Kastaniani: One of the oldest villages of Pogonios – Running waters, wild chestnuts and plane trees

Kastani or Kastaniani is a mountainous village of Regional Unity and is located at an altitude of 640 meters. He finally joined the Greek state in 1913 with the Florence Protocol. Kastani is located next to the borders of Greece with Albania and is historically included in the villages of Pogonios Ioannina and belongs to the villages of Lakka. The beautiful Kastaniani is 66 km northwest of Ioannina and 31 km from the historic Kalpaki. It is built on a hill overlooking southern Albania and the plain of Dropolis, in an area with running waters, full of wild chestnuts and plane trees. It is one of the oldest settlements in Pogonion as quoted by Nicolas Hammond. He had experienced great prosperity before the conquest of Epirus by the Turks (1430), when 1,200 families lived there, according to Ioannis Lambrides in the “Pagonian”. During the period of the Turkish occupation he became the target of heist raids and claims, between the pasades of Argyrokastro and Ioannina. Many consider that residents of Kastania are the first settlers of Kozani, around 1490. In the village and the surrounding heights were fought hard during the Greek-Italian War and Civil War. Today’s attraction in the center of the village is the Museum of Natural History.