First of all: Happy Easter for all our readers, Christos Anesti (although the Orthodox Easter is next week)!

This time of year always remembers me to my pilgrimage in 1986 during Easter-time, when we visited Dionysiou and joined a log vespers in church from 23.00 h. to 6 o’clock in the morning. A very memoral moment in my life! Two days before, on Good Friday 28th March, I took these pictures in the Protaton church of an icon of the deposition of Christ, surrounded by spring flowers. But this post is about the aqueducts of Pantocratoros:

May 9th 2017: Pantocratoros monastery and spring flowersLet’s have a closer look at the aqueducts of Pantocratoros. Most pilgrims who visit the monastery will pass the first aqueduct, that is situated at ‘1’ in the red circle in the Google Earth picture below. But there are more aqueducts!First let me show you the hike we did from Karyes to Pantocratoros, 7 km’s length. Watch out, don’t take the direction of Profitou Eliou as we did by mistake. I would advise to take this path (see the red arrows):On arriving at the monastery you will see this – first – aqueduct. Two horses  are grazing the land, a foal lies near the olive tree.The aqueduct with a horse and a foalThe first aqueduct is not in use anymore, but is in relatively good condition. The road along the monastery that leads to the second aqueduct, again with spring flowersThe second aqueduct, with the Pantocratoros in the background. This aqueduct is also not in use anymore and in a poor state of maintenance.The second aqueduct behind the bushes (nr 2 in the picture above). Scaffolds keep the cracked walls straight andthe arches are supported with a wooden construction. If nothing is done I fear that this aqueduct will collapse within a few years…. On our way to Kolitsou and Vatopdi I turned and took some pictures of panorama, here and the next picture, Stavronikita and Pantocratoros When I took a closer look at this picture I saw a wall with black spots that looked like small arches and resembled yet another aqueduct!But with the help of our reader Silviu Cluci, who wrote a comment on my blogpost and shared a more detailed picture (see below), I had to leave my surmise about a third aqueduct. The “small arches” are water tubes used in the garden!!

This last picture is taken high above the monastery, just before we left the Pantocratoros area, with a hill full of chamomile flowers.

Wim, 2/4