PREFECTURE OF FLORINA

Florina town is the capital of the prefecture with a population of 14555. The town has been recently built. However, remnants of an older town have been found too. A Hellenistic settlement of agrarian and handicraft nature was excavated on the hill of Saint Panteleimonas. During the Byzantine Times, the town of Chloro must have been situated there. The name Chloro is etymologically related to the word Florina. The Turkish element, during the Turkish Domination, used to exceed. Florina was not developed into an urban center. At the end of the 19th century, after its railway connection to Salonica (1893), there has been atendency to urbanization, as well as a cultural movement - the Greek element plays a leading part. Before the Balkan Wars, Florina was inhabited by 6.500 Turks and 3.000 Greeks. There were an Orthodox Metropolis, one school for boys and one for girls, a boarding house, some other minor schools and three Greek Cultural Clubs.
The sights are:
The church of Santa Paraskevi, the protector of the town.
The Zoo, which aims at the conservation of the fauna in North Greece.
The place, on the hill of Saint Panteleimonas, where deer, hares, roes, boars etc are reared.

Aminteo
It is a modern large town with 4407 inhabitants. It is 41 Km to the southeast of Florina. On the 22th - 24th of October in 1912 a destructive battle took place there. It is known, in the history of the Balcan Wars, as the battle of Sorovits.

Nymfeo
The architecture of Nymfeo, which preserves its interwar image and has been proclaimed a traditional settlement and historic site, stands out among the settlements in the wider area of Amynteo. The settlement's image is imposing: All the buildings are made of stone and singular sheet metal roofs. Nymfeo's economic peak (it was a renowned centre of the jeweler's trade) is clearly evident from the settlement's buildings. The oldest residential specimens are "f", "n" or oblong-shaped in ground plan, while their facades are morphologically very simple. The facades of buildings from the beginning of the 20'h century are symmetrically divided into three sections. The central facade protrudes slightly and meets in a pediment. These buildings coexist alongside variations with classicistic influences. Finally, the houses belonging to the 2"d quarter of the 20'h century constitute a morphological continuation of the earlier ones and are characterized by a curved baroque pediment. The houses' interior is impressive, replete with remarkable painted decor and sofas and fireplaces in the bedrooms and the large central reception area.
The Nikios Scholi (1928), which was built according to plans brought from Sweden by the benefactor I. Nikou and functioned as a teachers college, holds a prominent position in Nymfeo along with the three-aisled basilica of Agios Nicolaos (1867) and its "N"-shaped narthex. According to local tradition, the craftsmen and the plans for the construction of the church came to Nymfeo from Constantinople. The temple was burnt in 1944 and has been completely repaired. The same is purported about the temples of Agios Georgios (1867) at Sklithro and Agios Dimitrios (1856) at Klissoura, which have great typological similarities.

Prespes Lakes
A large number of Greek and foreign tourists and sightseers come to the famous lakes - the wet borders of Greece, Yugoslavia and Albania. There are 850m above the sea level. Their depth is 50m. Some spots in their shores are rugged and rocky but some others have got a rich vegetation. Mikri Prespa (the small lake) is divided from Megali Prespa (the big one) by a narrow strip of land - 1000m. The entire area is a national park. The shores of Mikri Prespa are overgrown with reeds and are hosts to pelicans, wild ducks and many other species of rare birds which attract the attention of many international scientific institutes. Two are the roads that leads to Prespes. The one comes from Florina and the other from Kastoria. The small island of St Achilleus, with its significant archaeological findings (Archaic and Byzantine) is found in Mikri Prespa. The caves on the rocky shores are full of little churches with murals. These churches were used by the Byzantine hermits.