Mount Varassova is the eastern boundary of the “National Park of the Sea-Lagoons of Messolonghi – Aitoliko, and the lower courses and the estuaries of the rivers Acheloos and Evinos and the Echinades Islands”. It is classified as a place of historical interest and a landscape of special natural beauty. Its designation is due to the fact that “it is closely related to the liberation struggle during the years of the Revolution, but also because it is one of the most beautiful of Greek mountains, which marks in an impressive manner the entrance of the Corinthian Gulf and the landscape of Patras, presenting an unimaginable variety of shapes and masses, variations in colour and the view on the horizon of the heroic city of Messolonghi“. As E. Dodwell also notes, Varassova is ‘the natural barrier to the fury of the open sea’, since it descends right down to the coast-line of the Gulf of Patras.
The mountain has an altitude of 914 m and is included in the Natura 2000 network. In antiquity it was called Chalkis, as was named the corresponding ancient city, which according to Homer participated in the Trojan campaign and is referred to as ‘near to the sea’. It has a large number of natural caves and rock shelters that have been used by man since the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods, while others functioned in Byzantine times as retreats for ascetics or for fashioning cave-churches; some bear painted decoration.
Apart from the use made of the caves, numerous other settlements, fortifications and burial remains, located mainly on its western and eastern slopes, have been investigated from time to time. They represent almost all phases of antiquity, proving the density of habitation and the continuous presence of human life for a number of centuries.
Varassova has also been described by Professor P. Vokotopoulos as the Holy Mountain of Aitolia, as during the Byzantine period it was the largest centre of monasticism and asceticism in the region. During the 9th to 12th centuries AD it attracted pilgrims, who found in its natural caves suitable accommodation for their withdrawal from the everyday, worldly life. The mountain in this period played a pivotal role. All forms of Byzantine art seem to have been developed here: painting, sculpture, marble work, woodcarving and mosaics. Bazin describes a large ascetic presence and mentions 72 churches and chapels, as well as monasteries, already in ruins at the time of his visit to the area in the 19th century. The development of monasteries in inaccessible mountainous locations was a general phenomenon in the 10th century throughout the Empire, from Cappadocia and Macedonia to southern Italy. This region of asceticism probably formed its own artistic tradition, although our information is now limited. The practice did not die out in later years but was maintained until the fall of Constantinople.
In the years of the Revolution the mountain also played an important role. D. Vikelas says that when the Exodus took place, those women who managed to escape alive on that terrible night went up to Varassova, where Greek armed men were waiting for them: some women were dressed in men’s clothes and others in their very best, as if they were going to a feast.
All the above characteristics bequeath to Varassova a particularly rich and complex natural and cultural environment, one closely linked to the area of Messolonghi. Indeed one of the most characteristic images of the city’s landscape is the reflection of the imposing mountain range in the waters of its lagoon.
