Karditsa

Karditsa sits at the western edge of the vast Thessalian plain, a small, orderly agricultural town that has reinvented itself as the cycling capital of Greece. Perfectly flat and compact, barely a few kilometres across, it is laced with dedicated bicycle lanes, and locals get about on tens of thousands of bikes, a number that rivals the count of cars. For a visitor it makes an unusually calm and green Greek town to wander or ride around.

The town centres on a large, leafy square and the wooded Pafsilypo park on its edge, a shady expanse of tall trees, cafes and paths that offers welcome relief from the summer heat of the plain. There is no great monument here; Karditsa's appeal lies in its relaxed rhythm, its markets, its tavernas serving the produce of the surrounding farmland, and the sense of a real provincial Greek town going about its business.

What draws most travellers, though, is what lies just beyond. Karditsa is the gateway to Lake Plastira, the beautiful artificial mountain lake set in the Agrafa mountains around 25 km to the west, and the natural base for excursions up into that green highland country. The wild Agrafa range, one of the least developed corners of mainland Greece, rises directly behind the town.

Reaching Karditsa is easy: it lies on the railway between Palaiofarsalos and Kalambaka and is well connected by road to Trikala, Larissa and the rest of Thessaly, with buses running up to the lake. Most people treat the town as a practical stop on the way to Lake Plastira or the mountains, staying a night to stock up and rest. Taken on its own terms, though, Karditsa is a pleasant, unhurried introduction to the everyday Greece of the plains, a town of markets, wide squares and shady parks best explored, fittingly, by bike.