Must go there ! Trip to Kalavrita. Peloponnese, Hellas(Greece)#5#Cave of Lakes/Mega Spilaio Monastery ... By @giosou

giosou (62)in #photography • 7 years ago

Hi all ! Hope you are doing great . This is my final post about Kalavrita.

Mega Spilaio Monastery

I 'll start with the story/myth of Mega Spilaio monastery which you should visit even if you are not a Christian for its museum and Hagiographies.

This Monastery is located 10km from the center of Kalavrita. . Took its name by the cave that was found the icon of Madonna holding Christ which was made with wax by Lukas and given by him to the Hegemon of Ahaia region , Theofilos . He then gave it to his descendants that have hidden it in the cave during the era of persecutions.

IMG_20180217_104637 (2).jpg

The Monastery was build by the brothers Symeon and Theodoros who after a vision they led to Ahaia region and met shepherdess Efrosini who led them to the cave where she had found the holy icon.

The two brothers decided to build a monastery there in 362AD and considered the oldest one in Hellas.
Conflagrations ruined the monastery in 840, 1400, 1640, 1934 when the original temple was destroyed too.
It played a significant role in the resistance against the Ottomans, it was never conquered and its defenders repelled Ibrahim's attack in 1827.

Unfortunately in the holocaust of December 13,1943 the Germans Killed there 17 persons, 11 of the monks, by precipitating them off the rocks.

Some more photos of the Monastery

Cave of Lakes

Photographing and recording is forbidden for protection reasons so I had to search the network for images and videos..

http://www.kastriacave.gr/en/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Lakes

The cave of Lakes was discovered in 1964 and it is located in Kastria area , 17km away from Kalavrita, in 800m height and 2km of it have been explored. Since 1981 can be visited by public. It has 3 levels with 13 Lakes. The first one is the physical entrance of it and cannot be visited. The second level is the one you can visit by an artificial entrance and you walk above the 3 Lakes of it for 500m on artificial bridges. The maximum Lakes' depth on this level is 5.5m and you can meet the Castle/Fort formation of them . The 3rd level is not all explored as there weren't any passages for a human and the lack of oxygen is extremely dangerous.

The ticket costs 9euros for adults and half price for kids , including a guided tour.

Till next post , take care !