Ioannina Castle

The kastro of Ioannina is not a ruin but a lived-in neighbourhood behind walls, occupying a promontory that pushes into Lake Pamvotida. Its Byzantine core was rebuilt into its present shape in the early nineteenth century, and the result is two separate citadels within one enclosure. The southeastern one, Its Kale, holds the domed Fethiye mosque, the silversmithing museum built into the old casemates and a terrace over the water. The northeastern acropolis keeps the Aslan Pasha complex, now the municipal ethnographic museum. Between them run quiet lanes of low houses, workshops and courtyards, with the lake visible at the end of most of them.

History

Ioannina is first certainly mentioned in a decree of the Byzantine emperor Basil II in 1020, though it existed long before, and tradition places its founding and first fortification in the 6th century, when Procopius records a new, "well-fortified" city. After 1204 it belonged to the Despotate of Epirus, passed to the Palaiologan empire in 1319 and was taken by Stefan Dushan in 1346, and from 1430 it was under Ottoman rule, prospering above all under Ali Pasha, whose semi-independent state covered much of modern Greece and Albania from 1787 (Wikipedia, Ioannina Castle).

What's there

• Its Kale - the inner citadel with the Fethiye mosque and a terrace above the lake.
• The Silversmithing Museum - the local filigree trade shown in the citadel's vaulted casemates.
• The Aslan Pasha complex - mosque, medrese and cells, now the ethnographic collection.
• The lanes and walls - a lived-in quarter you can walk around the ramparts of in half an hour.

When to go

Late spring and early autumn give the clearest lake views and comfortable walking. Ioannina sits high and gets properly cold and damp from November, with mist sitting on the water for days. Museums inside the walls close in the early afternoon several days a week, so aim for a morning and leave the ramparts walk for the light before sunset.

Things to know

The two museums are small and can be seen faster than their tickets suggest, and labelling is uneven in English. The Fethiye mosque interior is often closed. Lakeside restaurants outside the gate are pitched squarely at visitors and priced accordingly. The lake itself is shallow and can smell in high summer, which surprises people expecting alpine water.

Nearby

Boats cross to the lake island in ten minutes, and the Zagori villages and Perama cave are within an hour.

Key facts