Kastoria. City of bears and Byzantine churches

The road signs along the side of the highway are obvious. The warning signs show a large mother bear with a small one behind her. There are also signs with the text ‘Prosogi perasma arkoudhas’ (‘watch out, bears are walking here’). Now I also finally understand the metal fences that we have seen for miles on both sides of the highway. Bears on the road. In the afternoon, we left the airport of Thessaloniki with a rental car, on our … Read More

Anafiotika, an island without sea

The capital of Greece was still a large village two hundred years ago. When Athens was chosen as the capital by King Otto in the 1930s, it was home to about ten thousand people. After that it went fast. In 1879 more than sixty thousand people lived there, in 1896 more than one hundred thousand and now there are almost four million. Many Athenians come from other parts of Greece. As early as the 19th century, people from all over … Read More