They have usually kept on good terms with the Turks, who, until the last rising, treated them less badly than their other Christian subjects. They attend to their trade and take little part in political movements. For a long time they were indistinguishable from the Greeks, whose language they spoke as well as their own, and the Greek party still count them as Greeks in their statistics of Macedonia. Metsovo and a neighboring hamlet, Anilho, are home to an ancient Balkan people, the Vlachs. Throughout the district, grizzled old shepherds wear a traditional costume of black skirts over white woolen leggings.
Women dress without affectation in richly embroidered cloaks and ankle-length gowns.
The Vlachs continue to speak a Latin-based dialect similar to Romanian. Elsewhere in Greece, adelphos and spiti are the terms you would hear. The restored mansion of Metsovo's Tositsa family, now a museum of 19th-century Vlach furniture, rugs and tapestries, is a short uphill walk from the village square. It should not be missed. On the ground floor are the store rooms, fountains, and even the stables common to mountain dwellings of 100 and 200 years ago, while on the two upper stories can be seen opulent examples of the weaving and costumes for which northern Greece is justly famous.