The final touches are being added to the program for the first official visit of Prince Charles and Duchess of Cornwall Camilla to Athens and Heraklio, Crete, scheduled to take place on May 9th and 10th 2018.
The first day of the visit is very busy and involves several joint but also separate activities.
Prince Charles and the Duchess will lay a wreath at the Monument of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Greek Palriament at Sytagma Square in downtown Athens.
Then, the Heir to the British throne will have meeting with the President of the Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, and the Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras.
At the same time, the Duchess of Cornwall will be visiting the Monastery in Kaisariani and a local shelter for abused women.
The couple will move to the south coast of Athens where they will visit the historical armored cruiser Averof, a Navy Museum, as well as Olympias, the reconstruction of an ancient Athenian trireme. Both belong to the Hellenic Navy and are moored in Palaio Faliro.
The tour will along the Athens Riviera end in Alimos, where the royal couple will pay a visit to the British cemetery. The Faliron War Cemetery is the burial ground for Commonwealth casualties of during the WWII and the Greek Civil War (December 1944-February 1945). Of the 2,029 Commonwealth servicemen of the Second World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 596 of the burials are unidentified.
The day will conclude with an official state banquet.
A must is a visit to the Acropolis Museum as well as a guided tour to the Parthenon
On they following day, Prince Charles and the Duchess will fly to Heraklio on the island of Crete, where they will enjoy a guided tour to the ancient Palace of Knossos.
There are invited to a original Cretan glenti, a celebration with food, drink, music and dance, however, without balothies, for security reasons. The balothies custom wants locals to fire in the air when they celebrate or mourn.
The visit follows an invitation by the President of the Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos. The visit is considered as historic as members of the British royal family have not officially visited Athens since the 1950’s.
Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall have often privately visited Greece, preferably the island of Corfu the birthplace of his father, the Duke of Edinburgh. The Prince is a frequent visitor to the monks republic, in Mt Athos.
