In the previous post we introduced the British writer Patrick Leigh Fermor who wrote the book The Broken Road, from the Iron Gates to Mount Athos. In the last chapter of this recently published book he describes his stay on the holy mountain from 24 january 1935 till 18 february 1935. Here are again some quotes from this account with pictures I made in 2009, 2011 and 2013.
Vatopedi is a village in itself and the flagged courtyard resound continually with the clip-clop of horses, mules and donkeys, and from my window as I write I can hear the cries of the fishermen drawing in their nets, and the woodsman’s axe faling.
Karakallou: I was give the best room, high up in the cloisters, overlooking the old stone courtyard and the many domed chapel, over the massed roofs to the rocky tre-clad hillside.
Picture by Macedonian Heritage; the kiosk outside the maingate of Lavra.
Lavra: I sat all evening in the little shelter outside the monastery gates, watchting the sun set over the waves ( note: from the Lavra kiosk it is only possible to see the sun rise not set over the waves, hv), and breathing the mountain and sea air.
Simonopetra: Robert Byron (note: visited Athos a few years earlier in 1928, author of The Station, hv) compared it to the Potala of Lhasa, and he was quite right.
Panteleimonos: …and there below, the domes of the chapel (note :he means church hv) gleamed in the night, and the branches of a palm tree lashed wildly in the gale.
hv
