Drama

Despite its name, there is nothing stagey about the reception that awaits you in Drama. In Agia Varvara Park, bubbling springs flow into canals and ponds, watering ancient trees and reminding you of nature’s pure beauty. Meanwhile, the watermills and tobacco warehouses will take you on a journey to yesteryear. Unpretentious and genuine, Drama will help you rediscover life’s simple pleasures during your holidays in Macedonia.

What to do in Drama

Kato Nevrokopi …chilling at... -20⁰C

Every winter night, the weather report in Greece lists the coldest places in the country and Kato Nevrokopi is invariably at the top, earning it the nickname of the Siberia of Greece. The wood-burning stoves are constantly on but the people are warm and friendly. After all, the area’s other claim to fame, the local potato, loves the cold. Try some with some delectable soutzoukakia, spicy meatballs.

Karantere, a living monument

The view before you has fairy tale written all over it: 70,000 hectares of vivid red fir forest on the Bulgarian border in Macedonia, some of the trees reaching as high as 60m. The locals call it Karantere and it’s nothing short of incredible.

Angitis Cave and the underground river

Water flowing down the Kato Nevrokopi valley disappears into the ground for a dark and mysterious journey, only to re-emerge at this secret exit to resume its course down to the plain. You are at the mouth of Angitis Cave. Partially unexplored, the rare underground river before you once watered a landscape inhabited by mammoths and rhinos.

Drama’s movie festival in Northern Greece

Every September, Drama comes to, well… drama in the form of the International Short Film Festival. Established in 1978, the festival brings cinema lovers from all over Greece and abroad and the proposition becomes even more attractive with the addition of photography, painting and sculpture exhibitions, book presentations, concerts and cinema workshops.

Hidden gems of Drama

Dionysian rites

If you want to celebrate the rites like a local, come to the area during the 12 days of Epiphany. That’s when the local villages around Drama stage Dionysian rites involving all manner of costumes and masks, dancing, singing and giant bells.

Fraktou’s virgin beauty

How many places on the planet are still pristine? One of them is the primeval forest of Fraktou in Drama. Listed as a natural monument since 1980, it is the most important of the three remaining primeval forests in Europe and the second-largest in area.

The Pyrgos-Petroussa Gorge

In this corner of northern Greece, you’ll take a majestic walk in the shade of two sheer rock faces. The gorge starts at the village of Pyrgos and unfurls to where the slopes of Mt Falakro (Bald) appear become practically vertical. It meanders some 12km between high rocks and dense flora and is a refuge for a wealth of wildlife species. An amazing experience.