Temple of Olympia
Pictures of Greece
Kalavrita
Kalavrita sits among the mountains in the northern Pelopponese. To get there, we travelled by rack railway from Diakovto. This particular rack railway was built over 100 years again and is apparently of Italian design and construction. It winds its way around impossible angles, up steep slopes, and occasionally through tunnels drilled through the mountains themselves.
While we were waiting for the train, we stopped on the beach at Diakovto for lunch.
After arriving at Kalavrita and dropping our bags off at the hotel, we took a short trip out to a monastery that apparently played a part in the Greek struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey) in 1821 CE. A short distance away from the monastery, on the next hill, stands a monument to this uprising, which depicts a slave, a priest, and a rebel fighter.
While Kalavrita was famous in classical times for its Alyssos spring, which gushes from a nearby rock and was said to cure madness, nowadays it is more famous for the events of December 13th, 1943 CE. On this day, German troops took all of the males of fighting age from the town to a nearby plateau and shot them.
In the town itself is a cast iron memorial to these events, which stands in the grounds of what appears to be a civic building.
Naturally, there is also a memorial at the place where the men of the town were killed. A large white cross sits atop a small mound, at the base of which stand four concrete slabs with the names of all those who were killed inscribed upon them. The date (13 . 12 . 43) and the legends OCI PIA POLEMOI (no more war) and EIRHNH (peace) are written in chalk on the hillside.
There is also a small shrine at the base of the hill, upon which are a wooden cross and a small plaque. Armed with a modern Greek dictionary and a passing knowledge of the language, Rita and I managed to translate the plaque, which we think reads "Kneel and be humble near to this place where the victims were massacred. The teachers an students from the school helped [erect this]. Dorsten, Germany."
Leaving Kalavrita the following day, we briefly stopped a short distance away at another monastery, which is reputed to be one of the oldest in Greece. Looking back towards Kalavrita from a vantage point at the monastery, the rack railway is visible in the valley, with the road to the left.
High above, on a ridge at the top of the mountain, sits the original monastery. We could only wonder at how people managed to get up there, as the rock face is virtually sheer.
The modern monastery is itself cut into the rock, and resembles a hotel more than a religious habitation.
A short distance away from the main monastery complex is a solitary house, which is still inhabited. We postulated that this was the home of the abbot or chief monk.
