Boris Johnson Vacations in Greece’s Kalavryta

 

Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was spotted vacationing at the town of Kalavryta in the Peloponnese, southern Greece, local sources said.

According to KalavrytaNews.com, Boris Johnson is visiting the town for a three-day stay, from Friday February 10 until Sunday 12.

Photos of the British politician emerged from the tavern where he dinned with friends and chatted with locals on Friday.

Boris Johnson’s trips to Greece

Boris Johnson is a known admirer of Greek culture, and speaks ancient Greek, as he proved when he famously recited Sofocles from ancient text during his speech at the UN Climate Summit in April 2021.

But the former U.K. Prime Minister also enjoys vacationing in Greece every once in a while.

Before he was made Prime Minister, he had been photographed on the beach at the Greek island of Trikeri in 2016.

In August 2022, during his last weeks as UK Prime Minister, footage showed Boris Johnson and his wife Carry shopping at a supermarket in Nea Makri, near Athens, where they had traveled for a short holiday.

And it seems that the love for Greece runs in the Johnsons’ family; Boris’s father, Stanley, a former politician, has a summer house in south Pelion, central Greece, where he was made an honorary citizen last June.

Historic town of Kalavryta

The town of Kalavryta is a popular winter resort, featuring traditional architecture in a beautiful natural surrounding. The popular ski center on Mount Chelmos is located only 15 kms from the town.

Besides its touristic appeal, however, the town of Kalavryta holds a very special place in the history of the modern Greek state.

When the Greek War of Independence broke out in 1821, Kalavryta was the first Greek town that was liberated from the Ottomans, thus declaring the actual start of the revolt – whose flag was raised at the nearby  monastery of Agia Lavra by bishop Germanos III of Old Patras.

In 1943, the town suffered one of the worst atrocities of World War II and the bloodiest Nazi massacre in Greece. An estimated 700 Greek males were executed by German troops and the entire town was burnt to the ground, in retaliation for the execution of nearly 80 Nazi soldiers by resistance fighters.

The horrid story of the Kalavryta massacre, also known as the Kalavryta Holocaust, inspired the 2021 fiction movie Echoes of the Past by Nicholas Dimitropoulos, filmed in co-production with state broadcaster ERT.