Monastery of Hosios Loukas

Why go

Hosios Loukas grew up where, Hellenic Heritage says, the hermit Hosios Loukas lived the last seven years of his life; the church of the Virgin Mary was built after 961 and the larger katholikon in the first decades of the 11th century to house his relic. Hellenic Heritage describes the katholikon's coloured marble revetments and mosaics and the crypt with his original grave, and notes that the monastery is one of three Greek monasteries, with Nea Moni on Chios and Daphni in Attica, on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Visit Greece says the saint's body, taken by Crusaders, has been returned from the Vatican and is displayed in the main church. Hellenic Heritage sells a ticket for the monument and lists the monastery and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Boeotia as contacts. This record is the monastery, not the UNESCO serial property it belongs to.