Karyes – backside of the Epistatia-building and the tower of the Protaton (3th Oct. 2011)

All the representatives who are part of the Holy Epistatia, the governement of Athos, with the Protos as their chairman, have their own houses in Karyes. Because the representatives of monasteries have to go to meetings often, they prefered to stay in their Konaki: in the old days there were no roads on Athos and everybody had to travel by foot, mule or boat, so it would take too much time to travel back and forth.

Last year I decided to try to get all the Konaki on photo and my plan almost succeded. First of all, not all of the 20 monasteries have a Konaki in Karyes, because one of them, Koutloumousiou, lies only a 15 minute walk from Karyes. Secondly it appeared that the Konaki of Stavronikita and Simonospetras in North and the ones of Dionysiou, Grigoriou and Lavra in the East, were a little far from the centre of town to visit them this time. This gives me allready one reason to go back! I managed to find 15 Konaki.

I will start with showing you the maps I used:

The other map I used was this one (thanks to Kelliotes)

And this is how this map looked after using it on the 3th of October:

I coloured the 15 Konaki that I visited blue, and the roads or paths yellow.

I started walking from the bus/car-parking or shop area (large yellow area), taking the road North towards the Konaki of Sografou, number 61.

Konaki Sografou, nr 6, a building in the shape of a cross

Konaki Sografou – entrance at the backside

While walking further up the road to nr 60, I saw furtherdown on my right side the house of the Gouverner

House nr 60, the Konaki of Agiou Pavlou.

Konaki Agiou Pavlou, front door and well kept

And even further up the hill, after passing some kelli and their gardens, I found the Konaki of Chilandariou.

Konaki Chilandariou, building nr 55

The stone gate leading to Konaki Chilandariou

The I started walking downhill again towards the centre of Karyes.

I passed the buildings nr 50 and 51, both kelli belonging to Chilandariou

Next time more about the other Konaki.

Wim, 2/2/120