Mount Athos

So this will be the first review of a visit to Mount Athos by a woman! Although a couple of females have succeeded in entering in the past, I didn’t risk trespassing as I still needed to visit 4 more Greek WHS afterwards. I stayed overnight in the nearest town, Ouranoupoli. It lies about 3km from the guarded border with Oros Athos, where the monastic community enjoys autonomous self-government within Greece. The pleasant town has a few memorabilia stores, the pilgrim’s office and furthermore a lot of shops and restaurants geared to the generic beach tourist.

My day started at ease in my hotel room behind my laptop, answering questions about Obelisks, as my boat tour along the coast of the Athos peninsula was only to leave at 11 a.m. But there was that monastery near Ouranoupoli that I had seen on the map: the Holy Monastery of Zygos. It turned out to be the ruins of one of the original Athos monasteries, within touching distance of the border. It would be a 30-minute walk from Ouranoupoli’s city center, but I only had 25 minutes at best for each way. Could I still make it there? I grabbed my bag and speed-walked towards the spot indicated on the map. It’s a sandy road, uphill, and even at 10 a.m. bloody hot without much shade. In the end, I gave up about 1 km before the finish – I wouldn’t have made it in time and the monastery nor …

I visited Mount Athos in November 2017, staying three nights. While I certainly enjoyed my visit, it is also something of a cautionary tale, as I definitely did not get the most out of the experience as I could have.

I don’t need to go into particular detail about the practicalities of visiting from Thessaloniki, as they have been readily outlined by the previous review. As I was with only one other visitor, our request for a diamonitirion for entrance about four months later was granted by email within a couple of hours of requesting it, no issues whatsoever. One point, however, is that all ferries from and to Ouranopolis seemed to ‘require’ advance booking. Upon arrival in Ouranopolis, there was almost an hour before the next ferry. When I tried to get a ticket at this point, the ticket office wrote down my ‘reservation’ and declared that I should come back 15 minutes before the ferry departed. Returning at that point, there was a confusing scrum to try to get tickets, involving a lot of pushing and yelling. A monk was refused a ticket because he had not ‘reserved’, so it was greatly reassuring to have my name called immediately after all phone reservations had been collected. Similarly, the ferry back from Daphni ‘required’ a reservation, and we were told it was full when we arrived an hour before its departure. We were put on a waiting list that ended up being maybe 50 people long, all who managed …

Not sure how and why, but I got in. As Ian can attest, I didn’t believe it would work out till I held my official permit (diamonitirion) in my hands and had boarded the ferry. And then it settled in, I did it!

Given Mount Athos’ restrictions on visitors, I was one of ten non Orthodox male visitors that day. Albeit visitor is the wrong term as everybody is considered a pilgrim. Please bear that in mind when you travel there.

In addition 100 Orthodox Christians are allowed entry each day. At least that’s what is communicated officially. When I looked at the large crowd on my return ferry and the hard time I had to get a seat, I came to doubt, if they really stick to these numbers each and every day.

On Mount Athos I visited two major monasteries (Agiou Panteleimonos and Xeropotamou) and a skiti (Evaggelismos tis Theotokou). I hiked along the coast line taking in the gorgeous scenery and nature the monasteries are embedded in. Seeing Klaus brought it up, this is a mixed site and I feel deservedly so. I visited in spring and all flowers were in bloom. The trees colored the mountain sides in a lush green. And the entry restrictions of the area serve as a perfect protection from the mass tourism found all along the Greek and Turkish coast.

I stayed overnight at the Russian monastery. It was undergoing heavy construction work and looks …

The recent visit by Putin to Mt. Athos reminded me of my time there in 2010.

Mt. Athos is the name for the highest mountain on the peninsula into the Aegean Sea as well as a short name for the Autonomous Monastic State of Mt. Athos.

I spent the Orthodox Easter weekend in 2010 at the Megisti Lavra, Mt. Athos' oldest monastery and the only lavra, located at the south-eastern tip of the peninsula. It is considered the single most important monastery in the Orthodox Christianity. 

I booked this trip with Mt. Athos authorities 6 months in advance. I took a boat from Ouranoupoli in Greece to Dafni, a port in Mt. Athos, took a mini bus from the port to Karyes, the capital of Mt. Athos, and from there took another mini bus for 5 hours to get to the Lavra. Along the way we stopped at at least two other monasteries. 

The two night-stay in a dorm and food were free.

As I remember, the Easter service started at 2 am on the Sunday morning. I diligently listened to the monks read in Greek until breakfast at 6 am. They served large chunks of amazingly tasteless (as in no taste, not in bad taste) white fish, considered to be a feast for the monks as they had been fasting for a while.

I learned that some secular/non-secular people also went to Mt. Athos for hiking, as it offers spectacular view of the …

My visit to Mount Athos involved a long bus ride from Thessalonika to Ouranoupolis, a small town close to the border of Mount Athos. From here I took a boat along the coast of the Mount Athos territory, passing the Greek border post and continued past several exotic looking monasteries as far as the mountain itself.

Inevitably I did not actually set foot on Mount Athos.

I visited Mt. Athos two times in the past four months. My first visit was planed and I went with a larger group of my countryman. Ladies stayed in Jerisos and the men went on to Chilandaris. The whole experience for me was amazing. While waiting for the ferry one can hear many different languages and get first gimps of Mt. Athos by noticing many monks hading towards one of the monasteries. By little details in their robes and gear you can tell if they belong to Greek, Serbian, Romanian or some other Orthodox church. All this is taking place under huge Byzantine tower. The village of Ouranopolis has all the tourist could need but still you can feel “something different” close by.

The ferry ride was also interesting since we could see shores of Mt. Athos and also there were these sigils that followed the ferry and were eating from the peoples hands while making almost complete stops in the mid air!

We arrived to the little port which belongs to the Bulgarian monastery (I think) were a mini van waited for us. It took us on the dirt road for some 30 minutes and we could see Chilandaris from the distance. The monastery is on the foot of the mountains and it is few kilometers away from the coast on the opposite side from where we landed. First that I noticed were remains of the fire that happened in the monetary few years back. It was much worst …

If you want to visit Mt Athos have a look at the following site http://abacus.bates.edu/~rallison/friends/

You need a permit and visitors are limited to 100 bona fide pilgrims a day – and there a hundreds of monks from Russia waiting to visit some of them! You also need to reserve accommodation at many of them – there are even telephone numbers on the site to do so!

I visited Mt Athos in 1965. Fresh out of university I had reached Thessalonika clutching a letter of introduction from my university professor (although my subject had nothing to do with religion or Greece!). This had to be taken to the British Consul. There I had to fill in a form saying why I wanted to visit Mt Athos and what I wanted to see – I “winged” the replies with the confidence of youth! They then gave me a sealed envelope containing their "support" to take to the Greek Ministry of Northern Departments (I think it was). They in turn gave me 3 sealed letters - 2 to hand in at the capital of Mt Athos, Karyes, and 1 to take to the police (on the other side of Thessalonika of course!). The police took this letter, filled in another form and gave it to me. Next day by bus to Tripiti and, after sleeping on the beach, on by early morning boat to Daphni - the harbour for Mt Athos (I remember I had to change out of shorts on the …

It seems that it hasn't become much easier to visit Mount Athos than it was decades ago, and if you happen to be female, it's evidently impossible. But there is a way to see Athos from the sea, which should be enough for most people who aren't obsessed about Byzantine history and Orthodox monasteries (although these are very interesting), and that is to take a cruise alongside the Athos peninsula, making many monasteries perfectly visible from the ship. These cruises can be easily arranged in the tourist areas of the Chalkidiki Peninsula, and usually take in a break in the pretty port of Ouranopolis.

I don't really understand why the area was also inscribed as a natural site, since I didn't notice any particularly noteworthy natural monuments, but Athos' importance from a historical, political (an autonomous community for almost a thousand years!), religious, and cultural perspective is undeniable.

Nevertheless, I hope to be able to see Athos from the "inside" sometime in the future when they relax the rules. Until then I think I won't count it as a fully visited WH site.