Véria

Véria stands at the edge of the Macedonian plain, where streams descend from the mountains toward the lowlands. A city of churches and painted religious art, it passed between Byzantine, Serbian and Ottoman rulers in the later Middle Ages. The Ottomans called it Karaferye, and Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities each became part of its urban life.

In the late 15th century Sephardic Jews expelled from Iberia settled in Véria, joining an older Jewish community beside the Tripotamos River. The city's Christian community maintained schools and produced scholars, while its craftspeople worked with the water flowing through the town. Visiting in the late 17th century, the Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi admired its watermills and textiles, including silk bed sheets fine enough to be sent as gifts to the sultan.