Charming Patmos
July 6, 2019, Patmos, Greece — Octopi awaiting the pot on Patmos, where we’d gone to visit the Monastery of Saint John.
Patmos is 8 ferry hours from Athens, but we didn’t take the ferry. It has only 3 towns, and all 3,000 people on the island know what’s going on with everyone else. Which drives the local kids crazy, says our guide. That’s our ship...
Some 70-75% of the Patmos economy is based on tourism. We were there to visit the 1088 AD Monastery of the Apokalypsis (Apocalypse), a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was in a cave under the monastery, the story has it, that Saint John received the ‘revelations’ and wrote them down.
The small church (no photos allowed inside) is filled with icons and Bible stories. The Russian-looking icons are just that — gifts from Russians. The museum contains several extraordinary and priceless manuscripts, both illuminated and non-.
We couldn’t take photos inside the cave either, where the ‘revelations’ occurred, but here’s a souvenir tchotchke of the event:
The natural stone houses date from the 16th-18th centuries. An earthquake in 1956 did significant damage, so much is rebuilt. The monastery survived.
There were a few charming restaurants hanging over the edge overlooking the sea, and little shops like this one, under the monastery...
Another souvenir: What exactly is going on here?
Mykonos doesn’t have a monopoly on windmills...
A hot hair day atop the Monastery museum...
Sunset over Patmos...
No other tourists but us...it was idyllic. Next day: Minoans on Crete. #
