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Carpets of pink blossoms transform the rolling hills of Veria each spring. The blooming peach trees are perhaps among Greece’s best kept “secrets”. In recent years, the local community tries to turn Veria’s famous peach farms into a tourist attraction and organizes photography contests as well as other events in mid-March, 16-17.
“What we saw before us each March was an endless pink carpet of flowering peach trees but to tell the truth, because we have grown up with it, we never really took notice,” Zisis Patsikas, president of the Veria Tourism Club told state news agency amna.
For the past three years, the area has held an open competition for photographs featuring the peach trees in blossom, which each year attracted more than 300 entries, both amateur and professional. The winner in 2018, Patsikas noted, was an Athenian that travelled to Veria especially for the competition.
He said the effort was to try to tap into the potential to create added tourism value through photographs of the peach blossoms, in the same way that Tokyo has succeeded in doing with the images of cherry blossoms that flood the social media each year, taken by both tourists and local Japanese.
“Our aim is to promote this beautiful scenery, as happens with the cherry blossoms of Japan, since we have seen what they do and how these people have turned an agricultural product into a tourist product,” Patsikas said.
He explained that entering the competition was simple and open to everyone, using both cameras or even just their phones.
The photography contest is just one of the events organised by the club around Veria’s peaches, Patsikas added. Others include the annual “Peach Festival” that is linked to the region’s gastronomy, culture and other activities and, since 2017, an annual 17-kilometre “Bicycle Ride through the Flowering Peach Trees”, which this year will be held on Sunday, March 17.
This was also becoming increasingly popular, he noted, with participation jumping from 60 people in 2017 to 280 the previous year and even more expected in 2019.
The trees flower in March and the blossoms usually last about 15 days.ideal time for peach flowers pictures is March 10-20 +- 3 days.
More info about the Photo Contest here (in Greek) or Veria Tourism Club Facebook Page.
by Konstantina Lazaridou 2017
Nontas Trompoukis 2018
The pictures are from winning entries from previous years.
The post Blooming peach trees in Veria: Photo Contest March 16-17 appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.
