The masons of Mastorochoria, called koudaroi, left their villages every spring in organised groups and travelled to building sites across Greece, the Balkans and beyond, working on bridges, churches, schools and mansions. Among themselves, they spoke koudaritika, a working language that outsiders could not follow. It is no longer spoken today. The Museum of Stone Craftsmen in Pyrsogianni, in an old stone school built in 1927, keeps records and tools from this tradition, which lasted more than 400 years.

The best-known work of these masons stands outside the villages themselves: the bridge at Konitsa, over the Aoos river, built around 1870 by Kostas Frontsos of Pyrsogianni. Its single arch spans about 37 metres. Ottoman troops damaged it in 1913, and it was repaired that year. Near the southern edge of Mastorochoria, where the Sarantaporos joins the Aoos, the Monastery of Molyvdoskepastos stands on the hillside. Tradition dates its founding to the 7th century, and it was renovated in 1522; its wall paintings span the 13th to the 18th centuries.

Pyrsogianni, at about 850 metres on the slopes of Grammos, was the seat of Mastorochoria and is its largest village. Stone houses, fountains and cobbled lanes surround a central square with buildings from the 18th century, and the church of Agios Georgios, built in 1904, was modelled on the cathedral of Athens. Kastaniani, at a similar altitude between Grammos and Smolikas, stands in oak, beech and chestnut forest, and single-arch stone bridges cross the streams around it.

Vourmpiani, Drosopigi and Chionades are smaller villages of the same stone architecture, each with its own church, fountains and mansions built by families of masons. Further east, on the slopes of Mount Smolikas, Molista, Ganadio and Monastiri are three more stone villages, thinly populated today, that are also counted among the master-builders' settlements, though not all sources place them in the same administrative unit as the other villages.

Mastorochoria lies in the valley of the Sarantaporos river, between the Grammos and Smolikas mountains. Forests of oak, beech, chestnut and fir cover the slopes around the villages, and the Sarantaporos flows south to join the Aoos river, near the Monastery of Molyvdoskepastos. The area lies within the Vikos-Aoos Geopark, a status for places with notable geology and landscape, and it borders the Grammos range, where bears and wolves live.

Paths and forest dirt roads connect the villages across Grammos and Smolikas, and walkers and mountain bikers use them to move between them. The forest is at its most colourful in autumn, and the streams around the villages run fullest in spring. Further south, near Konitsa, the Aoos runs through a wider valley where rafting and kayaking trips take place, on stretches with both easy and demanding rapids.