Heading for Athos

Hi all! Sorry again for the long delay. It’s been very busy here. Pelagia’s friend, Elise Writer, from Yakima, came to visit this week. I hope to have some pictures of us all at some point.

I just now finished going through all my photos from last week’s trip to the Holy Mountain. You can view them all here.

My friend, John Harper (another American studying here) and I intended to leave for Athos on Wednesday, but we suspected that there would be bad weather which would prevent the boat from ferrying pilgrims over. It turns out it was a good guess, because the boat did not go. So, we left very early Thursday morning and the boat went as scheduled. Of course, there were two days’ worth of pilgrims going, so it was a bit crowded.

The top photo is of John, just as the boat set sail from Ouranopoli. The seagulls follow the boat while people hold out little morsels of bread for them.

The middle photo is taken from the front of the boat, as it heads toward Dafni. The tall peak in the right distance is the actual Mt. Athos, the tallest point on the peninsula (in the southeast corner, where we ended up going). See the map again here.

The bottom photo is of the Holy Monastery of Xenofondos as the ship passed on the way to Dafni.

We arrived in Dafni and then caught the bus to Karyes, the capital. There, they have several 14-passenger mini-buses which go to different monasteries. We hopped on the one to Megistis Lavra, the furthest monastery. (See the map again.)