My fellow blogger Vasilis found this interview (in Dutch!) with the one the most famous Dutch Athos-’connaisseurs’, mister W.B. Theunissen. It is special that this interview from the early days of television survived and now is to be seen on EUscreen.
Dr Theunissen wrote three books in Dutch about Athos: (see our Book Title List nr 1207)
We payed attention to his books in 389, 390, 399, 408, 632.
Wim, 23/1
The Greek procurator’s office accused Father Efraim of striking a number of deals in exchanging several cheap plots of land belonging to Vatopedi for expensive property in Athens. Investigators believe that these deals caused the loss of at least 100 million Euros to the government. Fr Efraim himself declared his innocence and rejected the charges against him. He’ll stay under arrest until the end of the court proceedings. Because of of his heath condition the abbot will be taken to a prison hospital in Thessaloniki.
Also see 1159.
Wim, 26/12
Athos – The movie part III 2011, with the following scenes: boat trip from Ouranopoli to Dafni with Arsanas Sografou, Docheiariou, Xenofontos and Panteleimonos, arriving in Dafni, Karyes, Iviron, Koutloumousiou, Karakalou, Kelli Timiou Stavrou (bells played by Father David), Lavra (Ossuarium) and Skiti Prodromou and back in Ouranopolis.
After climbing the mountain in a hike of 9 hours I was so tired that I forgot to shoot new videos. Brother Herman made this fine film of the top:
Wim, 9/11
One of our traditional hikes on the day before entering Athos, is the short walk to the border. 
The distance is only 2,2 km and it takes about 25 minutes.
At the border you will find a closed gate. The Tsantali bus is to be seen on the other side, waiting for visitors to bring them to the vineyards of Chromitsa. Later this month I will show you how this gate will be opened…….. (also see blog nr 4).
Visiting Zygou monastery: plastic covers your shoes, to protect the glass plates, which are placed over the mosaic-floor of the ruined katholicon.
Zygou: part of a painting is still to be seen
Zygou ground plan
Rocky beach near the Athos border
Sunset in Ouranopoli, seen from the balcony of our favorite and cheap hotel Akrogiali.
Wim, 2/11
To our Dutch readers: buy todays NRC newspaper to read this article by Lex Veldhoen, who visited Athos this spring. As you can read later in this blog, the discussion (or confusion) about how many days your Diamoniterion permits you to stay on the Holy Mountain, three of four days, goes on. We always thought that you have three nigths on Athos and that you had go back the fourth day. In Karyes we have been told that the permission is granted for four nights!
Another thing: if you want to leave for Athos at 9.45 h. here a warning: the big boat Panteleimon is out of order and the traffic is devided between small boats. You have make resevation for these small boats, otherwise you be left standing on the quay of Dafni, as we experienced op October 3th (for more information about this “travel alert” look here). If you want to avoid this trouble, take the large Agia Anna boat at 6.30 from Ouranopolis and at 15.45 (mo to fr) from Dafni. Even better is: we (8 p.) took a privat taxi boat for € 150 from Dafni back to Ouranopolis, a little more expensive, but much quicker!
small boat at Dafni – 3/10/2011
Speed taxi boat
Wim, 29/10
All these years we visited Ouranopolis, we have been looking at the island of Amalouliani: this year we took the opportunity to visit the island. According to our taxidriver Fotis the Southern Islands of Amouliani have the finest beaches in Greece. Just rent a boat for a few euro at Hotel Akrogiali and enjoy the beaches, the fine food and the excellent view of Mount Athos!
The Island has been a Metochi of Vatopediou until the first World War. Due to expropriations the island was lost to Athos (Feigl book).
View of Mount Athos from Amouliani
Clear sea water at Amouliani
Google Earth view of Amouliani (with the small islands on the right)
Amouliani Southern Islands: beach with the boat (and small restaurant, open till the 2th of October) Photo thanks to Jitze
The 2011 pilgrims eating Greek food on the beach
The small Southern islands of Amouliani with the fine unspoiled beaches (Google Earth)
Amouliani cliffs
Commorants at Amouliani (photo Jitze)
Amouliani Islands and beaches (in the background Ouranopolis)
In former days the island was used as an exile for insubordinate and sinfull monks of Athos, nowadays it used by tourists and fishermen.
Tourists Herman and Jacques at Amouliani beach
View of Amouliani
Wim, 27/10
A new Athos map is published 2011 by Rama Editions.
New Athos map
It is for sale for 7 or 8 euros in the bookshop opposite of the tower in Ouranopolis. The owner was sceptical about the quality, because the monastery Koutloumousiou was missing, and indeed he is right.
To give you an idea of what it looks like, I made this picture (on purpose unsharp, because of copyrights).
Here some more information about the publisher:
My local bookshop in Amsterdam told me that Road Edition maps has gone broke, but the Greek bookshop owner said this publisher will continue his business and be back with new maps. We’ll wait and see.
Here some older maps that I have collected lately:
Top at 1935 meters!
map 1575
Map Mallet 1683
map 1875
map 1899 – top at 1935 meters!
From Izihazm.ru
Wim, 19/10
This year we visted the Holy Mountain from October 3th till October 6th with 8 pilgrims: just as last visit in 2009 we split up in two groups (Herman’s and Wim’s group).
Before telling our travel stories and showing the pictures in detail, here are some highlights of our 2011 trip and some tips:
A glass-bottem boat bringing pilgrims to Athos
1. beware if you want to leave at 9.45 h.: the big Panteleimon boat is out of service, so you have to make a reservation for a small boat. We found out the hard way on our last day on the quay of Dafni, when the boat back to Ouranopoli left without us. A good alternative is: take the Agia Anna boat at 6.30: no reservation needed and you will have some extra hours on your first day. Even better is: order a privat taxi boat back to Ouranopoli (€ 120).
Waiting for the permssion (photo thanks to Jitze)
2. if you want ask for permission in Karyes to stay an extra day, inform if there is meeting of the Holy Epistatia. After arriving at 10 we had to wait till 12 o’clock until they were ready for us: at 12.30 we left without the permission, because they were still gathering…… And, never trust the Athos-guards in this building: according to them a Diamoniterion for non-orthodox visitors was valid for four nights, so asking for permission for one extra should not be neccesary. Believe me: the permission is valid for three nights, and you have to leave on day four.
But there was one advantage of waiting so long in Karyes: I was able to take pictures of almost all Konaki’s (houses of the monasteries) in this small town.
Dutch monk in Karakalou (photo thanks to Jitze)
3. Theere a Dutch Orthodox monk in Karakalou! Brother Pachomios already lives for four months in this monastery and told us a lot about monastic live and orthoxy.
The top with the cross and building activities for a new chapel
4. I climbed the Holy Mountain for the first time in my live (and will never do it again!). After a start in Prodromou at 08.00 we arrived at the junction Stavrou at 11. Together with pilgrim Peter I decided to give it a try and go for the top: almost 7 hours later I arrived safely in Skiti Anna, more death then alive, totally exhausted, but happy and satisfied!
Me crossing the Athos border by foot, a special moment!
5. try to visit Chromitsa: it took some effort to come there, not by taxi-boat as planned, but simply by walking over the Athos-border, with it was worth every second!
Patriarch Bartholomeou on the pier of Ouranopoli, October 7th (photo thanks to Jitze)
6.meet important people: after returning from Athos and the Tsantali tour we came close to meet the Patriarch of Constantinopolis on the pier of Ouranopoli. Later that day the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, arrived at the same spot: we only saw his blinded limousine passing, togehter with a lot of security-men. A rumour that Putin also came to visit Athos showed out to be false.
More will be published soon.
Wim, 17/10
Our pilgrimage to Mount Athos 2011 started in Amsterdam. After a short break in Budapest we arrived in Saloniki. We choose not the spent time on travelling by bus, so we asked a taxi driver to wait for us at the airport. With the help Jan Paul ten Bruggencate we booked a taxi for € 120 from a nice guy named Fotis (tel 00 30 693 6955000). This friendly and English speaking taxidriver brought us in 2,5 hours to our hotel Akrogiali, with a view over the Meditarrenean Sea (from October low season prizes € 16 – 20 for a triple or double room).
View of Athos/Chromitsa from hotel Akrogiali
After a lovely meal with sea-bass at Kritikos, one of the best restaurants in town, we passed the old tower, where Sydney en Joyce Loch once lived, now a museum.
Next day we had a look at the new pier being build on the north side of Ouranolpoli, near the Pilgrims bureau.
New pier in progress
Later that morning a high ranked Russian clergyman took a speedboat to Athos.
Speedboat with Russian visitors (photo JB)
Wim, 15/10
Finally all our pictures, starting from August 2006, did return on our weblog, so it is time to do some catching up. Today I will start with copying all our posts from athosweblog.wordpress.com and closing down this weblog once and for all.
In the following days we will busy tagging all our 1550 posts or so with categories again, because they seem to be disppeared. But we are happy that our work of the last years did show up again and our rich photo archive of Athos did return.
Wim Voogd sitting, Herman Voogd with red cap and 6 friends from Holland, who stayed on Athos from October 3-5th 2011
Wim, 23/1
Last week I bought this French magazine from April 8th 1961 (nr 626), with an article about Athos, written by Jean Maquet and photos by Pierre Vals (for an older article from 1959 in a Dutch magazine see blog 664 - at the moment still without photos).
First page
Vatopedi courtyard
Probably monastery Vatopediou
Vatopediou – monk and semantron
Monk in his cell
Hermit in his cell
Detail of the previous photo: next to an empty bottle of wine a box with “condensed milk prepared in Holland”!
Three young monks
Katholikon Dionysiou – “the monastery was almost deserted”, says the writer in 1961
Hermit at the “desert”
Inside a katholikon
Portrait of a monk
and above you can see the text of the article (in French).
Wim, 15/1
As long as I have been visiting Karyes I always wondered what this big ruined building – with a church – looked like. In October last year I finally could take a closer look (also to a nearby small house – see plans and pictures below).
Karyes – 27/9/2009: In the front/centre: the large building with a ruined church.
The small picture is from 3/5/2007: the same building from a different angle.
First I will show you where the building is located on the Karyes map:
Here the large building with the church is coloured in red.
Another plan of Karyes with buildings in red (from the Zwerger map)
Just beside the large ruined building you can find a small house, that is still inhabited.
Front door of the small house with a Crucified Christ on the door and a rope to open it (and a text in Greek above the door).
Here you can see the large ruined building with the same church as shown above near the small house (church almost completely covered with creepers).
Church covered in creepers
Closing in on the large ruined building: everything looks oke, but when I had a look on the backside thing looked different!
Although there was a path, the backside of the building was totally overgrown. Almost all windows were smashed/removed.
The front door of the ruined building, with a cross above it. Luckily the year 1913 is still to be seen, although it won’t take long before this ornament will fall down. I believe this building must be build by Russians, not only because the year 1913, but also because of its architecture.
Inside the large building: rubbish and even some untouched windows, while the vegetation is trying to “eat” the building!
Then I tried to get a closer look at the church that belongs to the large building: the entrance to the church was already collapsed and overgrown by trees and bushes. It was to dangerous to go any futher, because the whole complex could fall down any time. I think it would not take long before this remarkeble building of Karyes will disappear forever.
The church with its dome of copper and some remnants of stainded glass.
Wim, 13/1
Ouranopolis: the room where every pilgrimage to Athos starts: the Pilgrimsbureau. At 6 o’clock in the morning we picked up our Diamonitirion (October 3th 2011).
In front of the Pilgrimsbureau: a final check before leaving for the boat at 6.30 h. Tip: do not eat breakfast in one of the cafes, you can buy food and coffee on board of the Ag. Anna.
Sunrise over Mount Athos from the Ag. Anna
Near Monoxylitis (Ag. Nicolaou): Tria Adelfia (three brothers), also the name of the best wine they produce at this small settlement (unsharp picture!)
Daybreak at Mount Athos
After leaving the boat at Dafni most pilgrims go to the left to see the shops and wait in a restaurant for the bus to leave. This picture is taken on the road, after turning to the right. This road that leads you to some (deserted) buildings. They are seldom photographed and the purpose of most of these buildings is not known to me.
Dafni from Google Earth: the road to the right is just behind the yellow marker (and the ticket/customs office) .
Dafni – old houses, not far from the only public toilet (bring your own paper!)
Dafni – new ‘supermarket”
Dafni – an old deserted building near the sea side. On the background the only church in Dafni.
Dafni – houses and the church, near the chanelled mouth of the creek
Dafni – the dried up mouth of the creek
Dafni – another unknown corner of this small town
Wim, 9/1 (next time pictures form Karyes and its konaki)
One of our resolutions for 2012 was to make a restart with our athos.weblog.nl. We couldn’t wait any longer, although most of our large archive of pictures is still missing.
There is hope that the photos will return soon, and for us this makes it worth the effort to start showing pictures of our last trip to Athos, because we have lots of new photos to show and stories to tell.
Wim, Jan 4th 2012 (photos: Vatopedi in winter conditions)
The Greek procurator’s office accused Father Efraim of striking a number of deals in exchanging several cheap plots of land belonging to Vatopedi for expensive property in Athens. Investigators believe that these deals caused the loss of at least 100 million Euros to the government. Fr Efraim himself declared his innocence and rejected the charges against him. He’ll stay under arrest until the end of the court proceedings. Because of of his heath condition the abbot will be taken to a prison hospital in Thessaloniki.
Also see 1159 of our old weblog (without photos).
This brings me to something else: I have been waiting for almost 4 months for our old weblog to return, but unfortunately the pictures are still missing. As you can see, at least all posts are back on athos.weblog.nl and the texts did return in the meanwhile, so I have hope the pictures will follow one day, That is why I decided the start publishing again on athos.weblog.nl from the 1st of January 2012. Hope to see back on our old adress.
Wim, 26/12
Athos – The movie part III 2011, with the following scenes: boat trip from Ouranopoli to Dafni with Arsanas Sografou, Docheiariou, Xenofontos and Panteleimonos, arriving in Dafni, Karyes, Iviron, Koutloumousiou, Karakalou, Kelli Timiou Stavrou (bells played by Father David), Lavra (Ossuarium) and Skiti Prodromou and back in Ouranopolis.
After climbing the mountain in a hike of 9 hours I was so tired that I forgot to shoot new videos. Brother Herman made this fine film of the top:
Wim, 9/11
One of our traditional hikes on the day before entering Athos, is the short walk to the border.
The distance is only 2,2 km and it takes about 25 minutes.
At the border you will find a closed gate. The Tsantali bus is to be seen on the other side, waiting for visitors to bring them to the vineyards of Chromitsa. Later this month I will show you how this gate will be opened…….. (also see this blog).
Visiting Zygou monastery: plastic covers your shoes, to protect the glass plates, which are placed over the mosaic-floor of the ruined katholicon.
Zygou: part of a painting is still to be seen
Zygou ground plan
Rocky beach near the Athos border
Sunset in Ouranopoli, seen from the balcony of our favorite and cheap hotel Akrogiali.
Wim, 2/11
To our Dutch readers: buy todays NRC newspaper to read this article by Lex Veldhoen, who visited Athos this spring. As you can read later in this blog, the discussion (or confusion) about how many days your Diamoniterion permits you to stay on the Holy Mountain, three of four days, goes on. We always thought that you have three nigths on Athos and that you had go back the fourth day. In Karyes we have been told that the permission is granted for four nights!
Another thing: if you want to leave for Athos at 9.45 h. here a warning: the big boat Panteleimon is out of order and the traffic is devided between small boats. You have make resevation for these small boats, otherwise you be left standing on the quay of Dafni, as we experienced op October 3th (for more information about this “travel alert” look here). If you want to avoid this trouble, take the large Agia Anna boat at 6.30 from Ouranopolis and at 15.45 (mo to fr) from Dafni. Even better is: we (8 p.) took a privat taxi boat for € 150 from Dafni back to Ouranopolis, a little more expensive, but much quicker!
small boat at Dafni – 3/10/2011
Speed taxi boat
Wim, 29/10
All these years we visited Ouranopolis, we have been looking at the island of Amalouliani: this year we took the opportunity to visit the island. According to our taxidriver Fotis the Southern Islands of Amouliani have the finest beaches in Greece. Just rent a boat for a few euro at Hotel Akrogiali and enjoy the beaches, the fine food and the excellent view of Mount Athos!
The Island has been a Metochi of Vatopediou until the first World War. Due to expropriations the island was lost to Athos (Feigl book).
Clear sea water at Amouliani
Google Earth view of Amouliani (with the small islands on the right)
Amouliani Southern Islands: beach with the boat (and small restaurant, open till the 2th of October) Photo thanks to Jitze
The 2011 pilgrims eating Greek food on the beach
The small Southern islands of Amouliani with the fine unspoiled beaches (Google Earth)
Amouliani cliffs
Commorants at Amouliani (photo Jitze)
Amouliani Islands and beaches (in the background Ouranopolis)
In former days the island was used as an exile for insubordinate and sinfull monks of Athos, nowadays it used by tourists and fishermen.
Tourists Herman and Jacques at Amouliani beach
View of Amouliani
Wim, 27/10
A new Athos map is published 2011 by Rama Editions.
New Athos map
It is for sale for 7 or 8 euros in the bookshop opposite of the tower in Ouranopolis. The owner was sceptical about the quality, because the monastery Koutloumousiou was missing, and indeed he is right.
To give you an idea of what it looks like, I made this picture (on purpose unsharp, because of copyrights).
Here some more information about the publisher:
My local bookshop in Amsterdam told me that Road Edition maps has gone broke, but the Greek bookshop owner said this publisher will continue his business and be back with new maps. We’ll wait and see.
Here some older maps that I have collected lately:
Top at 1935 meters!
map 1575
Map Mallet 1683
map 1875
map 1899 – top at 1935 meters!
From Izihazm.ru
Wim, 19/10
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