Photo exhibition of the early 20th century Paralio Astros

The Association of Culture and Friends of Paralio Astros is holding an exhibition of old photographs from the early 20th century Paralio Astros.  The exhibition place is at the Public School of Paralio Astros (between the Seaside Wet Bar and the Mavroyianni Taverna), the exhibition dates are from August 18th to 26th, viewing hours are daily from 18:00 to 22:00, admission is free, all are welcome.

The oldest Zafilopoulos Castle photo that exists was taken in 1898 and it shows that the wall was intact then

This little future "Astro"naut has visited the Astros old photo exhibition, have you?

The Association of Culture and Friends of Paralio Astros has its website at www.astrosparalio.gr (Η ιστοσελίδα των Πολιτών & των Φίλων του Παραλίου Άστρους είναι www.astrosparalio.gr) and it is the best website for reading the past history, culture, and old photos of Paralio Astros.

Unfortunately, it is in Greek with only some selected topics in English, so I read it with some difficulty using the Google Translator.

The website is administered by a volunteer (retired caption) and sponsored by some volunteers, but I hope the local businessmen of Paralio Astros can pay more attention to sponsoring such a wonderful website.

Possible related topic from my previous other blog posts: bird photo exhibition, Taiwan artist exhibition.

Tigani beach in Kynouria - Παραλία Τηγάνι

According to the ekathimerini's report (the very last paragraph of the report) on Trivago's data:

Tripadvisor users ranked three Greek beaches among the best 10 in Europe. Top of the list was the Shipwreck beach on Zakynthos, Lefkada’s Egremni was in fifth place, while Elafonisos of Crete came in seventh.

I have not been to any of the above beaches, hopefully someday I will visit them.

The beach I like the most in Kynouria is the Tigani beach (in Greek language this word means "frying pan"), but most people would just stay around in Paralio Astros because its beach is quite long and the water is warm plus according to the blueflag org, Paralio Astros's beach is clean.

However, the Tigani beach is an excellent alternative because it's not far (driving within 45 minutes from Astros), it has a lot to offer - much cleaner water, a small cave giving shade when the sun is scorching, paddle boat and canoe rental on the beach, a beach volleyball field (its sand should have been thicker to prevent injury on a fall), beach bars and tavernas on the beach.

The Tigani beach is the beach right after Zaritsi beach Παραλία Ζαρίτσι and immediately before the Tiros-Sanpounakaiika beach Παραλία Τυρού-Σαπουνακαιίκων.  Ιf you want to learn all the beaches in Kynouria, just go to this map on the "visit Kynouria" site.

Beach cleaning day

Today is the last day of the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The Association of Culture and Friends of Paralio Astros (www.astrosparalio.gr) together with the Hellenic Marine Environment Protection Association (www.helmepa.gr) had chosen this day to clean up the beach of Paralio Astros.

I saw the flyer last night at the info booth at the center square (πλατεία) and decided to join with the other volunteers this morning.

There were about a dozen of volunteers gathered at the beach near Cafe Del Mar at around 10:30 am (I was hoping to see more people, but maybe next time), and we started picking up garbages.  Some of us were distributing beach ashtrays to people.  These ashtrays were provided by the Japan Tabacco International (www.jti.com), if you have never seen a beach ashtray, you will see it in my photos below.  If you are a smoker, you can call 800 801 5700 to get your beach ashtray.

After picking up 2 full bags of garbages, I have concluded the major pollutant of Paralio Astros beach is the cigarette end.  Cigarette butts are found mostly underneath beach lounge chairs.  The beach here is mostly pebbles, not much sand, so the sand cleaning machine cannot be used in pebbles to pick up cigarette ends.

I hope the government make it mandatory for the beach cafe bar operators to provide ashtrays to customers and to conduct examinations on beaches for cleanness at the season end before renewing next year's license to the operators. While making profits, the operators should ensure the beach areas under their control are kept clean. 

Keeping our environment clean is everyone's business.  Please leave a clean earth for our younger generation.

You may view 2 brief videos of today's "beach cleaning" activity in link 1, and link 2.

I hope the next project is to clean up Paralio Astros' graffitis.

I also hope that the municipality of Voria Kynouria could provide recycling bins in Paralio Astros because I have been collecting recyclable waste such as cans, papers, plastic bottles etc. to be transported back to Athens to dispose.

I wish everyone will always throw away garbages in the garbage bins from now on

This is a beach ashtray

This is a place where they sample the sea water for testing

Planter is not a garbage can! this is less than 5 meters away from the sampling sign of the above photo

This sign is less than 5 meters away from the planter above

This is 1 of the 2 bags of garbages I picked up, cigarette butts account for the most of all kinds of garbages

Environment protection is everyone's business