Mount Athos [ 4 - 9 September ]

   The boat sails from Ouranoupoli, in Siggitikos bay.  Sailing by the peninsula, the passengers can have a clear view of  the arsanades ( houses where boats are towed)and the monasteries of Dohiario, Xenofondos, Panteleimonos, and Xiropotamou.  They disembark in Dafni, where, in a conflict of entrance-exit movements, they get the first aura of the peacefulness of the recluse and the fuss of the secular.

   The traveler chooses their own entrance route, either via land or sea. Each one comes with different expectations, which the state of Athos always fulfills. While walking, the stranger gets gradually induced into the remoteness of the place and the reclusiveness of the monastic life. He will be hosted in ‘arhondariki’ (which is a room where pilgrims are treated with refreshments) and attend the evening mass. Coffee, raki and marshmallows have been the relaxing treatments for years. He feels this offer as a blessing of the charity and the scarifying love of the Holy Trinity God.

   The beauty of the green, rocky, remote landscape, washed in the deep blue of the sky and the sea, is perfectly combined with the massive, imposing monuments, whose history dates back into many centuries. Mystical sounds carry him into the era of the Byzantine emperors Fokas and Tsimiskis, the Crusades, the conflict between the proponents and the opponents of the unification of the Church, the Catalans, the Saracen pirates and the Turkish yoke. Within an unwavering silence, sounds of the past interwoven with the formal Byzantine psalm, which is the continuation of the cult tradition.