Chorio, built on the foothills of Xaplovouni, covers a lot of area and is distinguished in two sections: the older residential part is the medieval castle, of the 14th or the 16th century, square shaped, which consists of two house complexes (one including the other) and a small series of houses in the centre, next to which a small square is formed and there is the Church of the Birth of Christ. The houses are built with the hard rock of the area (sideropetra), while there are decorative details of limestone. There were 123 two-story houses and they hosted one family on the first floor (anogarides) and another on the ground floor (katogarides).
The Inner Castle is nowadays in ruins. The Outer Castle consists of a series of houses, whose external walls was also part of the walls of the defensive castle. In a lot of houses there were lintels with coats of arms and dates. Among the two series of houses there was a perimetric road, so narrow that only small carts could pass through.
The Outer Castle has two gates: the Lower Gate on the south, on the road of the market, and the Upper Gaye on the eastern side, next to which stands the Folklore and Maritime Museum .
he gates bear dates which have to do with their restoration (1650 and 1646 respectively), following a pirate attack in 1638, when the Castle was set on fire. Then, the Castle was strengthened with more towers. Today there are doors and windows to the houses of the external row facing outwards. There are two entrances to the Inner Castle.
Perhaps from the 17th century the settlement has spread outside the Castle but the great development took place after the liberation of Greece from the Turks. As a rule, the closer a house stands to the Castle the older it is.
Text: George A. Ventouris, Despoina Athanasiadou-Ventouri
