The Petrified Forest is located in the southernmost point of Kastoria Prefecture, at the settlement of Nostimo. This natural miracle was created and developed 20 million years ago, during the Miocene. Due to the climatic conditions and the geomorphology of that period, forests developed along with active volcanoes. The volcanic materials and dust ejected from the volcanoes covered the plants and the animals causing their fossilization. In 1935, a local man discovered petrified trunks and fossils as he was extracting lignite. The excavations of the forest started about 60 years later and many valuable findings came to the surface. Tropical and subtropical plants, petrified trunks of palm trees, and fossils of the prehistoric fauna and the flora provide information about the climate of that period. The Petrified Forest is considered as a geological monument of nature with great value.
Do not forget to visit the Museum of Paleontology and Paleobotany in Nostimo in order to discover more findings of that period.
Opening hours: 10:00 - 17:00 (November to March), 10:00 - 14:00 & 17:00 - 20:00 (April to October)