Kaliviani Monastry

Ended the day with a quick dip in the Lybyan sea at Matalda this well know resort is famous for the caves where the hippies lived in the 1970s. On our way there we visited the Abbey of Paliani one of the oldest monasteties in Crete, Gortys an important Greek-Roman town and the Kaliviani Monastry.

The monastery was built during the second Byzantine period. The chapel was deserted until, during the Turkish occupation in 1873, an old small icon of the Annunciation of the Holy Mother was miraculously found there and the monastery became a place of worship. The building of the new church, of Byzantine style, begun at 1911 and was completed in 1924.The monastery also houses a girls orphanage established in 1958.