Exploring the Holy Mountain

There are already many web sites that focus on Mount Athos, aka the Holy Mountain, a thousand year old all-male monastic republic that occupies the easternmost of the three peninsulas of Chalkidhikí in northern Greece.

Within the last month, I discovered a photoblog put up by a couple of Dutchmen who have been visiting the mountain for years. They don't know Greek, and they are probably not Orthodox Christians—in fact, I'm not sure that they are Christians at all.

What I do like about their blog is that it really shows "Athos as it is, day to day" without overlaying any of the religious interpretation and without focusing on the spiritual elements, but just on the place itself, what happens there, what and whom you encounter.

This sort of neutrality will seem boring and maybe even irreverent by some, but for me, it allows me to explore and experience the Holy Mountain from afar, and lets me see the spiritual dimension of it on my own, without interference from religious tourism.

I am still exploring it, indeed, I am only at the beginning, but this blog whets my appetite even more than the usual Athonite web sites to experience what it is on Athos that makes it what it is, what it really is. Now, I can really see myself going there.

At any rate, it's a good complement to the other types of webpages without being irreverent or critical. It just tells it as it is. An example is this post about the downside of wearing footgear with crosses on the soles, and about crossing one's legs: Post 1119

The main page of the Athos Agion Oros weblog is here. Have a good trip, again and again!