Monastery of Paleokastritsa — Attraction in Municipality of Central Corfu and Diapontia Islands

This is a very beautiful monastery but it is very visited, that's mean all the time there are a lot of visitors, making a good selfie being a really challenging task. The road to the monastery it's very step and the traffic is regulated by lights changing green at every 5 minutes.

But you can park down the hill, near the lights and you can walk to the monastery on a very step road of 500 meters lenght. On top there are 2 parking lots, one of them being near the gate of the monastery and the other one 100 m before the gates of the monastery, after the traffic lights from the top of the hill.

From the first parking place to monastery there is a shop with souvenirs and there ate a few street artist exposing their hand made souvenirs or different art objects.

There is a dress code, meaning that you cannot enter the monastery dressed in shorts and no sleeves t-shirts. There is a guardian at the entrance of the monastery validating the way you are dressed.

There is no entry fees but at the entrance there is a box and they appreciate every donation for the monastery.

The monastery is very beautiful having a church and a museum opened for visitors. The church is small with pictures hanging on the walls. The walls are painted in light orange color but if you look very carefully you can guess the covered paintings underneath. The pictures are not so common in orthodox churches and if they are are just with Holy Mother and Jesus Christ. Here there are pictures representing what supposed to be pictured on the church's walls.

If you want to light a candle, in the church, it is nice to put some coins in the box situated above the place you take the candle. Usually the candles are for free, nobody checkes if you put or not the money for the candle you lights, but... .

Also if you want to put a diptych (in romanian language "pomelnic") - you write the name of the persons on a piece a paper and for 1 reading by the monks at the next ceremony is for free but if you want people you wrote to be mentioned for 40 days (orthodox tradition) than you have to pay a certain amount of money to a monk from the monastery and to handle him the piece of paper. For such a service they requested from me 50 EUR. It was not nice - usually it is up to you how money you want to give and the believers express their gratitude to the church, for this kind of service, by a donation not by a tax.

The view is splendid, the court of the monastery is full of flowers, the museum is small but nice (there are exposed the bones of the Jonah's whale :) ) and at the entrance of the monastery there is a canon made of bronze - and no it is not functioning.

Monastery deserves a visit but when there are not so...

The Monastery of Virgin Mary of Paleokastritsa is located in the Greek island of Corfu, 25 kilometers outside of the City of Corfu. On the rocky bluff above the beaches, the beautiful, whitewashed Paleokastritsa's Monastery (also known as the Panagia or Theotokos Monastery) is believed to have been established in the thirteenth century, though the current buildings date from the eighteenth. The small monastery church, set amidst an attractive complex of courtyards, archways, monks' cells, oil presses and storerooms, has a number of impressive icons, including depictions of St George and the dragon and an atmospheric Last Judgement, while the ceiling features a woodcarving of the Tree of Life. There's also a museum, resplendent with further icons, most notably a beautiful Dormition of the Virgin Mary, jewel-encrusted silver-bound Bibles and other impedimenta of Greek Orthodox ritual, as well as a curious "sea monster", with very large vertebrae and tusks, said to have been killed by fishermen in the last century. The real highlight, however, is the beautiful paved gardens, which afford spectacular views over the coastline. Entrance is free of charge. The monastery consists of two levels. The lower part is a garden with stone arches, resembling a tunnel. There are a few benches and a shop for olive oil, olives and koum-quat liqueur produced by the monastery. In the shop you can see authentic olive press. Some stone stairs lead to the upper level and there you find a small yard with well, church and museum with icons and books. Greek little churches have the gift of offering an unique sensation of happiness and serenity and Paleokastritsa monastery does just that. The location is superb, in the heart of the bay with pine trees and bouganville flowers, full of flower pots with aromatic herbs that fill the air with a lovely perfume, lazy cats dozing all over the place, the bouganville petals at one's feet, the Greek blue everywhere- the sea and clear sky and the sound of the particular insects one hears on Greek islands breaking the silence....

I went in the summer and loved it and love the cats but now the cats are gone If i knew this before hand i wouldnt have been visiting, Where did you put them? Please be kind to all of gods creatures Be the voice of the voiceless

Read this copied message for more information

DO Not visit this monestary. In the past 2 months the monestary cats have "disappeared", apparently sent to live somewhere else by the abbot who thinks they make the place look untidy and dirty. There were about a dozen cats living here until late autumn. They were all sterilized, vaccinated and fed each day by volunteers and any cats that needed veterinary treatment were taken to be treated.

Over the summer, access to feed the cats was denied, they had an area where they were fed and housing there for them. This was blocked off by the monks so the cats had to be fed in the car park. Now all the cats have gone.

These cats have been there for many years, they have no reason to go anywhere else when they are fed and looked after. This is simply a case of them being disappeared, probably poisoned or worse.

Volunteers have worked very hard and spent a lot of money treating and feeding these cats over the years. They were in good health and the number of kittens being born has vastly reduced. There is no reason at all to get rid of them. They were loved by visitors to the monestary and were an attraction in their own right. Sadly, they are gone and I'm asking people to not go, do not donate to the monestary and tell them you are shocked by their appalling treatment of...