Folklore Museum (Nerantzis-Aivazis Mansion)

The Folklore Museum occupies the Nerantzis-Aivazis mansion, one of the finest surviving examples of the grand lakeside townhouses built by Kastoria's prosperous fur merchants in the 17th and 18th centuries. From outside, the building looks imposing — three storeys of stone rising directly from the lakeside road. Inside, it feels unexpectedly intimate.

The rooms are arranged as they would have been in their original use: a reception room with painted wooden ceiling, a kitchen with copper implements still in place, sleeping chambers with carved wooden ceilings and built-in storage, a room dedicated to traditional costumes and embroideries. Everything speaks of a specific, well-off provincial life that vanished in the 20th century.

The museum does a good job of documenting both the domestic culture and the economic history — the fur trade that made all this wealth possible. Allow about 45 minutes. The museum is on the southern shore of the peninsula, a pleasant walk from the town centre along the lake.

things to do museum
A story
The mansion was built by the Aivazis family, wealthy fur merchants of Greek-Jewish origin who had made their fortune trading across the Ottoman Empire. The Nerantzis family later owned the building. When it was converted into a museum in the 1970s, the rooms were preserved largely as they had been furnished in the 18th century — down to the kitchen implements, the embroideries on the walls, and the sleeping platforms built into the walls for guests.