By Niki Argyrou-Kolotourou (A Class)

We dropped into the Arcturos environmental center in Nymfaio while touring the wider region.

A preserved traditional settlement surrounded by forest, Nymfaio is graced by stunningly beautiful stone mansions and stone-paved tracks. The nearby Arcturos Environmental Center, an enclosed expanse covering 50 str., is located amid a natural forest of unparallel beauty and is open to visitors. It is home to 10 bears that once lived in captivity.

Wild bears roam freely around the sanctuary, as well as further out. Arcturos is a non –profit civil partnership that lobbies to protect nature by developing actions of public awareness, environmental education and volunteerism. The environmental Center has resolved the problem of captive bears and wolves in Greece and raised public awareness about large mammals.

An information centre operates at Nymfaio’s Nikeios School, a historic building that ranks as one of the most impressive samples of local architecture in the entire Western Macedonia region.

At the main square of the village, visit Nymfi, an outlet run by the local women’s cooperative, for marmalades, trachanas (pasta made from flour and milk), mountain tea, etc. At Kir-Yianni visitors can find exceptional Kir-Yianni label wines.

Florina

The region’s capital and main city is a lovely urban hub that possesses its own special ambience and colour. The Florina Museum of Modern Art houses over 600 works. Megalou Alexandrou Street is lined with interesting buildings, including the renewed kafenio Diethnes, a neoclassical construction dating back to 1926. Live and graphic, with neoklasika and makedonitika houses and a small river crosses it, “city floyrion” has developed in classic wintry destination mainly thanks to the ski centre and in wild beauty nature that surrounds it. Florina known to all over the world through the films of Theodoros Aggelopoylos: “Landscape in the fog”, “the apiarist”, “the meteoro step of stork”. Also they function in the city the Pedagogic Academy (from 1941) and the department Figurative and Applied Arts of University of Western Macedonia. The archaeological Space of Hellenistic City of Florina, in the hill of Saint Panteleimona, constitutes beloved point of campaign in combination with wonderful ways into forest. The tour in Prespes and in the island of Saint Achillean, the visit in the installations of Arktoyroy in Amyntaio, as in the shelters of Wolf but also Bear, are unique experiences. The six lakes of Florina, Small and Big Prespa, Zazari, Cheimaditida, the lake of Stones and Vegoritis, give reason for excursions with ecological interest: here live two from the more infrequent species of animals in Europe, the wolf and the bear, as well as the infrequent mammal bidra.

Amyntaio vineyards

The Amyntaio region’s microclimata is particularly appropriate for making wines that meet the highest of demands, the region’s high attitude and four lakes surrounding the vine yard area being the key factors behind the area’s ideal conditions. Some of Greece’s most renewed wineries are located here, such as Kir-Yianni Estate, the Alfa Estate, the Vegoritis Winery and the Naoumidis farm where renewed Florina peppers are cultivated organically.