The Monastery of the Nativity of the Theotokos, to give it its full name, sits on a pine-covered ridge looking south across the Myzeqe plain. Founded in 1282 by the Byzantine emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos to mark a victory over Charles of Anjou, the surviving church dates to the 18th century in its current form, built on much older foundations. The exterior is a low, broad-shouldered structure of dressed stone with a tiled roof and a slender bell tower; from outside it gives little hint of what is inside.
The interior is what people come for. The walls and ceiling of the church of St Mary are covered in frescoes painted in 1744 by the Zografi brothers — Constantine and Athanasios — two Albanian-Greek artists from Korçë who were among the finest painters of their generation in the Balkans. Their work here is unusually complete and well preserved, with the warm reds and golds still legible. The carved iconostasis, gilded and dense with figures, is contemporary with the frescoes.
The cloister around the church is now a small museum and a guest house; you can occasionally stay overnight in one of the cells if you ask in advance. Coming up from the road, the approach is a short, steep walk through pines that smell of resin in the heat — part of why the site has the atmosphere it does.