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Summer Academy Zakynthos, July 3rd - 21st 1994, Vasilikos, Greece

How it came to me...

In Spring 1994, I decided to go on a summer's journey. So I met a friend of mine, Andrea, and asked her, if she'd like to come along. Or, maybe she asked me? However, we were decided. It should be greece, so we checked out some last minute travel agencies for cheap flight opportunities. But that was not satisfying at all. We wanted to do something special, not just hanging around on the beach, and wanted to have "real" fun, learn a bit about the people, the culture, and have some kind of animation, but not as one would expect from those ugly holiday palaces, where you're being flamed if you don't want to play shuffleboard at 7 am... So there we were, in the greece travel agency, when that blue flyer cought our eyes. "THAT'S IT!", we called - nearly unisono. We took one of the flyers, and opened page one. And - it just looked great. Beaches, that should not be over-crowded, arts, culture, sea turtles, about 15 different arts courses we could attend to, just as we liked. And it wasn't expensive at all! So booked those presumeably wonderful two weeks. Several weeks later the plane took off, carrying us to Zakynthos. What a feeling!

Sightseeing

The Academy Venue

This is the place were some of the classes (especially dance, music and painting ) took place. It was a pavillion meant to be used as a hotel some time. The Greek always build houses without a roof, since no taxes have to be paid until the roof of a house is finished. I have been told (but don't know if it's the truth), that in the year I went to Zakynthos there were new bills that gave the owner of a house a bonus if he built a second floor to uncompleted houses. Therefore all houses in Vasilikos had two floors, but no roof, doors or windows... ;)

For the classes the building was ideal though. From it, one could look down to the shore beyond which the endless sea was shimmering in azur-blue, with some boats in eye range, and one could hear the surf of the sea.

At the end of the stairway you see on the left picture, I took this picure. In the background you see the work of one of the students (The signature shows H. R. '94 - whoever she/he was). I like the harmony of nature and art in this picture.

Expedition to Mount Skopos

One sweet day, after going to bed a little bit earlier than usually, we started a trip to mount skopos, the second-largest mountain on zakynthos. It is some 550 meters high, so it is more of a hill, actually. Still, in the morning there is much wind, an it can be quite cold at the peak. The landscape is by turns fresh then dry, but there is quite much vegetation compared to other places in greece. There was a bad fire some years before I was there, so all the way to the peak we passed scorched trees, an whole fields of burnt bushes.

We arrived at a plateau near the peak of Mt. Scopos right before sunrise, where I took some pictures of the sun. The picure to the right was done about fifteen minutes later, when we reached the last plateau which was just some 20 meters beneath the rocky peak of Mt. Scopos. I never realized how fast a runrise commences. I tried to take some pictures of the sun just lurking over the horizon, when it is still orange, which is the best possibility to take photos without the need of using a filter (let earths atmosphere do the job! I managed to take just two or three pictures, changing the lenses between the shots. Ta hell! This planet really turns fast... On the other hand: That's what makes us see more sunrises, right?

Just round the corner of where we took the first sunrise pictures there was a sattelite station, with some sattelite dishes pointed to the southwest. I liked that view, I managed to capture it on the photograph quite well. Although this man-made high tech equipment is not really meant to be there, the scenery is some kind of romantic beauty.

Near the peak lies a small monastery, which was abandoned long time ago. The chappel in the middle of the ruins is well preserved, while most of the monasteries perimeter walls collaped over the years. I don't know wether the chappel was still in use, or maybe rebuilt. The doors are locked however, so it was not possible to have a look inside. One intresting detail is, that on top of the dome there is a cross with one transverse bar, as it is found mostly on roman churches, while on orthodox ones there are crosses with two horizontal bars (like the ones on the kathedral in zakynthos city). This is another trace of the long period roman garnisson on the isle, during the height of the roman empire.

On our way back, I took the left photo. At the bottom left of it, you can see the entrance to the ruins of a small shephered's house, build out of the stones that were laying around all over the place. The olive tree the picure shows, was the largest one I saw on Zakynthos, I must be ages old, and it must have been planted by the one that build the little cabin that is now beneath it. It was a very impressive view, as the brances of the tree reaced into the ruin, nearly touching its floor.