Yoga Practice: Mani, Greece * Yoga holiday in Greece, Mani * Yoga Classes in Waterloo, London

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Ashtanga Yoga Retreat in Mani, Peloponnese Southern Greece with Kristina Karitinos Ireland

Dates
Fees
Yoga Classes
Location
Accomodation
Swimming
Food
Travel
Booking
Places to visit
General information
Visas
Recommended reading
Exclusions

Dates >>back to list

20 June – 27 June 2010

Fees >>back to list

€600 for 1 week – Breakfast and Dinner
€520 for 1 week – Breakfast Only

This includes shared accommodation (two persons per room) and morning classes. Single supplement is at €200 per week.

Price does not include travel to and from the retreat.

Yoga Classes >>back to list

There are usually two groups of a two hour practice, six days per week. A talk-through/Mysore practice is taught from 7am -9am This is suitable for people with at least six months of Ashtanga practice. The beginners course takes place from 9am -11am. Optional afternoon classes take place twice a week. The teacher reserves the right to change the teaching schedule.

Please bring your own yoga mat.

Location >>back to list

The Limeni Bay is situated on the lower west side of the middle finger of the Peloponnese in Southern Greece. Map

Accomodation >>back to list

Constructed in the traditional Mani style, Limeni Village is a stone-and-wood built hotel sitting on a rock, overlooking the sea. Over the picturesque area of Limeni bay, the hotel numbers 16 tower houses which have been converted into rooms and suites, all with modern amenities, (TV, refrigerator, air conditioning). Guest facilities provided in the main building include a reception hall, a resident's lounge, restaurant, coffee and cocktail bar, spacious verandas and swimming pool.

Swimming >>back to list

Limeni bay is a ten minute walk from the hotel, down a beautiful path on the side of the rock overlooking the sea. There you can find various swimming areas and tavernas serving traditional greek food and fresh fish. “Dexameni” is an old water storage tank on the sea and is a beautiful hangout for swimming and diving. The water is beautifully clean and clear! Other options include beautiful beaches , only a short drive from the hotel.

Food >>back to list

This is carefully prepared mediterranean, vegetarian cuisine prepared with fresh, locally grown ingredients. Non-vegetarian option is available at an extra charge.

Travel >>back to list

Guests are expected to arrive anytime, on the starting date of the retreat. Classes start on the following day. Departure from the retreat should be arranged after the morning class on the last day of the retreat.

We recommend that you travel to Athens or Kalamata airport. Kalamata airport is of much closer proximity from the retreat (only a 1 1/2 hour taxi ride from the retreat) but most charter airlines that fly there, tend to be slightly more expensive and very booked up.

Olympic Air ( www.olympicair.com), British Airways ( www.ba.com), Aegean (www.aegeanair.com), Easyjet (www.easyjet.com)

Please let us know of your travel arrangements. We can organise shared taxis from the airport straight to the retreat. Taxis can take up to 4 people and cost approximately €250 from Athens airport and €150 from Kalamata. The taxi ride from Athens airport is 3 1/2 hours. Alternatively, there is a bus service from Athens, between central Athens (buses leave from Kifissou 100) and Areopoli. Areopoli is the closest village to the hotel. The bus ride can take approximately 5 hours. Please arrive to Athens early, especially if you are planning to take the bus. The last bus leaves at around 14:00pm from central Athens but please check with the bus company for exact times.

Alternatively you can rent a car from Athens and drive to the retreat. This very economical, especially if you are sharing the costs. You are advised to leave early and make sure you have proper instructions before you set off. Having a car at the retreat can be particularly useful especially if you want to explore the area well.

The telephone number of the hotel is +30 27330 51111.

Booking >>back to list

To register please click 'make a reservation' above and let us know how many people and which dates you would like to reserve space for. Full payment is required for a confirmed reservation.

We would kindly ask you to make a wire transfer to the following bank details, once we confirm that there is space available:

Yoga Practice Ltd, HSBC, 22 Stamford Street Blackfriars, London SE1 9LJ, Account No: 41390457, Sort code: 400121, Swift code: MIDLGB22, IBAN: GB22MIDL40012141390457

We would kindly ask you to cover all bank charges when you make your wire transfer.

please let us know when you have instructed your payment.

We can only hold your place for two weeks only, once you make a reservation. Full payment is required during this period to confirm your booking. After this period your reservation will be automatically cancelled.

We will offer priority on a first come first served basis and we will do our very best to accommodate all your dietary and accommodation requests.

The hotel room types can be limited and therefore in the unlikely event that we cannot accommodate your request, we reserve the right to slightly modify your booking. At such an instance, we will try and come to a new financial arrangement which we will run by you. We will then settle the difference closer to the date of the workshop. We greatly appreciate your understanding.

For more information about the retreat, e-mail: yogapractice.net@gmail.com

We would prefer to deal with all enquiries via email. We try to respond to emails within one week from the day we receive them, so please bear with us in case you don’t hear back straight away. We would greatly appreciate it if you only contact us by phone if it is a matter of emergency. The emergency number to call is (+30 69777 15026 Emergency Only).

Insurance is not included, so people are advised to take out their own travel insurance.

Places to Visit >>back to list

MANI
Situated in the heart of the Peloponnese, is the region called Mani which has a stonily austere quality which grows more powerful the deeper you travel into the peninsula. With rich layers of history, this area boasts some of the most magnificent and haunting monuments of the Byzantine Empire and an architecture of extraordinary importance and richness.

AREOPOLI
Called Tsimova in the old days, small compact Aeropolis is a perfect introduction to the inner Mani. Although it is without obvious sites or elegance, it is nevertheless strangely enchanting, with its little white squares and towers.

EPIDAURUS
From Nafplio it is easy to reach probably the most beautiful site of them all, Epidaurus. Unlike the Acropolis in Athens, or the great Greek remains in Sicily, which seem designed to make a grand statement for miles around, the sites in the Peloponnese hide themselves seductively away, and when you finally come across Epidaurus or Olympis, the grand scale of the buildings seems like a conjuring trick. The ancient site of Epiduarus is known for its theatre, buried in a hillside and surrounded by dense and perfumed groves of trees as far as you can see. It was so well hidden that it was only discovered and excavated a century ago, and is now used in the summer for performances of the ancient classics, translated into modern Greek.

KARDHAMYLI
The village of Kardhamyli is one of the most beautiful places imaginable, with the dense green hill reclining into a dazzling sea. Although still enchanting, it has been thoroughly discovered, yet the development here has been stylishly done.

MONEMVASIA
The other great Byzantine spectacle in the Peloponnese, the opulent port of Monemvasia, is now a little oppressive with tourism, and what was once grand has become merely picturesque, with endless souvenir shops of the pseudo-tasteful type.

MYCENAE
This is a much older site, supposedly the royal palace of Agamemnon and his appalling family. The saga of the House of Atreus, set at the time of the Trojan War, is a horrifying one of family members murdering each other in revenge and retribution, and there is something terrifying about Mycenae. The site clings to the top of a hill, its intricate and barbaric massiveness crawling over the peak. It is all too easy to recreate the sense of dread as you enter the Aztec-style gates or follow the twisting paths of the palace.

MYSTRA
This is a supremely poetic place where you can spend an entire afternoon wandering around without seeing more than a dozen other people. It was once a dazzling capital of palaces, churches and monasteries and, after the fall of Byzantium to the Turks in 1453, became the last capital of the great empire. And then it fell into decay. Now it is a complete, abandoned city of ruins and empty, unvisited churches; no one lives here but a tiny community of nuns.

NAFPLIO
First stop in a visit to the Peloponnese is Nafplio. The region is full of charming little ports, most of which - like Yithio in the Mani or Pylos at the far reach of the region, overlooking the sea where the Battle of Navarino was fought in 1827 - remain pretty undisturbed by anyone except Greeks. Nafplio is more cosmopolitan, but is still an enchanting town. Greek towns have a happy talent for visual harmony, think of all those blue and white Cycladic towns, and Nafplio has a wonderful faded elegance. It's a popular town, but delightfully so, and in the early evening it puts on a wonderful display as the town turns out to parade up and down, and stand and gossip in the main square while children start impromptu football matches. The ambitious scale of the square is surprising; however as it turns out, Nafplio, for a very brief period after the declaration of the modern Greek nation, was the capital, with a royal palace and real power. They've been living off their glory days for nearly two centuries in a mood of decaying nostalgia. The most celebrated and visited places here are, naturally, the ancient Greek remains.

OLYMPIA
There is something of the atmosphere of Epidaurus at Olympia, which was not just the site of the great ancient games but a sort of political arena where the representatives of the competing nations could meet and during the truce enforced by the games, embark on diplomatic negotiations. Again, it is quite hidden until you are almost at its gates and it has an incredible grandeur and clarity. At its centre, the great Temple of Zeus lies in ruins, but the massive columns that lie toppled in the grass show how imposing it was. The poetry is in the ruination, not in the neatly excavated running track. It's a popular site but you see the magic of it best when it is empty of tour parties.

General information >>back to list

CAPITAL Athens
AREA 131,944 sq km
POPULATION 10.66 million
LANGUAGE Greek
CURRENCY Euro
TIME GMT +2 hours
TELEPHONE CODES 00 30
ELECTRICITY 220V, 50 Hz

Visas >>back to list

Nationals of Australia, Canada, EU countries, Iceland, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the USA and many South American countries can stay for up to three months without a visa. Most others are authorised to enter Greece for up to two months