Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
en-suite units and excellent value, with valley views out of
the rear rooms and some pricier, plusher units. The
manager/owner is very helpful an
d full
ll of information
about the area. Breakfast €4/person.
€40
Galaxias
T
26560 41202,
W
hotel-galaxias-metsovo
.gr.
This hotel is very traditional, slate-roofed, with lots of
natural wood in eight large, comfortable rooms, three with
fireplaces.
The hotel restaurant is the main option for
vegetarians, where a limited but tasty menu is served on
the lawn under
giant
trees.
Daily lunch & dinner; full
meal about €13.
€60
EATING
Restaurants here are generally part of hotels and
dhomátia
, and menus often feature traditional mountain dishes.
Wine
buffs may want to try the fabled Katóyi, available at restaurants, local shops and indeed across Greece. It's a moderately
expensive limited bottling from vineyards along the Árakhthos River, though quality of the main Averoff label varies (the
Ktima line is best).
Katoi
T
26560 42040.
Named after the noted Métsovo
red wine, this popular taverna occupies several wood-
panelled rooms on the main square and is good for grills
and all the Greek standards. Greek salads go for €6, grills
start at €9.
Daily lunch & dinner.
3
Ioánnina and around
IOÁNNINA
, the provincial capital of Epirus, with some 130,000 inhabitants, boasts an
idyllic setting, its old town jutting out into the great
Lake Pamvótis
along a rocky
promontory, its fortifications punctuated by spindly minarets. From this base,
Ali Pasha
“the Lion of Ioánnina” carved from the Turkish domains a personal fiefdom that
encompassed much of western Greece and present-day Albania: an act of rebellion that
prefigured wider defiance in the Greeks' own
War of Independence
.
Although much of the city is modern and undistinguished (albeit home to a
thriving
university
), the old town remains one of the most interesting in Greece.
There are stone-built
mosques
(and a
synagogue
) that evoke the Ottoman era, and
Ali Pasha's citadel, the
kástro
, survives more or less intact, its
inner citadel
, the
Its
Kale
, now a museum park. In the lake,
Nissí island
has a car-free if overly prettified
village, and frescoed
monasteries
. Ioánnina is also a springboard for visits to the
caves of Pérama
, among the country's largest, on the western shore of the lake, and a
slightly longer excursion to the very ancient Oracle of Zeus at
Dodona
. Finally, the
city is also the gateway to what is possibly the area's most rewarding corner,
Zagóri
(see p.250).
The kástro
In its heyday the
Kástro's
walls dropped abruptly to the lake, and were moated on their
landward (southwest) side. The moat has been filled in, and a quay-esplanade now
extends below the lakeside ramparts, but there is still the sense of a citadel, with narrow
alleys and bazaar-like shops.
Municipal Ethnographic Museum
Daily: May-Sept 8am-8pm; Oct-April 9am-4pm • €4.40
Signs inside point to the
ethnographic museum
, an elegantly arranged collection of
Epirot costumes, guns, silver-work and Islamic art, housed in the well-preserved, floodlit
Aslan Pasha Tzamí
, allowing a rare glimpse inside an intact Greek mosque. It dates from
1618, built on the site of an Orthodox cathedral pulled down in reprisal for a failed local
revolt of 1611. The interior retains painted decoration in its dome and
mihrab
(niche
indicating direction of Mecca), as well as a vividly coloured
mimber
or pulpit, nicely
complementing a walnut and mother-of-pearl suite on display in the “Muslim section”.
More poignant is a section devoted to synagogue rugs and tapestries donated by the
dwindling Jewish community of about fifty.
