The Organizing and Academic committees would like to give you a general outline of the activities that include the Academic Programme (student papers and lectures by professors) and the Social Activities (receptions, excursions, visits to historic sites, entertainment).
We reserve the right to make changes if necessary and will have a final programme handed to you on 20 May 2019.
You will be staying at the LIBERTY Hotel, near the Garden of the Heroes. Tel:  +30 26310 28050.

Please note that due to the constraints of academic and personal schedules, some participants will not be able to attend the entire conference.  Accordingly we have grouped the academic sessions tightly on the days when all participants will be in attendance so that even those who are obliged to come late or leave early will experience as fully as possible the evolving conversation on “Byron and Revolution.”

To allow the conference to proceed on schedule, the papers must not be longer than 20 minutes.

MONDAY 20 May 2019

17:00 – 18:30 Registration at the administrative office of the Messolonghi Byron Society and its Byron Research Center in the Byron House, with welcoming coffee and refreshments.

18:30 – 19:00 Visit to the cathedral of Agios Spyridon, visited by Byron, and where his lungs were kept in a silver box until 1881, when the reliquary was placed under his marble Statue in the Garden of Heroes.

19:00 – 19:30 Visit to Tourlida beach via the old road built over the shallow waters of the lagoon.

19:30 – 20:30 Visit to the Municipal Museum of History and Art Municipal Gallery with a welcome ceremony by the Mayor of Messolonghi, Mr. Nikos Karapanos.

20:30 Dinner at the RadioStation Restaurant (Radiomegaro).

TUESDAY 21 May 2019

10:00 – 11:00 Visit at the House-Museum of the prominent statesman, diplomat, and historiographer of the Greek Revolution of 1821 Spyridon Trikoupis, who delivered Lord Byron’s oration. In this house, Spyridon’s son Charilaos Trikoupis spent his boyhood years. He became one of the greatest statesmen of modern Greece, a dominant figure during the second half of the 19^th C., and seven times prime minister of Greece.

11:00 – 12: 00 Visit to the Garden of the Heroes, stretching alongside the defensive walls of Messolonghi. A big memorial garden with many Monuments dedicated to Greek fighters and to Philhellenes who fought or fell during the siege and the Exodus (sortie). At the center of the Garden of Heroes you will find the grave of Markos Botzaris as well as a statue of Lord Byron, underneath which are buried the poet’s lungs.

12:00 – 14:00 Visit to the Chapel of Panayia Finikias, the island chapel dedicated to the Virgin of the Palms, where Byron used to ride at sunset from Messolonghi and where he fell ill under the heavy rain on 10 April 1824; to AETOLIKO, walking tour of the picturesque island town visited twice by Byron in February 1824; to the Church of Archangels inside which there is a well which Byron saw. In the garden outside is the grave of Ali Pasha’s wife Kyra Vassiliki. Visit to the Vasso Katraki museum situated at the eastern side of Aetoliko, the only art museum exclusively devoted to engravings in Greece and Europe. It houses over 500 works of Vasso Katraki, a distinguished woman painter, engraver, and political activist.

Lunch on your own

The Academic Programme starts in the Byron House.

17:30 Welcome addresses

18:00 – 19:00 Keynote lecture at the Byron House: Introduced by Professor Peter Graham, the keynote lecturer Professor Andrew Stauffer, University of Virginia, will speak on “Byron at Waterloo”

19:00 – 19:30 Coffee break

19:30 – 20:30 First session of 2 lectures

20:30 – 21:00 Visit to the Centre of Literature & Arts “Diexodos” Historic Museum to see a sculpture exhibition.

21:00 Dinner at the fish restaurant Tourlida.

WEDNESDAY 22 May 2019

Papers in the Byron House

10:00 – 11:30 Second Session of 3 lectures

11:30 – 12:00 Coffee break

12:00 – 13:30 Third Session of 3 lectures

Lunch on your own.

19:00 Keynote at the Chamber of the City Council, Introduced by Professor Peter Graham, Director of International Relations for the Messolonghi Byron Center.

Professor Roderick Beaton, Emeritus, King’s College London, will deliver a lecture in Greek for the local citizens, “Lord Byron and the Greek Revolution: From Legend to Political Reality”

20:30 Gala dinner at the Restaurant of the Radio Station (Radiomegaro).
The Gala includes also music and Greek traditional dances.

THURSDAY 23 May 2019

10:30 – 12:00 Fourth session of 3 lectures

12:00 – 12:30 Coffee break

12:30 – 14:30 Fifth session of 4 lectures

Lunch at Anatoli restaurant in Retsina.

19:00 – 20:00 Following Byron’s footsteps in Messolonghi.

Wreath-laying ceremony  at the monument newly renovated by the Messolonghi Byron Society, at the site where Byron breathed his last on 19 April 1824, and where the University of Athens dedicated a memorial column to Byron to commemorate the centennial of his death. The wreath-laying ceremony will follow with an event featuring Byron’s poems recited by students dressed in Greek traditional costumes: Katie Smith, Maria Sfeir, Michael Damyanovich, and Jack Furth.

Night free.

FRIDAY 24 May 2019

09:30 Visit to the public Roman Baths (Thermae) of the 2nd century A.D., an impressive T-shaped bath complex.

10:00 An excursion to the town of Nafpaktos (Lepanto), which Byron wanted to liberate, with visits to the Botzaris Mansion, to the Castle, and to the Venetian Port [1704].

15:00 Lunch at the fish restaurant “Captain Del Mare” by the sea, in the beautiful waterfront village of Krioneri (“cold water”) lying under the imposing rock face of Mount Varassova.

Night free.

SATURDAY 25 May 2019

Last breakfast at the Hotel.

End of the Conference.