Lake Karla, Water reservoir in Thessaly Region, Greece

Lake Karla lies at the northern end of the Magnesia regional unit in the Pineios basin, next to Pelion and the Maurovouni mountains, with the town of Kanalia on its eastern shore. It sits at 60 to 80 metres above sea level, the only lake on the Thessalian plain. Its still, blue-grey water mirrors the dark mountain ridges, and a bank of rough pale stones slopes down to the waterline.

Lake Karla, called Voivis in antiquity after the city of Boibe near today's Kanalia, covered about 180 km2 and was the largest natural lake in Greece until 1962. That August a 10,150-metre tunnel was inaugurated and the lake was drained, handing 80,000 stremmata of farmland to Thessalian farmers. Pumping from the Pineios began in December 2010, and the rebuilt lake was inaugurated in October 2018.

The lake's first name, Boibeis, came from the ancient city of Boibe, now the site of Kanalia on the eastern shore. Before drainage, fishermen lived about nine months a year in reed huts built on the water, and the fisheries were a major local tradition.

You can reach the lake by road through connections to major Thessaly towns, with the nearby town of Kanalia providing basic services. Spring and autumn are the best times to visit for spotting migrating birds and enjoying comfortable weather.

The 2018 refilling was not the first attempt: two reservoirs were built in 1988 near Stefanovikio and Kalamaki to irrigate the drained bed, fed by the Pineios through the Asmaki stream. Industrial and farm waste made them eutrophic and reedbeds spread fast. Excavation for the new lake also exposed Neolithic finds, including jewellery, vases, coins and tombs.