Kaisariani Monastery

This weekend I uploaded some pictures of the Kaisariani Monastery in Athens.

Kaisariani Kathorikon

Fresco paintings inside the Katholikon

To go to the monastery, we took a bus from the city centre to the nearest point, and from there we had to walk a rather difficult road (as the pedestrian sidewalk was not adequate and car-traffic was heavy) for about 20 minutes; it is hardly a convenient place to go, if you don't have a car. As the monastery is quite small, the accessible parts are limited, and it is not a museum, probably only those who interested in Byzantine architecture really enjoy the visit.

Unfortunately the Dafni Monastery has been closed for a long period, and there seems to be no immadiate plan of reopening because of risky condistion of the buildings.

Pyrgi, Chios

In this weekend I added three pages on Pyrgi (or Pirgi), Chios Island.

The village is so beautiful with buildings decorated with geometric patters. It is even more colourful at the end of summer when the locals start to make sun-dried tomatoes (as you see in the photo).

http://www.mesogeia.net/trip/xios/pirgi_en.html

http://www.mesogeia.net/trip/xios/pirgiagapostoli_en.html

http://www.mesogeia.net/trip/xios/pirgivari_en.html


The village is in Mastichochoria (southern part of Chios where the mastic is produced), and its prosperity derives undoubltedly from this local and exclusive produce. Although there are quite a lot of tourists, it does not lost its charm of small village with merry local inhabitants.

The village has also a Byzantine church with splendid fresco paintings.

Captives Facade & Temple of Apollo(Corinth)

 

I still have many photo from Chios, but I decided to do some of Corinth where I went in 2003.
This is image of one of the statues from the Captives Facade, constructed in 160-170 to commemorate the victory of Lucius Verus on the Parthians. The young man represents an Eastern (presumably Parthian) captive.

The new pages are:

Temple of Apollo
Captives' Facade

Now that I see, the quality of the photos is not satisfactory. It is because they were shot with my old 2 mega pixel Canon Pixus. I need to return to Corinth to do the better job.

Anavatos and Food in Chios, and Piraeus

Finally I added some pages first time in this year.

First, 2 pages on Anavatos, Chios; famous medieval ghost-town.
http://www.mesogeia.net/trip/xios/anavatos_en.html
http://www.mesogeia.net/trip/xios/anavatos2_en.html

Next, a page on food we had in Chios; we enjoyed it very much.
http://www.mesogeia.net/trip/xios/xiostaverna_en.html

Last, a page on the area around the station of Piraeus (Pireas, or Piraias).
http://www.mesogeia.net/athens/pireas/station_en.html
This is most interesting area of Piraias; there still remains the feel of old port town.

peponi

I have had difficulty in publishing photos in this blog. I don't think it was my fault because I did succeed once. Now I downloaded "Picasa", and enabled alternative method of uploading photos. This is a text version; melons in a market in Piraias.