Peloponnisos News ( Projects,Tourism,Culture,etc.)

[Kratylos]

Hello again dear forumers of Kalimera!

I have the idea , in this thread to post news and information of any kind for the region of Peloponnisos so you can all have "fresh updated information" on all the things happening in south greece.
I check regurarely local newspapers which are difficult for most of you to read them , and i will translate the most interesting articles , and i will post them here.
Also you are welcome to post any info /photos/ or questions that you may have .

The topics of this thread could vary , from infrastructure/public works/constructions news , tourism news , culture news (festivals ,concerts etc) ,education news (universities,institutions etc) ecology news (nature, protected areas etc) and many more that you can put in the list ...

[Kratylos]

Patras New Archaeological Museum

Under construction
Completion 2006 (some of the halls will be ready be the end of 2005)
Cost : 16 mil. Euro
~8,000 sq. m.
+ archaeological park (included in the main building amphitheatre , lecture halls,restaurant,laboratories etc.
It will host all the antiquities of the achaia region , mostly of the roman period (marvellous roman mosaics found around Patras)









For a presentation video of the new museum see also www.bobotis.gr

[Kratylos]

Gianiskari beach , Nortwest Peloponnese (just few Km from cape Araxos and very close to Kalogria beach).
The beach is a bit isolated and the access is through a not paved dangerous road , but because of its very warm and clear waters the last years attracts more and more visitors (most of them from the region).



And one more photo from the nearby kalogria beach which i presented in a previous thread.

[Mikke]

Good job, Kratylos!!
Keep up the good work.....
Mikke

[ciakoohler]

Why does nobody travels there???? Or is it just because of that it is SOOOO beautiful.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SO Wonderful pictures.

[Kratylos]

Geia sas pali to all of you dear friends of Kalimera!
I am back after a long time of absence and also some days of hollidays in the beautiful north aegean seas of Macedonia and Thrace!
I hope that all of you who were allready on hollidays you had a good time!
Any of you who visited Peloponnese in July and August?

Here two photos for all of you from Lambiri (small village 20km before Patras , right on the Corinth Gulf )

[Mikke]

.....beautiful pix Kratylos!So green and lush.....
Mikke
(KfK)

[ciakoohler]

[Here two photos for all of you from Lambiri (small village 20km before Patras , right on the Corinth Gulf )


Thank you very much for the beautiful pictures

[epiros]

2 kalimera-friends will soon be enjoing their holiday on Peloponessos.
Hope to see some beautyfull pictures from them too when they come back.
Otherwise I can allways look at yours, and look forward to next years holiday in Greece.

Tommy

[Kratylos]

Athens-Corinth suburban railway line launched
26/09/2005

After many years of construction and delays finally the first part of the new railway line Athens--Corinthos--Patras , is delivered...


The suburban railway line linking Athens with Corinth was officially inaugurated and opened to the public on Monday by transport and communications minister .

--The route from terminal to terminal takes approximately one hour.--

The Athens-Corinth line will run every hour, with the first train departing Corinth for Athens at 8:13 a.m. and for Athens' Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport at 7:08 a.m. The last train will depart for Athens at 8:13 p.m., and for the airport at 5:08 p.m.

Conversely, the first train from Athens for Corinth will depart at 6:06 a.m., and the last one at 6:06 p.m., while the first train from the airport for Corinth will depart at 7:05 a.m. and the last one at 7:05 p.m.

The tickets for the Athens-Corinth ( 88 km ) and Corinth-Athens routes will cost six (6) euros, while for the route Corinth-Airport and Airport-Corinth they will cost eight (8) euros.

The intermediate stops along the route, at the initial stage, are Nea Peramos, Megara, Kineta, and Aghioi Theodoroi, while stations at Ano Liossia, Thriassio, Magoula and Zephyri will be added on towards the end of 2006.

Also, a passenger boarding the suburban railway at Corinth may transfer, at the Neratziotissa station, to the ISAP train line or the Athens Metro.

The new Corinth-Athens route covers a total distance of 88 kilometres, with a maximum speed of 200 kilometres per hour.(actually the maximum speed will be no more then 130 km/h because the railbuses dont go faster)

Construction of the line cost 475 million euros, and was carried out by the OSE (Hellenic Railways Organisation) subsidiary ERGOSE.

The project is not totally finished since the electrification is not installed yet.

Anyway it is a big step towards the modarnization (after 100 years of nothing moving) of the railway network ,especially to the direction of Peloponnese (who still has single track metric gauge line in the rest network)

and some pics :

Corinthos new railway station :


New railway bridge over the canal of Corinth (Isthmus)



Kakia skala railway tunnel



The type of trainsets to be used are Railbuses and "Siemens Desiro class" suburban trains :

[Kratylos]

FIRST WIND ENERGY PROJECT IN NORTH PELOPONNESE NEAR COMPLETION

Allready 41 windgenerators are installed at the top of mount Panachaiko (~1,900 m) .
The windgenerators are 900 KW each , total power production 35 MWH + option aproved for 16 more windgenerators.
According to specialists in the next few years it will be possible at least 5-7% of the energy needs of the city of Patras to be covered from the wind farm installation at Panachaiko !

The windgenerators are visible from far , especially from the region of Rio-Agios vasilios-Lampiri.

Vestas receives order for 41 units of V52-850 kW wind turbines for Greece


The Vestas Group has received an order for 41 units of V52-850 kW wind turbines for a project located near the town of Patras, on the Peloponnese in Greece.

The order has been placed by EOLIKI Panachaikou S.A., a company whose main investor and shareholder is CESA HELLAS, S.A. a Greek subsidiary of the Spanish company Corporación Eólica CESA, SA, which owns and operates several wind farms in Spain.

The order is for a turnkey project including a 5-year warranty, service and maintenance agreement. Delivery of the wind power plant will begin in July 2005 and commercial operation is scheduled to take place during the first quarter of 2006.


“The new Greek government has announced energy as an area of priority, which among others is expected to make the permitting process easier,” says Ditlev Engel, President and CEO of Vestas Wind Systems A/S and continues: “The development in Greece is positive and the Panachaikou project indicates that also foreign investors like CESA S.A. are interested in the Greek market”

[Lissi]

Så härliga bilder och så bra information.Tack för det! Jag var på Peloponnessos hösten 2000 3 dagar av en Atensemester och även någon dag sommaren 2001 då vi stannade till en dag på väg från Parga till Aten. t o r ... Där ÄR vackert! Eftersom jag alltså åkt vägen Aten -Korintkanalen flera ggr så förstår jag hur välkommet snabbtåget är! Jag förstår inte riktigt varför Peloponnessos är så lite besökt i förhållande till andra turistorter.. Men det kommer! Än en gång tack för fina bilder

[Kratylos]

20-10-2005
Development minister inaugurates windpower park in the Peloponnese

Development Minister Dimitris Sioufas on Friday inaugurated a windpower park in the prefect of Argolida, in the Peloponnese.

The park includes 12 winpower generators and will have a production capacity of 70 million KW. Energy produced by the park will be distributed to Public Power Corporation's electricity grid in the country.

The Greek minister, in his inauguration speech, said it was a remarkable project for the region that would benefit the country as a whole. "The government is committed to earmark funds from a Fourth Community Support Framework for the development of Greek regions," Sioufas said.

A Development ministry's plan to deregulate the country's electricity, natural gas and bio-fuel markets aims to secure 20 percent of energy needs from alternative energy sources by 2010

[Kratylos]

Geia sou Lissi ! efcharisto!

[Kratylos]

University of Patras is the third largest university in Greece with more then 25,000 students .

Here is a photo of the university hospital (largest in Peloponnese ) and beside the buildings of the department of medicine as seen from a ferryboat in Rio.



And in this photo the bridge as seen from a hill of the university campus (part of the hospital is also seen)

[Ingegerd_Lasse]

Hi from Karlstad,with snow falling down, we long for next summer. 2 years ago we visited Kiato fpr 3 days, nice but a little bit to big for a long holliday. We are looking for a place to return to every summer for 4-6 weeks, we like the idea to find a nice village on the main-land.Can you tell us more about Lambiri? Or other friendly, villages, without too many tourists. We like to be cloose to the ports and sea, we walk a lot, and like meeting people and also rest in silence. And hopefully find a place in a few hours from Athens.
Kindly Ingegerd & Lasse

[Kratylos]

Aristarchos telescope almost ready to set its sights on the universe

article from newspaper www.ekathimerini.com

One of the 20 strongest telescopes in the world (and largest in south eastern europe) to begin operating on Mount Helmos

http://www.zeiss.ro/C12567BC00338B2E..._Helmos140404/

The new observatory at the top of Mount Helmos, in the northern Peloponnese, at a height of 2,340 meters. It is due to start operating next summer, pending final tests. (2006)

By Yiannis Souliotis - Kathimerini

Greece is getting a window into the universe as construction of its first state-of-the-art telescope nears completion with capabilities similar to those of other leading installations of its kind in Hawaii and Chile.

Its official opening is expected next summer, after quality controls have been carried out and the results made available, likely within the next few days.

Situated at a height of 2,340 meters on the peak of Mount Helmos in the northern Peloponnese, about 150 kilometers west of Athens, the Aristarchos will, when fully operational, enable Greek astronomers to research major cosmological issues such as the theory of the expanding universe.

The Ritchey-Chretien telescope has a range of 8-12 billion light years, equivalent to three-quarters of the range of the universe. Greek astronomers will be able to explore the structure of the universe and its individual galaxies and look for answers to questions such as: Is there life on other planets?

Capabilities

The Aristarchos will automatically become part of Opticon, an international consortium of major telescopes set up to facilitate research within Europe, according to Christos Goudis, director of the National Observatory’s Astronomy and Astrophysics Institute, which is responsible for the telescope.

Next summer, the annual meeting of directors of Europe’s major telescopes to determine strategy for observational astronomy will be held in Kalavryta, on Mount Helmos, coinciding with the opening of Aristarchos.

Aristarchos’s reflector is 2.3 meters in diameter on an azimuth platform that can be moved horizontally and vertically to ensure greater precision in focusing and scanning. A secondary reflector unit allows for adjustment to several axes.

Already several features have been installed on the rear part of the base:

– Two scanners/CCD cameras for depicting the morphology of objects.

– A spectrograph built by the universities of Patras and Manchester, which can pinpoint gamma rays emitted when matter is absorbed in a black hole.

– A unique high analysis spectrograph, donated by the University of Manchester, able to detect phenomena such as hydrogen nebula in which stars are born, and planetary nebula exploded during the last stages in the life of a star. Both spectrographs analyze light at its own speed and determine the chemical composition, temperature, density and dynamic of the target.

Goudis said Helmos was chosen as the site for the telescope as it is one of the darkest regions of Europe.


High-quality reflection

The telescope is protected from light sources; on most days of the year it is above cloud level, ensuring a high-quality reflection. It is also close to a road network (8km from the Helmos ski center and 32km from Kalavryta). The building, the dome and auxiliary structure were built by the Athens National Observatory and the telescope itself by Carl Zeiss Jena.

After it opens, it will have a permanent security staff, but thanks to its microwave link with the Observatory on Mount Pendeli, north of Athens, astronomers will be able to use Aristarchos by remote control.

Procedures began in 1998 with the signing of a contract. Over the past seven years, Greek scientists have had to overcome a number of obstacles without much support from the state. Although most of the installations had been completed, the road linking the ski center with the peak was in such terrible condition that the three scientists who traveled the 8-kilometer route almost daily, described it as a “terror route.”

In the end, it took the personal intervention of Development Minister Dimitris Sioufas to open up the road. Sioufas, who is expected to visit the site this month, has promised substantial financial support for the Kalavryta Astronomy Institute (which is officially in charge of Aristarchos). In the next few days the site is expected to be linked to the power grid; until now it has been operating on generator power.

So far the cost of the project has totaled 5.87 million euros.

When completed, the telescope will help upgrade optical technology and the dissemination of scientific knowledge by providing training at the site, according to Goudis.

“The telescope will boost scientific sectors such as the construction of specialized sensing and imaging instruments. CCD cameras now on the market were originally built to meet the needs of astronomy,” he said.

Thanks to the Municipality of Kalavryta and the efforts of its mayor, Thanassis Papadopoulos, this “people’s observatory” will allow ordinary people a look into outer space.

[Kratylos]

Geia sas dear friends of Kalimera! I want to wish to all of you a happy and healthy 2006!!


PATRAS - Europas Kulturhuvudstad 2006

[Lissi]

Men vilken tur man har att pricka in kulturhuvudstäder på sina Greklandsresor! När Thessaloniki var kulturhuvudstad ,(jag tror det var 1997), så råkade vi vara i norra Grekland på semestern och kunde gå på flera fantastiska utställningar, bl a om munkrepubliken Mount Atos!

Patra är redan inprickat för ett besök i sommar!

Lissi

[Elisabet]

Det var en fantastiskt fin kulturhuvudstadbild de har gjort!