Gastoúni

This little town in the Peloponnese with a 12th-century Byzantine church of the Dormition in its Katholiki quarter — renovated in 1702 and one of the area's more significant surviving examples of Byzantine architecture. Gastouni served as a strategic point in the Frankish Principality of Achaea, when it was known as La Gastogne, and later as a provincial capital under Ottoman rule. The surrounding plain is dense with vineyards, olive groves, and orchards, and the Ionian Sea lies a short distance to the west.

• Population8,114
• Nearest water from center1.4 km
• Nearest mountain from center11.0 km
• UNESCO within 50 km1