Velestino 2.75

Velestino is a town in the Magnesia regional unit, Thessaly, Greece. It is the seat of the municipality Rigas Feraios.LocationIt is situated at elevation on a hillside, at the southeastern end of the Thessalian Plain. It is 17km west of Volos and 40 km southeast of Larissa. Velestino has a train station on the local line from Larissa to Volos. The Motorway 1 (Athens - Larissa - Thessaloniki) passes east of the town. The Greek writer and revolutionary Rigas Feraios was born in Velestino in 1757.HistoryVelestino is built on the site of ancient Pherae. The ancient settlement is still atested in early Byzantine times, but was apparently abandoned following the Slavic invasions of the 7th century.The current settlement appears with its current name—probably of Slavic origin—for the first time in 1208, in a letter by Pope Innocent III mentioning its Frankish ruler, Berthold of Katzenelnbogen. In it was part of the jurisdiction of the Latin bishop of Gardiki, Bartholomew of Halmyros; by the 1280s, Velestino itself is listed as a separate thema. Very few traces remain of the medieval town today.