Nymfaio, Florina

Nymfaio is a a community and mountain village (alt. 1400 m)

Nymfaio (also spelled Nymfeo, Nimfeo or Nymphaio, Greek: Νυμφαίο, Aromanian: Nevesca) is a predominantly Aromanian community in the Florina Prefecture of Macedonia, Greece. Located 16 km south-southeast of Florina, the village had a population 413 according to the 2001 census. According to village records, the population in 1895 was close to 3,500. Urbanization in Greece left a vacuum, with an estimated fifty permanent residents as of 2008. The village is protected by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture in order to retain its architectural integrity.

Currently there are 6 functioning hotels in Nymfaio for those interested in visiting the village. There is a cultural museum and a beautiful Orthodox Church. Next to the church there is an old cemetery dating to the 18th and 19th century.

Nearest places

* Aetos, east
* Agrapidies, east
* Sklithro, south
* Asprogeia, SSW
* Drossopigi, northwest

Population

The name

First mentioned in an Ottoman defter of 1481, the village, then known as Neveska, had only six households. The name of the town in Aromanian (Vlach) is Nevesca, meaning invisible.[citation needed] Other origins of the name included the view (αθέατη, ni vista), believed when it was founded in an area when it was not visible and wintry or where the snow is (nives sta). In the late 19th century, the Nivestiani (Nymfaiotes) were repulsed by the Gkegkides traiks, the name was renamed to Neveska in which in Albanian means like us we don't have (si neve ska), reproducingly cried from the defense, also not having a brige (neve ska).

History

Nymfaio was first settled in around 1385 by the Vlach travellers, the latinophony Macedonian inhabitants kept the nearby Via Egnatia for about 1,400 years and later fled from the mountains from the grievous battles with the Ottomans. The warrior settlers of Nymfaio were capitulated later over the mountains. They remained armed and autonomous, directly dictated by Valide Sultan, due to the mother of the Sultan in which paid more reduced times. Until the early 17th century, they lived with ferocious invaders in the cifliks of the field. In 1960, they began to deliver bronzeware and kicked out from the village to a renowned silvery from all of Macedonia for the next three centuries.

During the Albanian invasions in the late 18th century and after the Orlov revolt, Nymfaio accepted Vlach refugees from Moschopoli, Nikolitsa, Linotopi and other Vlach parts which was ruined by the raiders. It was an important populated settlement which moved to eastern Macedonia in the villages including Ano Poroia, Kato Tzoumagia, Alistati, Nigrita, Serres (Serrai) and others. In the Macedonian film of 1878 during the Treaty of San Stefano, the same form of Nymfaio belonged to the gunman Vassilikos Zourkas which headed to the areas of Varnounta and Morihovo and made important benefits, between thest splitted Mihas Tsirlis.

Modern Nymfaio

Located in a forested area and features stone sidewalks and stone built houses. The later years with the contributions of famous people which descended from the village, as the president Nikolaos Mertzos and the Boutaris family had become a pole attraction in local tourism.

The area features an organization known as Arktouros in an environmental information centre for brown bears and wolves one and a half kilometre from the village. The center is home to 13 bears in which have attached by bear trainers and zoos, and several corresponding wolves - animals for which though to be weak from the natural environment. The information centre is opened to the public (with a symbolic ticket) for several months of the year.

The area had welcomed several visitors, in which it never had adequately and the visitation is large. In the village features the half-ruined battlegield of Pavlos Melas and an old school of the village, the Nikeios Skoli, a gift by Nymfaioti Ioanni Jean Nikou (1875–1930) in which it functioned for many years as a student, completed at the convention centre at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki.

There is a 7–8 km drive to the village from the main road located in the town of Aeto; the road was not paved until the 1950s.

Nymfaio, Source