In my last post (1331) about our trip to Athos in October 2011 I showed you how we climbed the mountain in 3,5 hours. Today we will take a closer look at the building activities and I will try to give you an impression of the magnificent view from 2030 meters high.

Wim Voogd on the top

Bas and Herman

The sky was almost clear, exept for one cloud in the South.

View to the North, the peninsula

View in the North East direction, towards Filotheou, Karakalou and Iviron

View in the North West direction, Agiou Pavlou

View to the East, the direction of Lavra

The building activities are leaving their traces……….

A new building next to the old chapel is almost finished.

With an old foundation stone from the 23th of July 1931

The iconastasis of the Metamorfosis chapel

  Metamorfosis icon

Behind the new building, near the cross, another room is build

Reinforced concrete is used to make a new roof

After half an hour it’s time to descent again….Here a last shot of the cliff going straight down: people who tried to descent from here over the ridge on the right towards Lavra were never seen again.

Pilgrims Bas and Herman started for a 2,5 hour walk down

And there is our finall destination: Skiti Anni

Only 150 meters to go. I decided going down first in my own tempo, also to prefend that the monks of Anni would close the gate. I arrived at 19 h., after walking 11 hours from Prodromou. I have to confess that my legs acted rather strange in the last 15 minutes of the long hike and they started to move out of control.

In the avelange area of Skiti Anni I had to take a rest after every 50 meters or so

The first buildings of skiti Anni appear

Near the entrance gate of Skiti Anni

Pilgrims Gert Jan, Jitze and Wilfried just had dinner and still look fresh! The friendly monks were so nice to re-open the kitchen/refectory and let me have dinner to!

Next time pictures from the new fresco’s in the refectory.

Wim, 7/1