The place · Ano Trikala
Ano Trikala
The highest of the three neighbourhoods, at 1,100 metres. Beyond here there is no other village: only the road that climbs ten kilometres to the Ziria plateau and the ski centre.
What you will see
The stone mansions are here. Quite a few go back to the 16th century and the newer ones to the 18th, among cobbled lanes that climb uphill.
Among them is the Notaras mansion: the three-storey stone house where Saint Gerasimos was born in 1509. It is abandoned and propped up — restoration studies were approved in 2024 — so you can only see it from the outside; beside it stands the shrine of his birth.
He left Trikala young and ended up a hermit on Kefalonia; he was proclaimed a saint in 1622 and is still the patron saint of the island today. His story begins in this ruined house.
The Notaras family came from Constantinople — the family of Loukas Notaras, the last great duke of the City — and settled in Trikala in the early 16th century. The family gave the place most of its monuments and played a part in the Orlov Revolt of 1770 and in the Revolution of 1821.
In the same neighbourhood is the Church of Agios Nikolaos, with frescoes that local tradition holds go back as far as the 10th century. And a little higher up, on the road to the mountain, the Monastery of Agios Vlasios; its katholikon dates from the 17th century. In the garden, at the back of the monastery, the nuns treat visitors to loukoumades; and on the path that descends to the spring, the echo answers whatever you shout.
What is open here
Four places to stay, one place to eat and one for coffee. The grocery “I Kivotos” is also a kafeneion, with local products and homemade pies.
The road to the ski centre starts here and is paved; in winter it is cleared by snowploughs, but on snowy days you need chains.
Ten kilometres higher up, at 1,500 metres, the Ziria Ski Centre usually operates in January and February, for as long as the snow lasts.
Two hundred metres higher than Kato Trikala: here the snow settles first and melts last.