Lamia celebrates in three distinct ways: with the Gkamila, a camel that roams the streets at Carnival, with Easter week in Ypati on the slopes of Mount Oiti, and with the August feasts in the villages, when those who moved away come home.
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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.
Ask anyone from Lamia about Carnival and they will tell you about the Gkamila. The custom goes back more than two centuries and starts in the Agioi Theodoroi neighbourhood, where the local cultural association builds a camel draped in woven rugs. Two men hidden underneath carry it and take turns, the gkamilieris, or camel driver, keeps it in line, and the neighbourhood musicians follow playing the song "Lamiotiki Gkamila". It roams the city through the last week of Carnival up to Cheese Sunday, and on Clean Monday its mock "sacrifice" closes the season. The custom is said to have come from Eastern Rumelia, and the municipality frames it with a parade, the maypole ribbon dance known as gaitanaki, and bonfires.
At Easter the celebration moves up to Ypati, on the northern slopes of Mount Oiti. On Easter Sunday, after the afternoon Vespers of Love, an effigy of Judas packed with gunpowder is burned in the churchyard of Agios Nikolaos, and the Ainianes folk association leads the dancing on Ainianon Square with a live band. On the Wednesday of Easter week the men climb to the Arsali cave and its chapel of Agia Ierousalim high on Oiti, spend the night there and come down on Thursday to a welcome with a blessing, dancing and a feast. Ypati's Easter week runs the whole week, and locals link it to the Roman Rosalia, to Byzantium and to the armed irregulars of Roumeli.
Summer belongs to the villages. Parishes of Agia Paraskevi celebrate on July 26 and the chapels of Profitis Ilias on July 20. On August 6 the Monastery of Agathonos near Ypati keeps its feast for the finding of the icon of the Virgin by Saint Agathon, and on August 15 the chapel of Palaiopanagia at Vardates celebrates beneath plane trees by a spring, where by local tradition shepherds found the icon of the Virgin of Prusa. Up in the mountain villages of Oiti and Othrys, August is when emigrants return: tables fill the square, lamb turns on the spit, wine is poured from the barrel, and the clarinet leads the tsamiko and syrto dances of Roumeli late into the night.
The Monastery of Agathonos near Ypati celebrates on August 6 and the Palaiopanagia chapel at Vardates on August 15, while the mountain villages of Oiti and Othrys hold their own feasts with clarinet-led dancing through the month. See the current calendar on Mood.
A Carnival custom more than two centuries old: a camel draped in woven rugs, carried by two men, tours the city with its camel driver and musicians from the Agioi Theodoroi neighbourhood, and is "sacrificed" on Clean Monday, the first day of Lent.
On Easter Sunday an effigy of Judas is burned at Agios Nikolaos, followed by dancing on Ainianon Square. On the Wednesday of Easter week the men climb to the Arsali cave on Mount Oiti and return on Thursday to a village feast. Find events in the area on Mood.
