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February was a busy month for the guides' life long learning with the annual seminar, but with "fieldtrips".

On the 18th of February took place the excursion to Eleusis. It is a suburban city in the West Attica regional unit of Greece and is located in the Thriasio Plain, at the northernmost end of the Saronic Gulf.

It is known a the main seat of the worship of Demeter (goddess of agriculture and fertility) and Persephone (her daughter), and the mysteries celebrated in honour of these goddesses, which were called the Eleusinia. They continued to be regarded as the most sacred of all the Grecian mysteries down to the fall of paganism (from 600 B.C., during the Roman empire, until the mid-late 4th century A.D.).

These Mysteries revolved around a belief that there was a hope for life after death for those who were initiated. Such a belief was cultivated from the introduction ceremony in which the hopeful initiates were shown a number of things including the seed of life in a stalk of grain. The central myth of the Mysteries was Demeter's quest for her lost daughter who had been abducted by Hades, the god of the Underworld.

There we had the chance to get an unique and extraordinary experience! Reviving the procession of the Eleusinian Mysteries with the necessary stops, as the ancient people did, we arrived in the beautiful, but long suffering town of Eleusis, the European Capital of Culture 2023.

Valuable fellow companion to this modern procession was Kalliopi Papaggeli, the director of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and Museums of the Ephorate of Antiquities of W. Attica.

Mrs. Papaggeli, a modern muse Calliope (the muse of epic poetry and the head of the Muses) prepared us with her words and expressions for whatever the procession was all about and its zenith at the archaeological site of Eleusis.

We would like to thank Mrs. Papaggeli that made us feel like the ancient initiates and face the emotional tauntness and awe of the Mysteries. It was a true blessing and honour!

#eleusis2023

On the 19th of February The Association of Licensed Tourist Guides, Athens-Greece paid a visit at the National Gallery. The National Gallery is located in the centre of Athens and it's collection has got pieces of art of Greek and European artists from the 14th until the 20th century.

It started as a small collection in 1878 of 117 works at the University of Athens and now the newly renovated building reopened after an 8 year refurbishment, on 24 March 2021.

With the valuable help of the professor of History of Art of the University of Athens Dimitris Pavlopoulos we had the chance to admire the post- Byzantine works of art, the works of the Heptanese School (mid 17th- mid 19th century) and the Greek painters of the late 19th and early 20th century, such as Nikoforos Lytras, Konstantinos Volanakis and Nikolaos Gyzis.

We would like to thank Dimitris Pavlopoulos for his eagerness to introduce us to the secrets of the modern Greek art and of course the director of the National Gallery Syrago Tsiara that welcomed us to the new renovated National Gallery.

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