Epirus and Thessaly Sights

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1. Kastro

One of Ioannina's main attractions is the Kastro, with massive, fairly intact stone fortress walls that once dropped into the lake on three sides; Ali Pasha completely rebuilt them in 1815. The city's once-large Romaniote Jewish population, said to date from the time of Alexander the Great, lived within the walls, alongside Turks and Christians. The Jews were deported by the Nazis during World War II, to meet their deaths at extermination camps; the population of 4,000-plus around the turn of the 20th century is now fewer than 100. The area inside the walls is now a quaint residential area with a few hotels, cafés, restaurants, and stores. Outside the citadel walls, near the lake, a monument at Karamanli and Soutsou streets commemorates the slaughter of the Jewish community.