Buying a fur coat in Kastoria.
In this story, I would like to share my experience of buying a fur coat in Greece on my own. I decided to combine this task with a beach holiday. Two birds with one stone. . . Travel time July 2018
This was my second trip to Greece for a fur coat. The first took place 8 years ago and was part of a fur coat tour. I can’t say that everything turned out very well then, but I was satisfied. True, many of the nuances about such tours were then unknown to me and I found out about it only after arriving home. And I really regret that I didn’t study the information on the Internet then.
This time, I decided to prepare better and since the spring I began to study reviews and publications on this topic on the Internet, trying to separate advertising from really necessary information. The goal was to buy a quality blackglam fur coat. And if it works out for the money, then something else is simpler for every day.
The hotel was chosen for a long time. I wanted the golden mean. And so that the fur coat remains and rest decently. As a result, I booked via the Internet for 12 nights a double room at the Athos Palace 4 * hotel with a sea view and all-inclusive meals for two adults and a teenager for 145.000 rubles.
ATHOS PALACE Hotel View from the balcony.
In a nutshell, the hotel is certainly tired, but you can still relax there normally. The food is not varied, but quite high quality and tasty. You won't be left hungry. All drinks except beer are surrogates, chemicals and powders. The rooms are small and old, but it's fine for sleeping and changing clothes. The view from the window, if on the sea, is simply magnificent. You immediately forgive the hotel for all the small jambs. The beach is excellent. In general, if you do not overpay, then it is quite normal.
In Greece, the main fur coat capital is the town of Kastoria, which is a couple of hours drive from Thessaloniki. Smaller sales centers are the towns of Paralia Katerinis and Kallithea. Everything else is separate shops and so on
My hotel was a couple of kilometers from Kallithea. It was possible to walk in twenty minutes on foot or pay 5 euros for a taxi.
There is a whole long street with fur coat shops in the town. In smaller lanes, I also saw several shops.
Many of the titles didn't tell me anything, although I had already read tons of information over the past three months, and some belonged to fairly well-known brands, but these were in the minority. Since it was still necessary to go to Kastoria in the plans, one evening to take a walk and ask the price was enough. Looking ahead, I will say that in Kastoria the assortment turned out to be much richer. Stores of the same brand are very different in Kastoria and Kallithea, not in favor of the latter. Here, rather, the calculation is on the laziness of the tourist and the difficulty of getting to a distant place in a foreign country.
In Halkidiki, in particular on Kassandra, where we lived a lot of hotels and tourists. And not everyone will go somewhere far away to compare or see something. Most prefer to take a fur coat on the spot. This is a mistake in my opinion. By spending a maximum of 100 euros on a car and gasoline, you can save much more. Another little tip. If the hotel is not quite on the outskirts, rent a car not at the hotel itself, but at small rental offices, which are numerous in Greece at every turn. And there is no need to block anything on the card, and then there will be no problems with insurance. Just take the full one and that's it. Unlike the same Spain or Italy, this will not almost double the cost of rent. Looking ahead, I’ll say that we took a Ford Focus for 50 euros for one day and gas cost us the same amount. This is the price of the issue when traveling to Kastoria. And if there are two of you, or you could even cooperate with someone from the hotel, like we did, then it’s generally inexpensive.
There is another option to buy a fur coat for lazy tourists vacationing in Halkidiki. From almost any hotel, Mouzenidis guides will take you to the ENIGMA shopping center (Nea Moudania) for free.
And it doesn't matter if you are their client or not. We booked a trip on our own, but there were no problems with this. The shopping center is good. Almost all store employees are Russian-speaking, there will be no problems with understanding. More than half of the shops in the center are fur coats. There are many ordinary souvenir shops, the range of goods of which is unchanged, wherever you are in Greece. There are clothes, leather, accessories and so on. But this is already in the background, the main thing is fur coats.
Just like in Kallithea, there are well-known brands, but there are those whose name has never come across on the Internet during the diligent study of this topic. Brand stores certainly looked much better. We walked a lot, we walked for a long time. They could have done it faster, but if you were brought in in an organized manner, then you will go back with everyone. Tried on a bunch of coats. There were also those who liked it. And the prices seemed to suit us, but we decided not to rush and not buy anything before the trip to Kastoria, although the temptation was great. Buy it and don't need to go anywhere. As further practice showed, we were right. Of course, in Kastoria the choice is not many times, but orders of magnitude higher.
. In general, if someone is not annoyed by a small selection and perhaps a slightly higher price, but it is annoying to go somewhere far, then Enigma is quite a good option.
So Kastoria. We got there in just over two hours. The road is excellent. We paid 1-20 and 2-40 for the fare twice, but it was worth it. The speed limit is 130, you can drive 150 safely. There are almost no cars. there is beauty outside the window, especially when you climb the mountains closer to Kastoria. The town, as remembered eight years ago, has remained so. Nothing has changed at all. Even the signs are the same. I remember a noticeable graffiti on the wall of one of the houses, so it remained in place like this.
Finding fur factories in Kastoria is easy. Almost all of them are located right on the highway along which you will go to Kastoria. It is impossible to miss something because of the huge signs. They start about 4-5 kilometers from the town itself, and after entering it for another five hundred meters, smaller shops come across. So they are located further from each other in a couple of three hundred meters, then to the right, then to the left along the highway outside the city. In the town itself, shops are almost in a row and all on the left side of the road. The lake will be on the right. For those who are afraid to come on their own and not find something, I inform you that your fears are in vain. Everything is very simple. In addition, on the Internet on YouTube I saw several videos of driving along the highway in Kastoria along fur coat factories with names. Who needs to be found. I do not advise you to try to bypass all the factories. It's unrealistic in one day. It is best to choose four in advance, five must-sees, and the rest, as it turns out. There is a lot of information on this topic on the Internet, and you probably either have already looked after yourself guidelines or are going to do it, otherwise you would not be reading this text now.
The task was to find a coat from Blackglama, and if there was money left, then something simpler, to go to the bakery, as they say.
The first factory on my list and the first one you will see when approaching Kastoria is MANZARI. We started with her. There are a lot of fur coats, colors and furs of any kind. We tried on several models and asked the price. Looks good, although the price is a little higher than expected. Very nice sellers. It can be seen that they did not want to let us go, but it would be somehow stupid to go to the first store and buy a fur coat there without comparing prices, quality or models. In theory, you could buy something to turn around and go back. But according to the plan, there were still factories and we did not want to deviate from it.
Further along the road to Kastoria, after two hundred meters, we stopped at the Gliagias factory (I could have made a mistake with the letter in the name). This was not in the plans, but the size inspired respect. We couldn't get past. The prices are attractive. Later, after visiting several factories in Kastoria, we realized that this factory is good for those who want to buy something inexpensively and without any special pretensions. Here we looked at one short fur coat from a series of those that are simpler, of a classic walnut color, but since we have not yet completed the maximum task, we remembered and went on.
Then there was the MANAKAS factory. To our inexperienced eye, we did not find much difference from the previous one. And fur coats and prices are about the same.
There were also several large factories further down the road, but we decided to focus on those that we decided to visit initially. So we passed by. If you bypass everything, then neither time nor strength will be enough.
Next AVANTI factory. This is the second one I have scheduled for a mandatory visit. It is already near Kastoria on the left side of the road. It's impossible to drive by and not see it. There are a lot of coats. It is immediately clear that there are both high-quality and interesting models, but as soon as it came to prices, the interest to measure something further immediately disappeared. I'll write ahead. It's expensive here. I do not think that other factories have about the same worse quality. If the question of price does not bother, then a very good place. We decided that if we did not find anything, then we would return.
Next on the list MOUSIOS. It's near AVANTI. Another five hundred meters towards Kastoria, but already on the right side. Only good things have been read about this factory. There are a lot of reviews on the Internet, but not a single bad one. It was even interesting. There are not as many fur coats in the salon as in any of the previous factories, but the overall impression is much better. Somehow everything is in the same style or something. And you can see all the coats of the same quality. There are no worse or better coats. There is no obvious illiquid asset and a feeling of a warehouse, where each creature is paired and innumerable.
We tried on several coats. I liked a couple of options. But then Nicholas went to the other end of the hall and returned with a sheepskin coat. He says - here is your fur coat. I know exactly. I don’t know what kind of eye he had and how exactly he understood what I needed, but really it was the most interesting option of the day. For the price, too, everything suited. And interestingly, the approach is not like everyone else. Lazaros said that he could give me a price twice as high, praise the quality and say that it is expensive, because it is better than everyone else, and then throw off 30-40% and everyone would be happy. In the end, he said that since we came to them, he now calls me the final price and lets me go on all four sides to look for something better and cheaper. And that he knows for sure that we will be back. Total 2200 euros to the knee with a hood in size 46, the cross section is made of amazing blackglam.
Well, we moved on. On the way, the next factories were P. K. Z. and ALESSANDRO BOSSO. The second one also had good reviews on the Internet, but on the first one I bought my fur coat eight years ago. She was worn well, but as I realized later, I overpaid a lot.
In P. K. Z. didn't even measure anything. Wear a pair of coats. One is blackglam, one is graphite. The price was said to be quite high, but they said that someone would come and make a big discount. To be honest, I didn't really want to. I liked the blackglam in Mousios more, and the cheaper option obviously looked more advantageous in GLIAGIAS or MANAKAS . . We left with nothing. Two or three fur coats were tried on and stopped. We decided to move on.
The last kind of factory in front of the town itself is NAOMI. They ran. They felt it, twisted it, they didn’t even measure anything. It looks like a good coat, but something is not right. They didn't have what we needed. Very tired.
The last factory on my list was CHRISOS. This factory is already in the town itself, but the truth was no longer strong enough.
In general, we decided to return to MOUSIOS FURS for a blaglama and to GLIAGIAS for a simpler short fur coat.
When Lazaros saw us again, he was not surprised. The fur coat hung separately and waited for us, and the branded bag was already standing nearby.
Moreover, while the essence and the matter saw a long row of fur coats covered with a cloth against the wall. She asked what was there. Fur coats turned out to be very decent, just a brown classic. Not even quite brown, the color is the same but with a sparkle. Lazaros said that these mink fur coats are from their own farm and if we want to buy something from this, he will be able to offer such a price that we cannot refuse, especially since it would be the second fur coat. We covered them so that the fur would not fade from powerful lighting.
And we chose the same. Certainly not what was originally planned, but also a great option. In general, we took both. Almost three weeks have passed since my arrival from Greece. I am not writing this review in a rush, but already cooled down from the trip. The coats are great. I'm sure I made the right choice.
I would like to summarize a little. The first and most important thing is that if you need a Greek high-quality fur coat and you plan to buy it on the spot, then you need not be lazy and get to Kastoria. And only to Kastoria. It will still be much cheaper than at home. And at home you will not find such fur coats. One China. Yes, and from the point of view of the tourist it is interesting. The town is really very beautiful.
As for the prices of fur coats in general, everyone there unanimously says that they are at a historical minimum. Such prices have not been for a very long time. The crisis. I myself eight years ago took my short fur coat for 3200. Now a much better fur coat for 2200. Feel the difference.
Have a good trip and good fellow travelers. Put likes, write comments. I hope my story is useful to you.
