Holidays in Argalasti Pelion

Argalasti is one of the oldest villages of Pelion and until nowadays the most important one in South Pelion.

It is built on a fertile plateau and located 41km from Volos, surrounded by olive groves. This extensive plateau, where Argalasti is located, used to be a marvellous grassland, and therefore stock farmers from all over Greece settled there with their flocks in the 15th. century, when they were abandoning their places of origin in order to survive from the massacres of Turkish occupiers.

The working villagers cleared the smooth land and created fields that they sowed with cereals, wheat and barley. Argalasti was one of the few villages of Pelion with its own production and self-sufficiency of flour. Later on, they cultivated olives, grapevines, fig trees, and other kind of trees, and the fertile land provided plenty of fruits that contributed in the prosperity and the increase of the population.

The territory of the village was expanded from the one coast to the other, and as it is mentioned in the book "Modern Geography" (Geographia Neoteriki), many coastal settlements functioned as Argalasti’s ports, and in this way fish was included in the everyday diet of the residents of Argalasti.

The residents of Argalasti, such as those of the other villages of Pelion, participated actively in the revolution of 1821, without experienced leaders and weapons. The passion for freedom from the Turkish occupation was their main source of braveness and self-sacrifice. The resistance of Argalasti's residents was heroic, and the chieftain Giorgis Damtsas contribution in this was major.

Nowadays, Argalasti is still a big village and it is the central office of the Municipality, with many interesting neoclassical houses that you will see during your strolls.

Look for and visit the house where Margaritis Dimadis lived, who was a member of the "Filiki Etaireia" (Society of Friends), as well as the building of the girl’s school, the director of which was Kostas Varnalis.

Particularly unique is the trikliti (triforium) basilica church of Agioi Apostoli Petros and Pavlos (1886), with its imposing marble bell tower. At the square and on the neighbouring roads, there are traditional cafés as well as modern ones, and very nice choices of accommodation and food.