Aegina's busiest gathering of the year falls not in August but in November, and it is not a feast with a band: it is one of the largest pilgrimages in the country.
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May - September
Panigiria run from May to September, and the season peaks at Dekapentavgoustos - the Dormition, on 15 August - when most villages hold their feast. Each programme is set close to its own saint's day, so the list fills late and empties out of season.
On November 9, the day of the dormition of Agios Nektarios, patron and protector of the island, thousands of the faithful arrive on Aegina from across Greece and from abroad. The celebration includes an archiepiscopal divine liturgy and a procession of the sacred relics through the central streets of the town. The same gathering repeats on September 3, for the translation of the relics. The monastery was founded in 1904 by Nektarios Kephalas himself, metropolitan of Pentapolis of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, who lived from 1846 to 1920, and his tomb together with the relics kept there make it a nationwide place of pilgrimage.
The island, an hour from Piraeus, lives with that double identity: a weekend destination for Athens and a place of pilgrimage all year round. Beside the monastery of Agios Nektarios stands Paliachora, the island's medieval capital with dozens of churches scattered across its hillside - each with its own day in the calendar, and several of them keeping their feast in the traditional way, with tables in the courtyard. The Aegina pistachio is the product the island is identified with, and it finds its place at every festive table, alongside the roast and the wine.
On November 9, the day of his dormition, with an archiepiscopal divine liturgy and a procession of the sacred relics through the central streets. A second large gathering falls on September 3, for the translation of the relics.
At Paliachora, the medieval capital with its dozens of churches, and in the island's villages, with saint's days and tables in the church courtyards. See the current calendar on Mood.
