This is the view looking back towards Gregoriou from the path to the next monastery, Simonas Petra.\u00a0 This path was much better maintained than yesterday’s, and didn’t involve nearly as much of what the French refer to as “deleveling,” and what normal people refer to as “oh crap, more hills.”\u00a0 Which is not to say there weren’t some spectacular hills, just that they weren’t QUITE as strenuous.\u00a0 Plus, it wasn’t midday, which helped.<\/p>\n My destination:<\/p>\n Now here’s a bit of geocaching geekery.\u00a0 I won’t go into gruesome detail here, but geocaching is basically a hobby where people hide small packages all over the world, and then post their location online for others to try and find.\u00a0 On the path up to this particular monastery, there actually IS a geocache.\u00a0 Given the difficulty of reaching the spot, I suppose it’s not surprising that the cache had been there for two years, and I was the first person to actually find it.\u00a0 So, yeah – first to find.\u00a0 On a two-year-old cache.\u00a0 In Greece.\u00a0 Here’s the view from near the spot where I found it.<\/p>\n That’s a pretty amazing building.\u00a0 There’s a little bit of scaffolding visible for some renovations going on, but the key point is that when the scaffolding isn’t there – those balconies still are.\u00a0 In fact, that’s the ONLY way to access some of the rooms, via the balconies over the sheer drop.\u00a0 How’s that fear of heights working out for you?<\/p>\n One note about all these pictures.\u00a0 I brought a camera with me to Greece, really I did.\u00a0 But the fact of the matter is that my phone is now a much better camera than my camera.\u00a0 So the poor actual camera never came out of the case.\u00a0 Instead, every picture on this blog was taken with my phone, which had features I was still discovering as the trip progressed.\u00a0 Like, for instance, panorama mode:<\/p>\n This is a view from slightly above the monastery.\u00a0 My original plan had been to continue walking up the coast to Daphni, but after the previous day’s experience, and a report that the path to Daphni was pretty much a dusty road the whole way, I opted instead to walk down to Simonas Petra’s boat dock and wait for the ferry.\u00a0 It was a little worrisome, because the buildings around the dock are all unoccupied, and the cement dock itself has some big holes in it, so you can’t help but worry if you’re in the right place until the boat actually comes.\u00a0 Here’s the view from the dock back up to the monastery:<\/p>\n I should mention that while I was staying in Gregoriou, I met Andreas, a young Greek boy, probably about eleven, who was traveling with his father. Andreas attends an English-speaking school, and was very keen to practice his language skills by chatting with me.\u00a0 I saw him again on the ferry from Simonas Petras to Daphi, and we ended up talking the whole way back.\u00a0 And then again for the 2 hour ferry ride from Daphni to Oranoupolis.\u00a0 His father didn’t speak English, but his son would translate for him.\u00a0 For the most part we just talked to each other.\u00a0 In typically eleven-year-old fashion, he was all over the place, but a really bright kid.<\/p>\n And we share a common interest in Doctor Who, so that was a topic of conversation.<\/p>\n As I was preparing to get off the ferry in Oranoupolis, I asked Andreas’ father where I needed to wait to catch my bus, and he said, “Oh, I’ll be happy to give you a ride back to Thessaloniki.”\u00a0 So that’s how I found myself in a private van, with Andreas, his dad, another person whose name I didn’t catch, and two monks for the ride back to Thessaloniki.\u00a0 They dropped me, other guy, and the monks off on the outskirts, and we all took the bus back into town.<\/p>\n The bus stopped at the train station.\u00a0 This time, I took a cab.<\/p>\n Statistics:<\/p>\n If I had chosen to join the monks for their entire morning service the next morning, I would have needed to be at the church at 4AM, and remained there until 8 or 9.\u00a0 I’m sure it would have been … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/2012-07-25-06.45.53.jpg\" "\\"2012-07-25")
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