STROLL TO MEGALO PRESPA

This walk starting from Psarades is charming, discovering hermitages and rock paintings. One of the port's elders will tell you the rates, but don't try to ask someone else. They are very friendly and form a kind of cooperative. During this ride on a wooden boat, just a few hundred meters from Albania, you can enjoy several curiosities.

Hermitage of the Virgin of Mercy (Eleousa), where many monks from the area lived and whose cells can still be seen. The hermitage contains a single-nave church, which has mortar walls with red lines supposed to imitate brick, which is difficult to bring up to that point. Above the front door, you can see a Virgin and Child. The interior walls are also covered with paintings. In the apse, we will see the Virgin and the Hierarchs as well as scenes from the life of Christ.

Rock paintings. These are the first curiosities that one discovers on the rock, with astonishment and admiration. These frescoes, which represent the Virgin, are painted on rocks only accessible today by water. Not far from these rocks, there must have been two hermitages. The first Virgin is wearing a purple veil and a bust of Christ in majesty against her chest. The second Virgin is brighter and gives an impression of movement and vivacity. It is dated 1373, possibly from the time of Constantine the Paleologist