Kastoria

Kastoria is something of a secret. It sits on a peninsula that juts into the long, narrow Lake Orestiada, at the foot of the mountains, and the first view — the town draped along the lakefront, its red roofs and tall stone houses reflected in the still water — stops visitors cold. Arrive in the late afternoon and the lakeside promenade is at its best as the light turns gold; swans drift past, a fisherman sits at the water's edge, and the town on its promontory looks like something out of an old painting. Kastoria is famous for its churches — more than seventy Byzantine and post-Byzantine churches, some of them a thousand years old, with frescoes that are among the finest in Greece. It is also a town of enormous, fortified mansions, built in the 18th and 19th centuries by the fur merchants who made Kastoria rich — the town is still the world centre of fur-processing. A day of wandering takes in one church after another, through the old streets of the Doltso quarter, past the great mansions with their tall windows and their carved doors. And every few minutes the walker turns a corner and sees the lake again, impossibly still, holding the whole town in its glass.

Kastoria's history reaches back to antiquity, when it was known as Celetrum, an ancient town of the Orestis region that gave its name to the surrounding land. The city's great age, however, is the Byzantine era: from the 9th to the 14th centuries, Kastoria was a wealthy centre of the Byzantine empire, and it is this period that left the town its extraordinary legacy of churches — more than seventy survive, with wall-paintings spanning a thousand years of Byzantine art. In the Ottoman period, Kastoria became a centre of the fur trade, processing marten and other pelts for the markets of Europe and the Ottoman empire. The fur merchants grew rich, and they built the town's magnificent mansions — tall, stone-built houses with wooden upper storeys, tiled roofs, and richly carved ceilings. Kastoria played its part in the Greek War of Independence, and in the Macedonian Struggle at the turn of the 20th century, when the town was a centre of the Greek cause. The lake and the mountains protected the town from the worst of modern development, and today Kastoria, with its churches, its mansions, and its dramatic setting, is one of the most intact and beautiful small cities of northern Greece.

Kastoria is a mountain and lake town rather than a beach town, and the water it offers is a different pleasure: Lake Orestiada, on whose peninsula the city actually sits. Swimming is possible in summer from small platforms and pebbled spots along the shore, where the water is dark and clear and considerably colder than the sea, and the real pleasure is boating — rowing or sailing across the still surface with the town and the mountains holding their reflections. Above the lake the country gets properly wild. The regional unit is small and mostly mountain, and it has one great road in it: west to the Prespa lakes, whose two shores sit on the borders with Albania and North Macedonia, where you can swim among pelicans and visit the monasteries of the great lake. Scattered over the hillsides are the Aromanian villages, of which Nymfaio is the best known — a stone settlement that has kept its own schools, its own dialect and its own calendar, and which is worth the drive for that alone.

Kastoria is a serious food town in the northern Greek tradition. The local specialities are the pies — pitopita, filled with the local cheeses; the meat dishes of the mountains, especially the slow-cooked lamb and the grilled kontosouvli; and the fish of the lake, the tsiridia and the tench, which the lakeside tavernas serve fried or grilled. The region is famous for its red peppers, its honey, and its beans, and the local wine, from the vineyards of the Florina plain, is excellent. The lakeside tavernas of Kastoria serve the best of it, and the strong Greek coffee and a spoon sweet of the local cherry are the proper ending to a meal.

Kastoria is at its best in spring (April to June) and autumn (September to October), when the mountains are green, the lake is calm, and the town is quiet. Autumn is the classic season — the town's position on the lake, with the leaves turning, is one of the loveliest sights in Greece. Winter is cold and can be snowy, but the town, with its covered squares and its warm tavernas, is atmospheric. Summer is mild and pleasant, with the lake for boating and swimming, and the long northern evenings are beautiful.

Kastoria has its own airport with scheduled domestic service, so the lakeside town can be reached by air rather than only by road. Flying in is the simplest way to arrive for a short stay.

Give Kastoria at least a full day and a night — the light on the lake at dawn and dusk is half the magic. The churches are the great draw: many are open only at certain hours, so check locally or hire a guide. The Doltso quarter is best in the early morning, when it is empty. For the classic view, climb the hill to the Panagia Mavriotissa or take the road up the mountain for the panorama of the lake and the peninsula. And do not miss the folklore museum — the mansion alone is worth the visit.