Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: Αχαΐα

The Odontotos rack railway runs between Diakopto on the coast of the Corinthian Bay and Kalavryta on a height of almost 750 meters. It follows the Vouraikos river over bridges and through tunnels. The construction of the network started in 1889 and it was inaugurated on 10 March 1896. It has a length of just more than 22 kilometers. With a gauge of 0,75 meter the Odontotos is one of the narrowest in the world. The railway has some characteristic stations. The main image shows the Kalavryta railway station and PiP1 the Mega Spileo station.

The Monastery of Mega Spileo ( Μονή Μεγάλου Σπηλαίου ) - formally the Monastery of the Dormition of the Theotokos ( Ιερά Μονή Κοιμήσεως της Θεοτόκου ) - is built on the western slopes of Mount Helmos at a height of more than 900 meters. The monastery's architecture reminds of a fortress and it has eight floors. The cells of the monks are built around a cave. The monastery – one of the oldest of Greece - was originally built in 362 by two Thessalonian brothers, when a shepherd girl found an icon of the Virgin Mary inside a cave. The icon was made of wax and mastic and it is believed that Apostle Luke painted it. The icon survived a lot of fires and destruction and can still be admired in the monastery (PiP5). In the year of 840 Mega Spileo Monastery was burnt down by a religious group. It was rebuilt in 1285 by the emperor Andronikos Paleologos, but suffered many destroying fires along its history. The monastery suffered another destruction in 1943 when the Nazi troops, after the massacre of Kalavryta , put the Monastery of Mega Spileo on fire and killed its twelve monks and its staff, either shooting at them or throwing them from the rocks. Some managed to survive, hidden in close caves after having taken some valuable icons with them. Nowadays the Monastery of Mega Spileo is an imposing construction with a 17th-century church that hosts remarkable frescoes, mosaic floors and a bronze door with relief decoration. The Monastery also hosts a museum that displays carved wooden crosses, antique manuscripts, and Holy Gospels.

The small village of Plataniotissa, 30km northwest of the town of Kalavryta, has is one of the holiest and most unique pilgrimages of Greece, Church of Our Lady ( Panagia Plataniotissa ) (All Holy Virgin of the Plane Tree) which is tucked inside the hollow of a large plane tree (it’s a special and natural phenomenon which was created when three plane trees sprung together close to each other and over time united into one). Nowadays the tree has a base of around 16 meters. The interior of the church - about 8 meters long and 3 meters wide with a capacity of around 20 people - shows the depiction of the icon of the Holy Virgin, holding baby Jesus. We were a little disappointed with our visit to the tree church in Plataniotissa. Unlike the pictures on the internet, almost all the branches of the plane tree (and also of the surrounding trees) had been cut off due to disease. As a result, only a trunk remains, making it much less impressive

In October 1943, Greek guerrillas captured some 80 German soldiers on a patrol mission, following an ambush in the mountains outside Kalavryta. After negotiations for a prisoner exchange failed, the captives were executed, with only two making a lucky escape undetected. In response the German army started a guerrilla cleanup operation that included terrible reprisals aimed at the local civilian population. Troops converged to the town of Kalavryta from all directions, burning and looting 50 villages along the way and executing many male civilians. Upon reaching Kalavryta on December 13, 1943, the soldiers began setting the town ablaze. They then gathered the town’s entire population at the schoolyard and separated them in two groups. All able men age 13 and upward were led to Kapi Hill, just outside the town, while women, the elderlyand children were locked inside the schoolhouse. (The clock in the cathedral's left tower always reads 14:34, the time at which the horrifying event took place on the December day in question in 1943.) The schoolhouse was set on fire with over 200 women and cildren inside. The soldiers began executing nearly 500 men - only 13 men survived the execution - by machine gun fire. While the execution took place on the hill, the panicked, choking prisoners managed to smash through the school’s doors and escape, while others threw their children outside the windows of the burning building to save them. Today, a memorial complex stands on the hill where the execution took place. It includes a large cross, ossuary, the harrowing sculpture of a lamenting woman of Kalavryta, as well as some on-the-spot graves that remained on site since that day.

The Holy Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary is located in the central square at the heart of the village. The church was built in the period 1730-1750 and then burned by the Ottomans in 1826, rebuilt, but was destroyed again by the Germans in 1943. The clock on its left belfry is stopped at the time - 14.34 hours - of the Nazi atrocity in December 1943, while on the right a new clock measures the time since the liberation from the Germans. A plaque reads “The hour of destruction left a scar on time. The silenced clock will always read disaster and death, blood, fire and pain at the exact hour the lament began. December 13, 1943” On the second clock tower a plaque reads “The Holy Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was set on fire by the Ottomans in 1826. Was set on fire again by the German on December 13th 1943”.

The monastery of Agia Lavra is one of the oldest monasteries in Peloponnese. The first one was built in the year 961, but it was burnt down three times: in 1585 by the Turks, in 1826 by the armies of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt and by the German troops in 1943. Finally, in 1950 the monastery of Agia Lavra was rebuilt. Which means the buildings are quite modern, except for a small chapel - dating back till 1600 - where the Greek War of Independence of 1821 was declared (PiP1). The monastery’s museum is devoted to historical treasures. Among them perhaps the most remarkable is the Revolution’s Banner; the first flag of independent Greece (just a pity photography is forbidden in the museum) .