Greece Day 4 to 6, Patras - Around & St. Andrew's Basilica

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29 Oct 2007 -- 31 Oct 2007

The time has come for the first day of the ICTAI 07 conference. I woke up at 5:30am to practice my talks. I had to give two talks today on behalf of my supervisors. By 7am I had to rush for breakfast in 20 mins since the bus will arrive at 7:20am.

International breakfast


View from where I sat for breakfast


The University of Patras Cultural Center


19th ICTAI


Keynote speech for day one. Now this auditorium is where I had to give two talks.

Well thats it for day 1. At night we had a social gathering at a well known winery -- Achaia Clauss, founded 1861 by the Bavarian Gustav Clauss. They are most famous for their sweet wine, although I prefer port from Portugal. This winery has been visited by nobles since its opening and if you are a visiting noble they will name a barrel of sweet wine in the cellar in your honour.

Main entrance


Inside the first compound


View of the lights below


Here we go into the wine tasting section


Wine please!


In the cellar.


They used to ferment wine in these large vats (now they use modern metal vats).


They are huge


A barrel of the sweet wine, maturing since I don't know when.


These barrels were in honor of some noble. I think one of them was for the Empress of Austria.

Thus ends day 1. The next morning we were brought to the conference by cab. The keynote speech was rather interesting. It was about Semantic Web (i.e. Web 2.0). Something I feel is not very correctly defined in many cases. Today will be my third presentation, finally for myself.

Before leaving the hotel I took a picture of the painting in the lobby depicting a naval battle between Greek and Ottoman fleets.


Keynote Speech by Ian Horrocks.


Ah the highlight of the day, the banquet at night.


Some students were showing us traditional Greek dancing.

Dinner was served at our table extremely late at 10pm. I was so famished I did not remember to take a picture. I had this excellent fish called Red Mullet. Lightly grilled and very sweet. The next day was rather boring. I was extremely restless and had no interest in most of the topics so I decided to call it quits halfway and walked around. Then with some friends we decided to leave for Patras City to visit some sights after lunch.

In general the University looks like this. Somehow quite familiar.


Back to Patras City, at the berth.


I think these liners sail to Italy.


This was a Roman Stadium



St. Andrew's Basilica, one of the main highlights in Patras


Close-up of the top


Front side. As usual, maintenance going on.


Inside the church. It is rather grand.


The big erm... Chandelier?




Random paintings and under the main dome.

Almost every inch is decorated with iconic art. All very nice. The interesting thing is that in Turkey in ancient churches like at Göreme and the Hagia Sophia, there were art like these too. However most were defaced by the Muslims then. Now they are busy restoring and preserving them.

Mary and Jesus I think.


The front.

Alas! After bringing my friend to visit the Fortress (yes those stairs again!) once more I sent him off to the bus station next to my hotel so that he can catch a bus back to Athens. Then I headed to the same favourite dinner place, Europa. The grilled chicken, potatoes and bread cost about 5 euros. Really the cheapest I ever had in Greece, except the wine which was 3.5 euros. The chicken was fantastic.

Thus ends my last night in Patras. Tomorrow I will be returning to Athens by bus with another friend I met at the conference.

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