The last post of Bas inspired me to search on the internet for an Athos painting made by Derek Hill. That effort wasn’t successful, the only one I found was in my own archive. I added this painting to post 2083.

But to my surprise I found something different, that also is related to the post from Bas. I found out that the Prince of Wales is an artist too and he even shows his works on his own internet site (have a look here). Prince Charles made some watercolours in Greece, but also one from the Holy Mountain:

This discovery gives me the opportunity to share with you two unique pictures from the photo collection of monk T. from Simonospetras, both from the Prince of Wales during a visit to the Holy Mountain in casual clothing (also look here and here), and when he planted a tree. On the last picture below it looks like he is in the same company. Another picture of Charles is from May 12th 2004, when he visited the Rumanian Kolitsoú settlement for the funeral of Elder Dionysios. For that occasion he was more formally dressed in a suit.

The Prince of Wales is believed to have visited Athos three times over the past years (also in 2000), but is said that possibly even more visits have taken place in complete secrecy.

Wim Voogd, 7/12 – (oops, thanks for your comment)