Kalambaka 6

Kalabaka is a town and a municipality in the Trikala regional unit, part of Thessaly in Greece. The population was 21,991 at the 2011 census, of which 8,330 in the town proper. The Metéora monasteries are located in the town. Kalabaka is the northwestern terminal of the old Thessaly Railways, now part of OSE.HistoryIn 1995 an ancient tomb was found in Kalabaka dating from the 20th century BC. A Greek inscription on the wall of one of the town’s oldest churches (Saint John the Baptist) testifies to the existence of an ancient Greek settlement under the name Aiginion.The town was built on the location of the ancient city of Aiginion, founded during the Hellenistic period which, according to Strabo, belonged to the people of Tinfei. It is mentioned several times by Livy during the Macedonian War, and after the Third Macedonian War in 167 BC, it was destroyed by the Romans. During the civil war between Caesar and Pompey the city was occupied by Domitius Calvin.In the 10th century AD, it was known as Stagoi (Στάγοι), a Byzantine fortress and bishopric. Of its medieval monuments, only the cathedral, the Church of the Dormition, survives. It was a late 11th- or early 12th-century building, built on the remains of an earlier, late antique church. Relics of an ancient Greek temple – probably of god Apollo – have been incorporated in the wall of the town’s oldest and most renowned church, dedicated to Virgin Mary.