Mt Athos is not only the holiest mountain in Greece, but also the largest on the Chalkidiki peninsula and can be seen from almost everywhere. Its domination of the region is both physical and spiritual. We had been in its shadows for the past 4 days and now it was time to see it as up close as is permitted, by boat. The SS Calypso is a smallish ferry of about 100 passengers that takes passengers to observe the holy area by sea. We would be at her mercy for the next three and a half hours.
We were hoping to have dolphins accompanying us but instead there were seagulls wheeling overhead. And not just overhead. These gulls have been well trained by the scores of tourists, swooping down and skillfully catching pieces of bread thrown in their path. If you hold a piece of bread in your hand over the bough, a gull would zoom in and snatch it out of your hand. Sigal decided to try it with her namesakes and bravely fed a few birds. The seagulls are quite skilled at taking the bread from your hand. Here “quite” means mostly but not absolutely, 100% successful. Sigal’s hand received a few painful pecks from birds that didn’t quite have their bread snatching radar fully set.
The coastline is rugged and undeveloped. Given that only males are allowed in, the monasteries can’t surround themselves with family communities or permanent villages, thus keeping the population and expansion to a minimum. We passed a Russian monastery, then the Serbian, Georgian, Greek and so forth, until after about two hours of cruising, we had seen lots of monasteries and were now underneath Mt Athos itself. The monasteries were very impressive; in the beginning small and austere and as we got closer to the holy mountain, grander and more ornate. To be honest, a couple of hours total, round trip, would probably have been enough, but I think we would have been in a very small minority of people who wanted a Reader’s Digest version of the area. The majority of passengers were Greeks wanting to soak up as much of the holiness as they could. As we approached Mt Athos a small power boat zoomed up to our vessel and off it hopped a somewhat disheveled monk, who looked as if he had been locked away in a cloister for these past five years. He brought with him a holy book, a precious-stone covered cross and the obligatory collection tin and was eager to make this trip just a little more holy by dispensing blessings to those that wanted. I never did find out how much it cost for the extra holiness.
I think Yoni missed his opportunity for an invocation, which he sorely needed. The sea wasn’t especially choppy, but it wasn’t exactly flat, either. About an hour after we started our voyage, the gentle rocking of the boat started to affect him. Soon enough, yesterday’s lunch, last night’s dinner and this morning’s breakfast went overboard. I never knew that the human complexion could go through so many colors; from deathly grey to seasick green to steely blue to alabaster white to flushed red. Every color of the rainbow bar natural Ashkenazi pink. That was gone. I might be writing it here with some mirth, but I think we all felt compassion towards Yoni and his suffering. He wasn’t laughing and neither were we, at the time.
We were back on dry land by 2.30 and were off to Thessaloniki for a late afternoon tour of the historical sites of the city. Yoni was still not feeling 100% so decided to just hang out in a café near the starting point whilst we were guided through the town. The meeting place was, not surprisingly, at the statue of Aristotle (the philosopher, not Onasis), in a square that overlooked the Aegian and the snow covered Mt Olympus in the distance. We would find that many streets that lead down to the sea have snowy Mt. Olympus in view. The tour itself was excellent. The guide succeeded in weaving together the city’s ancient history, more recent past and modernity. What was planned for two and a half hours glided into three hours, which was fine for the five of us walking around Thessaloniki, but left Yoni in the lurch, not knowing when we would meet him. Even the best of friends can have breakdowns in communication that lead to misunderstandings and anger.
But by the time we reached our hotel for the final night, which was out of town and close to the airport, we had mostly calmed down, though some of us were becoming hangry, having missed meals or having past ones going overboard. We ate at an excellent local restaurant in some unnamed town that left us both happy and well fed. A perfect final night’s meal.
