Its Kale
The inner citadel with the Fethiye Mosque and Ali Pasha's attributed tomb.
photosiotas โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Draizis โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Pudelek โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Christos23 โ CC BY-SA 4.0
**The oldest inhabited Byzantine citadel in Greece** โ not an archaeological site but **a complete residential quarter** inside walls, where people live today. You come in through a gate in the curtain and find yourself in **stone lanes of occupied houses**, with gardens, children and cafรฉs โ the walls running round you on the shore of Lake Pamvotida. Inside are **two small citadels**: **Its Kale** to the east, with the domed **Fethiye Mosque** and the tomb attributed to **Ali Pasha**; and the **northwestern citadel**, where the **Aslan Pasha Mosque** has become a **municipal museum** presenting the city's history through its three communities โ **Muslim, Christian and Jewish**. That plurality is the essence of Ioannina: for centuries it was **a major Ottoman centre** in the western Balkans, and it held a **Romaniote Jewish community**, among the oldest Jewish populations in Europe โ whose **old synagogue** still stands inside the walls. โ Entry to the quarter itself is **free and always open**.
The inner citadel with the Fethiye Mosque and Ali Pasha's attributed tomb.
An Ottoman building now a municipal museum of the city's three communities.
Stone alleys of lived-in houses and gardens inside the walls.
Kastro, 45221 Ioannina, Greece
**A semi-independent Ottoman ruler who governed from Ioannina and shaped the whole region's history.** โ **Who he was**: **Ali Pasha of Tepelena** (about 1740โ1822), an Ottoman governor of Albanian origin who ruled the **Pashalik of Ioannina** from here for decades, expanding until his authority covered stretches of modern Albania and Greece. โ **What made him exceptional**: he behaved as a **semi-independent sovereign** rather than a subordinate governor โ conducting direct diplomacy with **Britain and France**, receiving their envoys, and hosting **Lord Byron**, who wrote about him. Under him Ioannina became a **major cultural and commercial centre**. โ **His rule was also brutal**: his name is tied to documented massacres and cruelty, and in Greek memory he is a complicated figure rather than a hero. โ **His end**: the Ottoman state deposed him once he had effectively broken away, besieged Ioannina, **and he was killed in 1822** โ and the tomb at Its Kale is attributed to him.
**Europe's oldest Jewish community, whose most important centre was Ioannina โ and whose story ends in tragedy.** โ **Who they were**: the **Romaniote Jews** were a Jewish community living in Greek lands **since antiquity** โ that is, **before** the Sephardim who arrived after the 1492 expulsion from Spain, and before the Ashkenazim. They had their **own language** (Judaeo-Greek) and a **distinct rite** differing from both the Sephardi and Ashkenazi traditions. โ **Ioannina** was **the most important Romaniote centre in the world**, its community living inside the citadel for centuries alongside Muslims and Christians. โ **The end**: in **March 1944** the Jews of Ioannina were deported to **Auschwitz**, essentially in a single day; very few returned. **The community today numbers a few dozen.** โ **What remains**: the **old synagogue** inside the walls (not visited without arrangement), a memorial, and a section in the municipal museum. โ **This is worth knowing before you visit** โ the citadel is not only stone.
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