Another day, another monastery

We set off at 9.00 this morning to go to holy Loukas monastery which had the usual mosaics and frescos and our new guide for the day, Stefanos, told us again of the iconography of the Eastern Orthodox Church, with frescos and carvings in stone, all of which required great skill. This particular monastery was very peaceful having just five monks and a lovely setting in rolling hills surrounded by olive trees and vines. We were sad to leave our mountain village to travel to the big city!

To the side of the path going up to the bus was a notice to the metamorphosis chapel..we walked up the path and into a modern small space decorated as in days of old, see extras,the old style came towards the end of the Byzantine period so showed more expression than previously and the new demonstrate so clearly that the iconography has not changed from generation to generation! It did however make me feel how it must have felt to be around when the old was new and bright and shiny and how extraordinarily moved one would be by the omnipotent God and the suffering Christ and the resurrection. However stefanos had been given a hard job as he did not know what had come before in terms of guiding and had a very laid back style which could come across as quite dismissive. His grandfather had been an archbishop in the Eastern Orthodox Church and had fairly recently died and he was very devout kissing all the icons.

We arrived in Athens and were taken to a local restaurant for dinner after having had a huge lunch!