Time travel back to Byzantine monasteries for men-only sacred wellness experience, simplicity, history and heritage. Mount Athos, Greece

2021/02/25

Time travel back to Byzantine monasteries for men-only sacred wellness experience, simplicity, history and heritage. Mount Athos, Greece

You will experience a cultural and historical visit, since the monasteries are around 1000 years old and huge similar to castles, and not as a pilgrimage or reli- gious tourism.Agion Oros. They eat fish and seafood and legumes, vegetables etc. Accommodation is in the monasteries in shared facilities with hot water. Nature is spectacular combining coastal paths (100- 400m above sea level) and forests, waterfalls depending the season. Sea and Mountains. You will experience a cultural and historical visit, since the monasteries are around 1000 years old and huge similar to castles, and not as a pilgrimage or reli- gious tourism

Source: premium wellness

#Heritage #Escape #Wellness #Getaway #Adventure #Europe #History #Historical #Rejuvenation #Greece #Trekking

TAKE ME THERE

Stories

"One of the traditions is that the Virgin Mary was blown off course when she was trying to sail to Cyprus and landed on Mount Athos. And she liked it so much that she prayed to her son that she should be given it as her own and he agreed," says Speake. "It's still called 'the garden of the mother of God', dedicated to her glory, and she alone represents her sex on Mount Athos."

---- BBC NEWS

A visit to Mount Athos also involves literal time travel. The monasteries there still go by Byzantine time, in which the day begins at sunset, not midnight, so the time zone changes literally every day. Visitors may have to set their watches back by as much as seven hours as they cross the border. And don't forget to change the date as well. Mount Athos still use the Julian calendar of the Roman Empire, which lags 13 days behind. It's almost two weeks ago there!

---- Condé Nast Traveler

“We preserve the Byzantine Empire because it is a treasure of Orthodoxy, not because this is the relic of a secular state,” said Father Jeremiah, 48, a Protestant convert from San Angelo, Tex., who came to Xenophontos on a pilgrimage 22 years ago and has lived there ever since. “This is not a museum, but a living place.”

---- The New York Times

I'm asked to show my diamoneterion and given the age-old pilgrim's welcome: a glass of water to help slake my thirst, a piece of sweet loukoumi cake for energy and a glass of raki, the aniseed-flavoured spirit that helps settle stomachs unaccustomed to local water. This hospitality, I'm told, is an obligation that helps develop friendships.

---- TRAVELLER

As of December 2020, the cultural treasures of Mount Athos have become digitally accessible to all through “Athos Digital Heritage”, the largest digital culture project in Greece, completed over the course of four years. The aim of the project was to safeguard the Athonite State’s wealth of cultural artifacts, through the digitization and documentation of its historical archives and works of art, as well as to disseminate it to the global community by making it available online.

---- Greek News Agenda

Time travel back to Byzantine monasteries for men-only sacred wellness experience, simplicity, history and heritage. Mount Athos, Greece

Stories

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