While planning the latest trip to Athos I decided to walk from Mylopotamos to Dionysiou. With the help of our readers I made a plan to take the unknown and exiting path leading from the Antithonas top towards Ag. Onoufriou and then to Dionysiou.
Detail from the Zwerger map: on the left of the Aeropotamos the path to Plakara/Onoufriou and “J” is the junction of 4 roads.
Soon after passing the Antitonas at 850 meters we arrived at the crossing of 4 roads, of which one leads towards Agiou Pavlou (the one going to the right). To my surprice we found a sign on a tree at that place, showing us the way to Dionysiou.
The junction of roads near Antithonas: the main road on the left leads to Pavlou – 28/9/09
We took the right turn, still hoping to find the left path. As you can see on this relatively recent photo from Google maps there is a new dirt road, lower and parallel to the road to Ag. Pavlou. Because we found another newly made sign at point “O” we decided to walk on.
The newly made sign at point “O”, with the higher parallel road to Ag. Pavlou on the left behind Winfried with the walking stick.
A picture of the Aeropotamos and the road to Ag. Pavlou, soon after we saw Dionysiou lying below:
Not from that position we found this worn sign along the road (see “X” on the Google Earth map above):
And immediately we found this new sign, just a few meters from the old one,
thus taking the Aeropotamos-path and NOT the one I planned on the left side: here a picture of the rocks on the other side, which looked not very inviting to walk !
The rocks near Kellion Onoufriou
This is the cell of Onoufriou which we did not see.
We took a wonderfull path leading to Dionysiou, not dangerous at all, but with a lot of lose stones and a some buches in the way.
Aeropotamos
As a reward of our 8 hour walking trip (which was a bit to long!) we saw this beautifull sight:
Dionysiou, soon after leaving the Aeropotamos path.
Wim Voogd, 29/9/09
Great description Wim and quite reassuring. Regarding the Onoufrios footpath it seems that the sign on the 4 cross-roads send you away from the correct direction. The path should be in the valley behind the rocky ridge in your picture. Passage of the rocky ridge should be lower after Onoufrios when eventually the wide (kalnterimi?) path has been reached.
By the way do you have any GPS tracks and did you find any paths on your way up from Philotheou ?
Hi Sotiris, we did not get any GPS connection with the Iphone we had, so the answer is no. But I did find another beautifull path, starting not far from Mylopotamos ending at Filotheou: I will show it soon. Wim