23 May Apeiros Chora, Between Stone and Sky
Continued from “The Living History of Zagori and Apeiros Chora“
There is a particular quality to silence in Zagori. It is not empty, not the absence of something, but a fullness, the kind that accumulates over centuries of human life pressed close to mountain stone. Standing in the courtyard of Apeiros Chora, listening to the wind move through the chestnut trees above Kato Pedina, you begin to understand that this place is not simply history. History that still breathes. Today, the region remains remarkably well-preserved, with accessible trails and ongoing efforts to maintain its heritage for visitors seeking authentic cultural experiences.
The name “Apeiros Chora” means the endless land. It belongs as much to the wider region of Epirus as to the mansion that has carried this family’s story for eight generations. To understand one, you must understand the other. Visitors can take guided tours and visit local visitor centers that offer insights into the region’s history and practical information for exploring Apeiros Chora and Zagori’s villages.
The Land That Shaped Everything
Zagori’s rugged landscape shaped a culture of resilience and ingenuity, inspiring pride and admiration in those who value enduring traditions.
Human presence here stretches back at least seventeen thousand years. In antiquity, Zagori was home to the Tymphaeans and part of the ancient Molossian kingdom, whose royal house gave the world Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great. The bloodline of Achilles, through Neoptolemus and Andromache, runs through the mythology of these mountains.
When the Ottomans arrived in 1430, they looked at these mountains and made a calculation: too rugged, too poor in revenue, too difficult to administer. Therefore, Zagori negotiated something remarkable, the so-called Voinikos treaty, under which all 46 villages would collectively govern themselves, pay a voluntary tax directly to the Sultan, and provide fifteen men each year to tend his horses. In exchange, no Ottoman armed force could set foot in the region. No Ottoman landlord was ever granted land here.
For over 400 years, Zagori’s semi-autonomous status under Ottoman rule fostered a deep respect for its unique identity, emphasizing the importance of preserving this heritage for future generations.
The villages were built with what the mountains offered: stone, timber, slate, and cold, clear water. The famous arched bridges of Zagori, more than 160 of them spanning gorges and rivers, were funded by the diaspora: merchants who had spread across Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and Constantinople and sent their wealth back to build bridges, schools, and monasteries in their homeland.
A House Built to Last
Construction of the mansion began in the late sixteenth century and grew over the years by necessity rather than grand design: an extra floor, a cistern in 1896, and a stable block. By the time of its major renovation in 1861, it had taken the square, fortress-like form it retains today.
That word, fortress, is not metaphorical. Narrow embrasures pierce the thick stone walls. Windows are barred with iron. Rooms are arranged to confuse intruders. Concealed doors pass as windows, and underground passages were designed to provide a way out when retreat was the only wisdom. Hidden within the walls, built deliberately in 1896, is a secret room. It was not built for comfort. It was built for survival.
In the years before Epirus was liberated from Ottoman rule in 1913, the sixth-generation owner was a man of conviction and consequence, a leading figure in the local resistance. When an arrest warrant was issued, and police officers arrived at the mansion to execute it, he disappeared into the walls. He was never found.
That’s the kind of history Zagori carries in its stones: not the pageant of kings and capitals, but the intimate, dangerous history of people who chose which side of freedom they stood on.
War Comes to the Mountains
The twentieth century was unkind to Zagori. When World War II, after the fascist invasion of Greece, reached these mountains, the house was commandeered as a regimental command post. The family’s home, which had produced milk, cereals, wine, and beeswax for generations, became a place of orders and occupation.
Then came the Nazis. When a Nazi unit arrived to burn the village to the ground, a fate suffered by countless Greek villages in those years, the village priest was sheltering in one of the mansion’s rooms. He and a local man who spoke German stepped forward to address the commanding officer. They offered him cold water from the ancient cistern and fresh grapes from the vine beside the house.
The village was not burned.
We cannot know exactly what was said or what turned the officer’s mind. The cistern still stands. The vine still grows. And Kato Pedina still stands whole—its stone houses intact, its streets quiet in the mountain air—because two people chose to speak.
The Region They Were Part Of
For centuries, well into the late 1970s, Kato Pedina was the breadbasket of Zagori. More than a hundred threshing floors once covered the land around the village. The mansion’s fields contributed to this abundance, producing milk, cereals, wine, and beeswax, and its owners moved through the networks that kept Zagori functioning as a coherent community.
Under Ottoman rule, the autonomy Zagori enjoyed allowed education and culture to flourish. Schools were built for boys and, from the eighteenth century onward, for girls. Churches, libraries, and scholars were present. The so-called Vikos doctors, healers who gathered medicinal herbs from the gorge and used recipes dating back to Hippocrates, made Zagori a center of folk medicine known throughout the Balkans. For a mountain region under occupation, it was quietly extraordinary how well its Greek and Orthodox identity was preserved.
In May 2025, UNESCO formally recognized what the mountains had long known: Zagori was inscribed on the World Heritage List as a Cultural Landscape, acknowledged as a living expression of Byzantine and Ottoman heritage throughout the broader Balkan world.
The Zagori Mountain Race draws runners from across Greece and the EU to the mountain trails. The Zagoriwood Film Academy brings young filmmakers to the village each summer. Village festivals, panigiria, tied to saints’ days, fill summer evenings with music and tables set in open squares. In late August, Kato Pedina holds its own celebration, linking the present to generations of the same ceremony. This is not nostalgia staged for visitors but a community that has never abandoned its traditions. Visitors are encouraged to participate respectfully, especially during festivals, and to visit during the warmer months, when trails and village events are most accessible and vibrant.
The Eighth Generation
Athina and Georgios, the seventh-generation owners, were married here in Kato Pedina. Their son Xenofon, the eighth generation, was baptized on this land. These are not incidental details; they are the continuing chapters of the house’s story, proof that the thread of human life running through these walls is unbroken.
When the decision was made to restore the mansion and open it as a place of hospitality, the guiding principle was preservation, not transformation. The renovation, overseen by interior designer Athina Aslanidou, honored what was already there: oak floors worn smooth by generations of footsteps, wooden ceilings, and frescoes crafted by long-dead artisans. These stone walls had sheltered people through celebration and crisis alike. Modern comforts and contemporary amenities were added with care and with eco-friendly energy. Still, the soul of the place, its proportions, its silence, its everyday utensils, and family artifacts, was left intact.
An Invitation
To come to Apeiros Chora is not only to stay somewhere beautiful, though it is that. It is to enter a place where history is not curated behind glass but present in the walls, the floors, the water in the cistern, and the view from the window over mountains that look exactly as they did to the sixth-generation owner who hid in his secret room and waited for the police to leave.
The stories gathered here are only the beginning. The valley holds more. The stones know them. Moreover, for those who come with curiosity and a willingness to listen, Zagori and this ancient house will share them.
Apeiros Chora is a heritage hotel and retreat in Kato Pedina, Zagori, Epirus, Greece.
Inquiries and reservations: stay@apeiroschora.gr