Kastoria
Lake Town Of Byzantine Churches And Ottoman Era Merchant Mansions Built On The Fur Trade, With Dozens Of Small Frescoed Churches And A Prehistoric Lake Settlement Reconstructed Nearby · Kastoria, Western Macedonia
Kastoria sits on a wooded promontory pushing into Lake Orestiada in Western Macedonia, a real working town rather than a resort. Two things make it worth the detour. The first is its churches: dozens of small Byzantine and post-Byzantine chapels survive in and around the lanes, several with frescoes of the first rank, from the tall-drummed Panagia Koumbelidiki to the Taxiarches of the Metropolis; most are locked, and the Byzantine Museum is the practical way to arrange a look inside. The second is the domestic architecture of the Doltso and Apozari quarters, where eighteenth and nineteenth-century merchant mansions built on the fur trade still stand above the water, one of them open as a house museum. Fur has been the town's business for centuries and still is, which visitors should know before they come. Add a flat lakeside walking and cycling ring of about nine kilometres, a reconstructed neolithic lake settlement at Dispilio and a cave of underground lakes. Honest caveats: a day and a night is enough, winters are cold and misty, and the lake is for looking at, not swimming.
Kastoria on a promontory in Lake Orestiada, Western Macedonia; the Doltso and Apozari quarters, the lakeside ring road, and the Dragon's Cave north of town, Kastoria, Western Macedonia, Greece
The town, the lakeside ring path and the outsides of the churches are open and free at all hours. The Byzantine Museum near the upper square keeps state hours, long in summer and shorter in winter, with one closing day in some seasons and the main Greek public holidays shut - confirm. It is also where you ask about getting into the locked churches, since almost all of them are opened by a warden or a keyholder rather than standing open; allow time and go in the morning. The mansion house museums in Doltso keep their own shorter hours and may close for lunch. The Dispilio lakeside reconstruction and the Dragon's Cave are visited in daylight hours and the cave only on guided walks with set departures, more frequent in summer - confirm. Boats on the lake run in season and by weather. Nothing needs booking except rooms during the annual fur fair and at Christmas, Carnival and Easter.