Chrysochorafa (pronounced roughly "hree-so-HOR-ah-fah", accent on HOR) sits on the eastern shore of Lake Kerkini, about 500 meters from the water, in the Municipal Unit of Iraklia.

One detail that surprises most visitors: the village actually sits lower than the lake itself. Lake Kerkini's water level is held up by embankments on its eastern and western sides, so much of the plain around it, Chrysochorafa included, sits below the surface of the water just a short walk away. It's an odd, quiet kind of engineering to live next to, and part of what gives the whole area its unusual character.

The village itself is genuinely one of the prettiest around the lake, home to around 1,300 people who still farm, fish, and keep water buffalo, much like their neighbors all around Kerkini. Its center comes alive in the evening, when the local tavernas fill up for dinner and the pace slows right down, an easy, unhurried kind of evening that's hard to find elsewhere.

Chrysochorafa was also one of the founding communities behind the association that first pushed to protect and promote Lake Kerkini in the late 1990s, alongside Iraklia and a dozen other villages around the water.

Close to the lake and close to Iraklia, the area's main village, Chrysochorafa makes an easy, quiet base for exploring both.