Cultural Corridors of South East Europe

Heritage by Type / Cultural Landscape

Gialova lagoon

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Gialova lagoon

About the site


Corridor: Western Trans-Balkan Road
Country: Greece, Messenia
Type: Cultural Landscape
Epoch:
Theme:
World Heritage:
Cultural Landscape

The Gialova lagoon, in the Peloponnesus in South-West Greece, is one of ten major lagoons in Greece. It hosts a rich and varied fauna, not least because the Gialova wetland is an important stopover for many bird species on their way to and from Africa.
Reeds and water plants grow luxuriantly in its freshwater marshes. Its shallow waters which are full of fish, attract a great many waterbirds that pass the winter there.
The Gialova lagoon has long been considered as a specially valuable wetland, not least least because of its splendid situation adjoining the magnificant and historic Navarino bay. It is close to the ancient city of Pylos, where legend has it that the Mycenean fleet, led by Agamemnon, left to reclaim Helen, wife of Menelaus, who had fled to Troy with her lover Paris.

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