Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
KASTORIÁ'S CHURCHES
Of the town's many Byzantine churches, a handful are well worth seeking out. The excellent
frescoes of the twelfth-century church of
Áyios Nikólaos Kasnítzi
were returned to their
former glory during the late 1980s. The unusual epithet stems from the donor, who is shown
with his wife on the narthex wall presenting a model of the church to Christ. Lower down are
ranks of exclusively female saints, to console the women congregated in the narthex which
long served as a women's gallery. High up on the west wall of the nave, the
Dormition
and the
Transfiguration
are in good condition, the former inexplicably backwards (the Virgin's head is
usually to the left).
Taxiárhes tís Mitropóleos
, the oldest (ninth-century) church, was built on
the foundations of an earlier pagan temple, of which recycled columns and capitals are visible.
Its more prominent frescoes, such as that of the
Virgin Platytera and Adoring Archangels
in the
conch of the apse, and a conventional
Dormition
on the west wall, are fourteenth century. In
the north aisle is the tomb of Greek nationalist Pavlos Melas, assassinated by Bulgarians at a
nearby village in 1906, and commemorated by street names across northern Greece. Lastly,
the
Panayía Koumbelidhikí
, so named because of its unusual dome (
kübe
in Turkish), retains
one startling and well-illuminated fresco: a portrayal - almost unique in Greece - of God the
Father in a ceiling mural of the
Holy Trinity
. The building was constructed in stages, with the
apse completed in the tenth century and the narthex in the fifteenth. The cylindrical dome
was meticulously restored after being destroyed by Italian bombing in 1940.
Folklore Museum
Kapetán Lázou 10 • Mon-Sat 9.30am-1pm & 4-7pm, Sun 11am-1pm & 4-7pm • €2
The splendidly opulent seventeenth-century Aïvazís family mansion has been turned
into a
Folklore Museum
. The house was inhabited until 1972 and its furnishings and
most of its ceilings are in excellent repair, having miraculously survived German
shelling; the Ottoman-style kiosk sports a set of stained-glass windows, three of
them original, the others replaced by a local craftsman. Other features are an
oriental fireplace in the master bedroom and the kitchen with all the original pots
and pans.
4
Byzantine Museum
Platía Dhexamenís • Tues-Sun 8.30am-3pm • Free
he
Byzantine Museum
, up on Platía Dhexamenís, wisely goes for quality over quantity
in this well-lit if unimaginatively displayed collection spanning the twelfth to the
sixteenth centuries. Highlights include an unusually expressive thirteenth-century icon
of Áyios Nikólaos and a fourteenth-century Ayii Anaryiri, plus a later one depicting the
life of St George. There are also a few double-sided icons, including a rare
Deposition
,
intended for use in religious processions. Captions are in Greek only.
Lake Orestiádha
One of the most pleasant things to do in Kastoriá is to follow the narrow road
along
Lake Orestiádha
to the
peninsula
to the east of town; at the tip vehicles
must circulate anticlockwise, but the route is mainly used by joggers and the odd
walker. Although the lake itself is visibly polluted, wildlife still abounds - pelicans,
swans, frogs, tortoises and water snakes especially, and on a spring day numerous
fish break water.
Mavriótissa monastery
Near the southeastern tip of the peninsula, some 3km along from the
Hotel Kastoria
,
stands the
Mavriótissa monastery
, flanked by peacocks and a fair-value restaurant. Two
churches are all that remains of the monastery: a smaller fourteenth-century chapel,
with fine frescoes of scenes from Christ's life, abutting the larger, wood-roofed
eleventh-century
katholikón
on whose outer wall looms a well-preserved
Tree of Jesse
,
showing the genealogy of the Saviour.
