Military Tourism, as an activity of thematic forms, has been included in the development planning of the country’s tourism.
The activities for the development of Military Tourism include actions of joint military, cultural and touristic interests. It also provides for measures to protect, highlight, promote, and tourism and, more generally, the historical military interest of immovable monuments, land and sea spaces, as well as the maintenance, restoration, documentation and exhibition of mobile monuments and relics connected to important events and figures of military history and the nation’s war games.
The purpose is to achieve tourism awareness and attract visitors with special interests. In this context, the procedures for developing Military Tourism in Kalpaki are proceeding. To achieve the goal, the Hellenic Parliament, the Ministry of National Defence, the Ministry of Culture, the Region of Epirus, the Regional Union of Municipalities of Epirus and the Municipality of Pogoni will cooperate by implementing a relevant program contract.
It should be noted that the Ministry of Defence owns and operates the Military Museum of Kalpaki, which is dedicated to the first 12 days of the Greco-Italian War. In the museum’s forecourt, visitors can see heavy artillery weapons used in the Greco-Italian War, while impressive exhibits are inside the museum.
The Municipality of Pogoni is located on the northwest side of the Prefecture of Ioannina in the Region of Epirus. To the west and northwest, it borders Albania, to the northeast with the Konitsa basin and Zagori villages, and the south with the Prefecture of Thesprotia.
At the seat of the Municipality in Kalpaki, all the crucial battles of the Epic of the ’40 took place. At the entrance of Kalpaki, the aforementioned Military Museum of Kalpaki operates.
A few metres further on is the cave where the headquarters of the Division Commander Charalambos Katsimitros was. Above the settlement dominates the bronze statue of the warrior soldier on the Fighter’s Hill. The trenches and machine guns of the nearby Seilitoura hill can be visited.
The Municipality has designed and is implementing an integrated infrastructure grid in the wider area of Kalpaki to create the “History Park in Kalpaki”. This is a Theme Park related to the Epic of the ’40s, which, among other things, will create the conditions for developing Military Tourism in the area.
The History Park in Kalpaki will operate in combination with other actions that are also implemented by the Municipality of Pogoni and other organisations in the region (e.g. highlighting the polyphonic song and development of cultural tourism, utilisation of the environmental heritage, etc.) and will contribute to the general development of the wider region.
The Program Agreement aims to complete the infrastructure and utilise the “History Park in Kalpaki”.
The “History Park in Kalpaki” includes three projects with the following brief interventions:
– Highlighting-restoration of Historical Battle Sites Epic 1940 in Kalpaki – Construction of a Memorial to the Fallen at the “Vourliasos” site
-Formation at the foot of the Fighter’s Hill, at the beginning of the path to the Fighter’s Monument, an area with the following interventions: Memorial Park (plates on which the 13,976 names of those who fell in the area will be written, plantings, etc.), a small church, reception, square and wreath-laying monument, parking area, electric lighting, electronic information systems, etc.
– Configurations for the promotion and reconstruction of Machon positions at specific points in the following areas: Agios Athanasios, Tsiourani, Repetista, Leprovouni, Voroni, Vrontismene, Grabala.
-Renovation-Elevation of the 1940 Fighter Historical Monument at Lofos Machiti.
-Formation of a cobbled path from the provincial road to the Machiti Monument, reconstruction of the square around the Monument, slope formations, and electric lighting.
Besides, the construction of a new War Museum with an area of 4,277.7 sq.m. is planned and owned by the Municipality of Pogoni, which is located at the entrance of the settlement of Kalpaki, on the side of the Ioannina-Konitsa provincial road network, bordering the existing Military Museum.
The existing Military Museum of Kalpaki is planned to be configured appropriately to form a unit of the New War Museum, in which presentations of the Epic of the ’40 will be made, with modern technological infrastructures and methods.
Source: Greek City Times