Posts
For the August Full Moon Festival, I went to Sounio to watch the moon rise, this month being the time the moon is closest to the earth. Many ancient sites across Greece were open for the event, including the Acropolis, but I knew that would be over full to bursting and opted for something outside of Athens. Sounio was quite crowded so my friends and I found a near-deserted beach with a view of the rising moon and Sounio.
Quite possibly the most beautiful chapel I've ever seen; Panagia Plataniotissa, where the chapel of the same name is tucked inside the naturally formed hollow of a large plane tree, which is part of a strange squiggle of three others that grew together over time. The chapel can fit ten (or fifteen, or twenty, depending on where you read it) people for mass, which is still held on a regular basis. This chapel was awe-inspiringly beautiful, which my words cannot even begin to describe.
Our next camping site wasn't quite as scenic, but it was still beautiful, set beside a tiny out-of-the-way chapel, near Ancient Lousi and a Temple of Artemis. There was plenty of wildlife though - lizards, grasshoppers, etc. Thankfully I didn't see any big spiders.
The views from where we camped on the first night were amazing. We had a mesh roof on the tent, so we could lie in our sleeping bags and watch the stars - I even saw two shooting stars! The views were amazing, night or day, it didn't matter.
Last week I went on a short tour of Northern Peloponnese, mostly in the Achaea region. One thing I'll say about this area is you will never be short of a chapel to pray in, or in my case, camp by. Over the four days we covered many mountains and saw dozens of chapels and churches, some of which were incredibly beautiful, one in particular, but I'll get to that later.
I've been kept busy with work and there hadn't been the opportunity to go travelling, however my partner had a week long business trip to Edinburgh lined up and was happy for me to tag along. I love this city, I have many happy memories of what I think is one of the most beautiful places in Europe.
Already, I can't wait to return.
Before going to Charmeana, I spent the morning sitting on the beach...
