Trikala region and Meteora, Official Video

Trikala is a city in north-western Thessaly,Greece.The city is straddled by the River Litheon,which is a tributary of Pineios river.According to the National Statistical Service,Trikala had 81,355 inhabitants in 2011,while the Trikala regional unit had 131,085 inhabitants.The region of Trikala has been inhabited since prehistoric times and the first signs of life in the cave of Theopetra are reach back to approx. 49,000 BC. Neolithic settlements from 6,000 BC have been discovered in Grand Kefalovriso and other locations.The city of Trikala is built on the ancient city Trikka or Trikke,which was founded around the 3rd millennium B.C. and took its name by the nymph Trikke, daughter of Penaeus or according to others, daughter of Asopus river.The city was an important centre in Antiquity as the birthplace and main residence of Asclepius.In the region existed indeed one of the most important and ancient asclepieia.The city is mentioned in Homer's Iliad as having participated in the Trojan War with thirty ships under Asclepius' sons Machaon and Podalirius.In the Mycenean period,the city was the capital of a kingdom and later it constituted the main center of the Thessalian region of Estaiotis,which occupied roughly the territory of the modern Trikala Prefecture.The city also constituted an important intellectual centre for a time during the Ottoman domination (1543-1854) with the Trikke School (and later Greek School),where famous intellectuals of the time,such as Dionysios the Philosopher,taught.