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Trip Overview |
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The many faces of Greece An illustrated itinerary of one of our many travel adventures. This information supplements our Gain a glimpse of the glories of ancient Greece on a tour of Athens. Then visit 1000-year-old monasteries to gain insights into a 2000-year-old religion, during five days on the Holy Mountain of Mount Athos, one of the most important sites of the Orthodox tradition.
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We begin our discovery of classical Greece in Athens. From the Acropolis to the Temple of Zeus, Athens is bursting with art, history and culture. Walk through the agora and imagine life in the ancient capital. Stroll through the Plaka and look for bargains in the shops and from the street vendors. Try a cup of Greek coffee or Ouzo at a cafe in Syntagma Square and watch the world go by. We'll spend a night in Ouranoupolis in order to get our permits to visit Mount Athos. Ouranoupolis is a lovely small port city with many restaurants and a charming waterfront. We depart from Ouranoupolis by boat to the Holy Mountain, home to the theocratic republic of Mount Athos. We will spend four nights as guests of the ancient monasteries, sometimes sharing simple meals with the monks. Each day we will hike along stunning mountains paths overlooking the Aegean Sea, then tour the monasteries and inspect icons, crowns, coronation robes, ancient books, manuscripts, and a myriad of Byzantine artifacts. We will dine simply under frescoes of the saints and the Last Supper. At sunset generators are shut down and our world is illuminated by candlelight. During the week following our pilgrimage to Mount Athos, we are offering our new tour to the Greek Isles, for those with more time to spend in this ancient land. (See Calendar for details.)
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1: Arrival in Athens
Most travelers will arrive in Athens in the late morning or early afternoon, with North American travelers departing home the day before. Our first group activity will be our Welcome Dinner on the terrace of a lovely restaurant overlooking the Parthenon, which crowns the floodlit rocky promontory called the Acropolis. 
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2: Temples & Tavernas
Our introduction to Athens begins with guided tours to the Acropolis and the splendid Benaki Museum. We'll see the Temple of Zeus, and the ancient agora, brilliantly restored by the American School of Archeology in Athens, and additional places of cultural interest in the city. Dinner is at a typical Greek taverna near our hotel. If you have extra time today, you might also explore more of the city on your own. For starters, the legendary Sunday flea market in Plaka (old town) is a shopper's delight. You might also try a funicular ride to the top of Lycabettus Hill for a breathtaking view of the city. And you can't miss the formal Sunday changing of the tall pom-pom-footed guards outside Parliament, complete with marching band!
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3: Ouranoupolis and Pilgrimage Preparation
In the morning we transfer to the Athens airport for our one hour flight north to Greece's second largest city, Thessaloniki. We drive across the hills of the Chalcidice Peninsula to Ouranoupolis, where we will stay at a small traditional hotel. The hotel is within walking distance of both the harbor, with its pier and excellent restaurants, and the Pilgrims Bureau, where we will obtain our permits early the next day to visit the Holy Mountain.
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4: Hands Across the Water
Weather permitting, we can enjoy breakfast under an arbor of ripe grapes in the hotel's courtyard before presenting ourselves to the Holy Community officials at the nearby Pilgrims Bureau. At this office, we receive the impressive-looking diamonitirion, a document we present to the guest master in each monastery where we stay. One hundred permits are granted to Orthodox men each day, but only ten are reserved for non-Orthodox men. Women have not been allowed on Mount Athos for 1000 years. We then depart by boat along the peninsula to the port of Dafni where we stop for lunch. From there we travel to our first night's lodgings. Depending on our final itinerary, we may take the bus up to Karyes, the tiny capital of Mount Athos, and then make an easy downhill hike to the Monastery of Iviron on the north coast. Another possibility is to take a smaller boat from Dafni to Dionysiou, one of the monasteries overlooking the rugged south coast of the peninsula.
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5-7: The Holy Mountain
Our route for these three days will depend upon the decision of the Holy Community and the monasteries as to where we are to be received and lodged. Our hikes are never too long or arduous, but although Mount Athos rises up from sea level, the terrain is mountainous and we must be prepared to walk two or three hours every morning and afternoon at a leisurely pace. On some days, we may ride part of the way in a Land Rover, along the recently built gravel roads, and then hike the final portion of our journey. In passing from one massive walled, domed and pinnacled monastery to another, we walk through valleys and dense forests, and along cliffs rising precipitously from the sea. During the day the monasteries are powered by generators, but these are replaced by candles at sunset. Although the Internet and cell phones have appeared in some of the monastic offices, the scarcity of signs of modern life has led some travelers to compare Mount Athos to legendary Shangri-La. In the monasteries we hear hammering on wooden boards echoing through the pre-dawn darkness of the courtyard, summoning the monks to prayer. This is the first of several times during the day when the monks unite in worship. We may see the Abbot seated on his gilded throne while bearded monks and novices prostrate themselves during services in the candle-lit churches. We inspect icons, crowns, coronation robes, ancient books, manuscripts, imperial charters and a myriad of additional Byzantine artifacts in the Monasteries' treasure rooms and libraries. In the vast refectories (dining halls), under frescoes of the saints and the Last Judgment, we break bread at marble tables and eat bean soup, fish, vegetables, rice, cheese, olives and fruit. We also drink tea or wine made by the monks. Throughout the meals one of the monks reads aloud from the Holy Scriptures, while we eat in silence. In fifteen or twenty minutes, when the Abbot has had his fill, the meal is finished for us all. These four days on Mount Athos will provide us with an incomparable flashback in time, a very memorable and moving experience.
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8-9: Ouranoupolis and Thessaloniki
This morning, we depart from our last monastery, board the ferry for our voyage from this unique peninsula, and arrive back in the modern world of Ouranoupolis in the early afternoon. After a late luncheon at a waterfront restaurant, we return to our small hotel (where our luggage has been stored during our visit to Mount Athos) for dinner and the night. The next day we travel from Ouranoupolis to the port of Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece, where we will spend two nights at one of the finest hotels in the city. During our afternoon city tour we will see the White Tower, originally part of the ramparts that surrounded the city, and sites where Saint Paul visited and spoke to the Thessalonians as early as 50 AD. The evening is free to try one of Thessaloniki's many restaurants on your own.
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10: The Birthplace of Alexander
In the morning, we will head to Pella, the ancient home of Philip II of Macedon, and his rather more famous son, Alexander the Great. Today we can see the foundations of the structures that dominated this former capital city (in the 3rd and 4th centuries BC), and mosaic pavements that were once used to decorate the floors of the nobles' homes. The afternoon will be free to explore Thessaloniki, before our Farewell Dinner at a fine local restaurant.
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11: Departure day
After breakfast we transfer to the airport for our flights to Athens and home, or to connect for the optional extensions to other Greek destinations (available on some departures; please call for details).
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