Fronted by the town’s impressive, massive cobbled square, the monastery’s entrance is guarded by a statue commemorating Dositheos, a former abbot murdered by Turkish troops during the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Now acting as the parish church, the monastery was originally built around 1150; it was extended and extensively remodelled in the 19th century. Several of the outbuildings now house small museums.
The harrowing National Struggle Museum is small and simple, but the memories evoked by the black-and-white photos of the men and women killed (some reputedly tortured) by British forces between 1955 and 1959 might linger in your mind long after you leave.
Another outbuilding houses the Museum for the Preservation of Lace, with delicate examples of the pipilies (needlepoint lacework) for which the village is famed.
