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Church of the Ypapandi

Kalamata’s Metropolitane Church of the Ypapandi nestles beneath the 14th century Frankish castle.The foundation stone was laid in 1860 and it was inaugurated in 1873.During the 1963 earthquake it suffered great damage and was restored.The Festival of the Ypapandi is of national importance for the Greek world and locally the occasion for a holiday.The litany of the miraculous Icon was confirmed in 1889 and takes place in any weather.In late January 2010 the city hosted the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Ypapandi of Christ Church.He was offered the Golden Key of the city.The region around Kalamata has provided two Ecumenical Patriarchs in the past.

Archaeological Museum of Messenia

The Archaeological Museum of Messenia is located in Kalamata, the capital of the prefecture of Messenia in southern Greece.The museum is built on the site of the city's old market hall.Among else its collection includes the finds which were formerly kept in the Benakeion Archaeological Museum of Kalamata, a remarkable 1742 building of Venetian architecture which collapsed during the 1986 earthquake.The new museum holds antiquities from Messenia from prehistoric and Mycenaean times to the Byzantine and Latin eras divided along the four geographic areas that traditionally made up Messenia: Kalamata, Messene, Pylia and Triphylia.

Temple of Apollo Epicurius

is an archaeological site in the northeastern part of Messinia Prefecture that was a part of Arcadia in ancient times.Bassae lies near the village of Skliros, northeast of Figaleia, south of Andritsaina and west of Megalopolis.It is famous for the well-preserved mid- to late-5th century BCE Temple of Apollo Epicurius.Although this temple is geographically remote from major polities of ancient Greece, it is one of the most studied ancient Greek temples because of its multitude of unusual features.Bassae was the first Greek site to be inscribed on the World Heritage List (1986).Its construction is placed between 450 BCE and 400 BCE.The temple was dedicated to Apollo Epikourios ("Apollo the helper").It was designed by Iktinos,architect at Athens of the Temple of Hephaestus and the Parthenon.The ancient writer Pausanias praises the temple as eclipsing all others but the temple of Athena at Tegea by the beauty of its stone and the harmony of its construction.It sits at an elevation of 1,131 metres above sea level on the slopes of Kotylion Mountain.

Kalamata International Dance Festival

The Kalamata International Dance Festival is the key event in the year of the city's International Dance Centre.The Centre was founded in the spring of 1995, charged with supporting and promoting the art of dance via research, education, and artistic activities and creativity.After seventeen years as an active presence in the Greek dance scene, thanks to the support of the local authorities the Kalamata Festival has earned itself a special place on the festival map of the Mediterranean South and built bridges to international dance creativity.From the very start, the Festival was programmed with two considerations in mind: the wide range of trends in contemporary dance and the ever-larger audiences this art-form attracts.

September - February
March - August

Information not available

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