Vitsa village (part 1), Zagoria villages, Epirus region, Greece
Vitsa (Greek: Βίτσα) is one of the largest villages of central Zagori. It is situated at an altitude of 955m on a mountain slope near the Vikos gorge with roads linking it to Greek National Road 6. Vitsa is famous for its old double-arched bridge of Missios. The establishment of the village of Vitsa is referred to in other documents from 1321 to 1361, under the name of Vezitsa. Some buildings from Byzantine times are still preserved. The village is divided by a chasm in two districts that were once different villages called Ano Vitsa and Kato Vitsa (Upper and Lower Vitsa).[2] These two villages were always considered, along with Monodendri, as more or less one village, due to their small distance. Vitsa became a cultural center for the Zagori region and was the birthplace of people such as the Sarros family (among them politicians and engineers involved at the Suez Canal works in the 19th century) and Nikolaidis (man of literature). Since the 17th century and until World War II, (when Zagorisian traditional emigration ended), most people from Vitsa would emigrate to Egypt, Asia Minor and the United States. Inside geographical Greece, they mostly emigrated to addition to the double arched bridge of Missios (built in 1748 AD), there is the church of Agios Georgios or of the Taxiarches from 1607 AD, the church of Agios Nikolaos (1612 AD, with well preserved frescoes), the church of the Dormition of the Virgin (Κοιμήσεως της Θεοτόκου) from 1554 (repaired in 1720-1728) in Lower Vitsa, the manors of Belogiannis, Vasdekis and Skevis and the Vrizopouleios School. The church of the Stavropegiac Monastery of Prophetes Elias (1632) survives in the north of Vitsa. It was founded upon an older foundation of a small 14th-century church of the Transfiguration of Christ.
Size: 2592px × 3872px
Location: Vitsa village, Zagoria, Greece
Photo credit: © Andreas Gkanatsios / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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