Old Perithia: A Legendary Tour of the Abandoned Village & the Secrets of the North

We will meet you at the Old Port of Corfu to introduce ourselves to complete the boarding list and start your Luxury Small Group Tour of your choice.

Our tour leader will be waiting for you on our bus with registration number KYH 9351 at the point: 10^th Infantry Battalion Square, with the indication: The Corfu Experience.

Our experienced English-speaking tour guide will inform you about the history of Corfu, will describe in detail all the sights we visit and will help you with anything else you need.

A unique Luxury Tour of the beauties and the most interesting sights of Corfu has just started. Enjoy!

Visiting the abandoned village of Old Perithia is totally a time travel to the past and its best-kept secrets, gaining the attention of every traveler who gazes at this place in awe. This village is located at an elevation of 450 meters, on the slopes of Mt. Pantokratoras, it is a huge draw concerning the architecture, while it ranks among the world’s top ten unexplored destinations. It boasts 130 stone houses, according to the Venetian architecture style and is a preserved, historic site.

In this village the houses are all made of stone, typically found in these mountain areas. We will wander through the paved alleyways and uphill roads, visit some of the old churches constructed around the village, the local mansions, the primary school, the aqueduct, old oil presses and the vivid red bell tower of Saint James, the Persian which you can see while entering the village. We will go back in time and through the eyes of imagination we will see children flowing out of the school’s building, playing, and running blithely at squares, elderly relaxing at coffeehouses, ladies hanging laundry high and men doing farming or cultivating.

We will hear stories, in which history and myth are not distinct, learn about customs and traditions of this place during a period of prosperity in the past as well as about products used to be produced there. We will feel like authentic Corfiot’s for a while, as if we were coming from this old, historic village.

The rich history of this village came to an end in 1960, when inhabitants started to abandon it. The touching stories of old inhabitants who still visit this village every summer will reveal the reasons why it is abandoned – although their heart tell them not to forget this village.

It is considered to be one of the most significant monuments of Christianity on the island of Corfu and a unique structure of architecture in the Corfiot countryside. We will visit the remains of Hermitage, the places of worship and the cells where monks used to reside in and we will learn about the history of the abandoned monastery, not being able to distinguish fact from myth. According to the legend, in this place during the 5th century an Epirote monk named Artemios Paisios practiced asceticism, carving his cell in the rock. However, the first historical reference to the monastery dates back to a document of the year 1371, during the period of the rule of the Andigaves in Corfu. However, the actual date of founding of the monastery, is lost in the depths of history and still today remains unknown…

On the ground floor of the same abandoned stone building, there are the remains of the first School of Agriculture of Corfu and an old oil press, with the typical rotating stone wheels driven by animals, the iron presser, and the extremely large, rock-hewn basin.