The first cultural tours began in France in 1896, on the occasion of the first modern Olympic Games in Athens.  This is the beginning of organized trips. Haris Yiakoumis and Isabelle Roy wrote La Grèce:  La Croisière Des Savants (The voyage of the scientists) and have attempted to trace photographs and travelogues of this period (1896 to 1912). Passengers of these cruises were men and women who loved Greece, were cultivated, and mainly scientists.  Their photographs (mostly unpublished) and travel stories are fascinating stories about Greece in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.  The authors of this book have reconstructed a “cruise imaginary” and traced an “ideal route” : Marseille Cyprus, through Sicily, Delphi , Athens, Crete, Cyclades, Mount Athos, Constantinople .

On the photograph the ship with ” the tourists”. Did the monks sailed with the smaller boats to the steam ship (with sails) to bring the (male) passengers ashore? Is it the arsanas (harbour) of the monastery of Panteleimonos or maybe Vatopedi?

hv