Trips and Tips: Part IV – Mid Chios – Avgonima, Anavatos, Nea Moni

Anavatos and Avgonima are located at the west of the island.

Anavatos has a medieval architecture as the village was built on the top of the hill inside a castle to protect itself from pirates:

Anavatos up until recently was a ghosts village. Impressive? The story says that a teacher and her child found dramatic death here as she fell in the canyon with her son who was ill..
Nowadays there are some houses that have been renovated and are very nice.

Avgonima is considered an ideal place to watch the sunset..

It is a nice village and has a few beaches that are woth your visit like Elinda:

And Trachili:

This place has some very nice small castles, that used to have the usage of lighthouses. Each lighthouse would have to be visible from the next in the raw lighthouse and the last was observed by the people and then could protect themselves from pirates.

If you are fond of religious historical places, a very important Monastery to visit is that of Nea Moni, or New Monastery. It was built in 1042 and is known worldwide for its incredible mosaics. This is why it is one of the World Wide Heritages of Unesco.

The day we visited the Monastery, it was being renovated, but you can take a glimpse of its beauty.

The tragic history of this Monastery is that in the Massacre of Chios, thousands of people who were hidden in here to save themselves, found tragic death by the Ottomans.