to these flowers. It has a port. Yeah. The benefit of staying in Periki especially or just somewhere that gets the breeze from north to south is that it’s not that hot in the summer because it’s just it’s really hot sometimes and you’re sweating and at least this uh dries the sweat off you. Would you like some cherries? Cherries? Wow. Holy. And I was just saying that the ferns taste like honey mustard. The aftertaste. Mhm. Oh, look at these cherries. What are they? Sour. Yeah. Yeah. We tried a dessert. Um the spoons we made from them. very delicious. Um the best spoon sweet is probably made from these cherries. The uh someone just a stranger um with our host we went to a stranger’s house and they just gave these spoon sweets made from these cherries. Just very generous people here and you could eat them. So we’re continuing our walk through Piki. This is a smaller road. less people I guess or less cars say people there aren’t a lot here anyways but everyone’s also really friendly and it does seem like a a village that people live in wonder where the hiking trails are you just walking along the road so maybe we’ll find some where this looks like a malberry, but maybe maybe it’s a male plant. Uh yeah, you need two plants to get berries, so you can’t just plant one. But it’s very beautiful here. Almost like a wild wild area. Yep. Oh, here’s another one. Another one all around me. Spider r see it’s right there. It’s huge. Yeah, it’s me, too. Yeah. Yeah. Spiders everywhere here. So, let’s go through these beautiful sparta flowers. They’re just blooming here. They smell very good. Mhm. I hope the spider is not on me. Must be a huge spider. The web is really big. Uhhuh. I mean, there’s supposedly a road here. Hope we went in the right direction. It’s like somebody’s garden, but on Google there was a a map to some church, I think. No. So, we came across this church walking off the road some prediki village and it’s not clear. Who’s the saint for this church or it’s named after? It’s probably on the phone. [Music] Mhm. It’s relatively small church. I wouldn’t say it’s very old, but it’s quite old. Mhm. Yeah. As expected. It was interesting that in the South, I guess. So, I got here the treasures were all open all the time. Mhm. Maybe less crime. I don’t know. Who knows? There’s a small bell to call for prayer or even in Raas when we went to the uh Pontimon St. Pelon. Uh-huh. It was also open. So right after the church uh we follow this small path, small road. Uh there should be a something building called Pertiki Tower. Not 100% sure what that is and what that’s for. But uh H looks like a house. Yeah, it’s someone’s house. But uh there’s a gate here and uh it’s open. But uh all I see there is some sort of residential building. But there are ruins. Some sort of ruins here. Yeah, like uh these over here. They uh maybe maybe I can take a look at them. Well, it’s not certain if it’s a house or really a tower, but could be a tower. Looks old. Yeah, we’ve been walking and uh just noticed how much noise this uh wind turbine creates. It’s pretty pretty amazing. I didn’t understand where that noise was coming from, but uh yeah, if you if you have many of them, I guess it could be annoying the sound of constant uh wind turbine working, rotating. So, yeah. So, I’m not sure. I think that’s someone’s house. I see gardens and stuff, but this could be it. This could be the Perdiki Tower. So as we walk along the road in particular, many many fruits, cherries, sour cherries. S yeah, sour cherries. Then um malberries. Um the figs are not in season yet, but they will be in a in a month maybe. Some of these cherries are like wine. Mhm. Cuz they ripe on the sun right here. Right along the road. Mhm. Tons of love here. We’re circling Piki all these roads. So, we came from here and we turning left to make a circle. Mhm. Um there should be less cars here, by the way. Mhm. That was the main road, the other one. Mhm. So, yeah, we deviated a little bit, but we’ll be back in a circle to where we leave. So we we continue walking this road and it turned into a dirt road. Um so it’s maybe becomes impossible if there’s a rain but uh it’s kind of nice. This is shade from trees. It goes through the other houses in the village basically. Mhm. That’s what we’re doing. Maybe we’ll find some more food and supplies along the Maybe we’ll road some fern. Show you. Mhm. Yeah. We’ve been eating fern. What’s the name of that fern? Fiddle head. Fiddle head. Fiddle head. Fiddle head. Fiddle. Fiddle. Fiddle head. Like a small fiddle. Yeah. All right. So, it’s ether edible. And uh not all fern are but this one in particular is. Mhm. But we only eat the young shoots. Yeah. It’s not like I’m ripping off the entire huge leaf and start chewing on it. It’s I don’t know. It’s very tough and I’m not sure if it’s fibrous. Good for you. And the small one, the shoot Mhm. is very tender. Mhm. Yeah. It’s kind of tasty. Crunchy. Mhm. Slimy. Very good. Maybe we’ll find some here. Maybe. Huh? Let’s see. So, these look like old ones. Yeah, these are old ones, but maybe here. And you can distinguish them by like color sometimes when they’re uh Uhhuh. light in color. Yeah. They’re like light green instead of dark dark green as these leaves are. So, these are too old. Yeah. Yeah. Right. When you want to find them Yeah. You can’t. That’s It’s already late in the season, too. That’s right. So, it’s going to be hard. Hold up. Here you can show these. Oh, that’s right. Yeah, the top one. So, like this this part you can actually take even more. Mhm. Yeah. So, I’m I’m not I’m just showing. Yeah. No, I mean like you can actually eat even more. Uhhuh. So, even further you can you can take it. So, the leaves they’re quite small and um Yeah. So, you can eat them. Yeah. Um hold here. Um, yeah, that’s all I see for now. Oh, no. Here. Here’s some more. So, this is actually even better. Yeah, like like this. Nice and fresh. Mhm. Maybe we’ll pick some more and we’ll show you the whole one. Mhm. So, the the road turned into paved one and uh we continue walking. Doesn’t that hill look like Iceland? Yeah, that hill over there. Yes, bare baron. Uh but uh there it’s much much more humid and there’s more grass growing there. So right now it’s kind of bar in there. So comparatively even Iceland is greener. But uh it’s beautiful. You have these like walls of greener uh bushes and trees and blooming sparta flowers, plants. St. John’s wart plant that we were talking about. It’s a medicinal herb. Uh helps against Christina said against depression. But I remember uh using it when um you get some sort of flu or sickness, coughing. Uh our host told us that you can actually use like a oil infusion and uh make like a oil out of it and use it on skin. I didn’t understand exactly for what purpose san or just smooth skin or treat some skin conditions. Not sure. But uh here it is growing just in the middle of rocks just like that. So we continue circle around the Padiki village. And we could have taken a shortcut. Yeah. Make a turn left to the left turn. But uh this looks real pretty. This part the flowers are blooming right now. They’re everywhere. Yeah, it’s like yellow. It’s like dandelions in uh Quebec, Canada. And there were we were visiting Charleo. Mhm. And there were fields and fields and fields of dandelions there. So beautiful. So So these are like dandelions adopted to Greek island of Fikaria. So, here we are. Gather some. And they have these like turned up leaves at the ends. Mhm. Curled up. So, they’re very crunchy. Mhm. Tender and crunchy. Mhm. Try some. You can see they’re light green. All these have wilted somewhat. I was holding them. Mhm. Very delicious. Very neutral in taste. Mhm. So, here’s another church that we came across. Again, not sure who is it named after, but uh the interesting thing is um so the churches that have bells, right, to call to the prayer and this one it has it has it right here. Uh, it’s hanging on the I guess uh not sure what this tree is, but right here there’s some kind of a tower, but it seems to be ancient after this church. Look at all these flowers [Applause] here. Very beautiful. There’s a beautiful road here. Oh, you can see the airport from here. That’s incredible. There you go. And uh Akiyaki, the small town with the hot spring is there. Here’s the church. A lot of churches in this small town. Wonder if it’s open. So, here we are a bit closer to this tower. I wonder what it is. So, here’s the dramatic tower. Reminds me of Trac. Yeah, a little similar to Traana. Maybe they were all built around the same time. Dana, this tower. It’s very beautiful though. And I can see your house from here. with the church. Beautiful views here. Reminds me of Alfaros here. And we’re now going to this house up ahead right after the tower. I wonder what it is. It’s very peaceful here. Oh, it’s not a house. It’s like a underground something. It’s kind of creepy. What is that? Storage or something? Any idea what that would be? Storage for like arms maybe? I don’t know. Looks like We can go on top of it. So this kind of mound, beautiful views here. A lot of trails down below as well. Can see the tower from down here. So, I’m going to go back there and back to the church, the big church where our Airbnb is. Our host there, he also gave us some homemade wine, which is very nice of him. Going to try that tonight. But it was interesting. I think he said it’s around 14% degrees alcohol, which is a lot for a white wine. We’ll see how it is. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Ikaria Greece is a longevity zone, known as a blue zone. It is also written as Icaria, based on the myth of Icarus, son of the inventor Daedalus. Icarus died as he flew to close the Sun with his waxen wings.

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We partnered with Klio Teas to bring authentic Ikarian honey and Greek teas to US:
🔸 Ikarian honey: https://blokhinfilms.com/ikarian-honey
🔸 Wild herbal mountain teas from Greece: https://blokhinfilms.com/greek-mountain-teas
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The Ikaria Greece life expectancy often reaches 100 years old, and has been this way for over 400 years. In future videos we will mention our findings on the Ikaria Greece diet since we stayed for almost two months on Ikaria island and have tasted food from both local restaurants using local foods and recipes, as well as homemade meals made by an Ikarian family.

To see how to get to Ikaria, check out our video on our scenic flight from Athens to Ikaria here: https://youtu.be/7lGmUcptrl4

Not much is known about the lesser visited Ikaria Greece Blue Zone, so we wanted to uncover its secrets on a longer trip to the island. In general, stress, or rather, the lack of it is the most important longevity factor that we found.

00:00 – Intro
01:19 – Walking Tour of Perdiki
03:13 – Restaurant
03:35 – Wind Turbines
05:47 – Acacia Tree
06:48 – Restaurant 2
07:25 – Ancient House
08:30 – Sour Cherries
10:45 – Sparta Flowers
11:22 – Another Church
12:33 – Perdiki Tower
16:00 – Edible Plants
18:00 – Similarity to Iceland
18:32 – Flowers and Herbs, St John’s Wort
19:57 – Similarity to Quebec, Canada
20:32 – Edible Fern
21:03 – Yet Another Church
22:00 – Airport View
22:20 – Final Church
22:50 – Real Perdiki Tower
24:10 – Underground Structure
25:40 – Goodbye to Ikaria

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