The Village of Horto
The Pelion peninsula in Thessaly, central Greece, is midway between Athens and Thessaloniki and is one of the most naturally beautiful regions of Greece. It combines the grandeur and wooded slopes of Mount Pelion (1,610m) with a stunning coastline which wraps its arm around part of the Aegean Sea to enclose the Pagasetic Gulf.
Horto (in Greek: Xόρτο), also known as Horton or Hortos, is a small picturesque seaside village on the shores of the Pagasetic Gulf with a population of about 150. It has been home to the Angelinis Hadjinikou Foundation since its inception in 1984 and draws an important part of its support from the village itself and from the sparsely populated hinterland of South Pelion of about 10,000.
However, the Foundation has always looked outwards, well beyond Pelion, and draws its influences and inspiration from much further afield. This broader national and international outlook will remain a central feature of the Foundation in the years ahead.
Cultural events, meetings and conferences in the peaceful environment of Horto, far from the noise and stress of the city, allow one to concentrate happily and fruitfully on the topics under discussion.
The Area
The lush vegetation blends with the azure of the peaceful sea in a harmonious whole and provides an ideal setting in which all music-lovers, professional and amateur musicians, tourists and local inhabitants can get together in a friendly atmosphere and exchange views and ideas connected with the common effort to preserve and develop the basic values of human civilization. Let us not forget that it was here on Mt. Pelion that, according to mythology, Chiron the Centaur taught and that education flourished in one of its most attractive and substantial forms. There is no doubt that the natural beauty and luxuriousness of the site contribute to the creation of a climate propitious to the definition and strengthening of the important values of life and to the clearer realization of the need for us all to return to a truly rare and humanistic spirituality.
