Patmos, Greece - August 7, 2014

Patmos island

Monastery

monastery fresco

Today is the last port for this cruise. We are back in Greece on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. This is a small island sprinkled with tiny chapels which are neat to see from the ship and as we drive around the island. Today’s tour is a nice change from the ruins. The ruins are great, but too much of a good thing…

Patmos’ main attraction is the fact that St. John the evangelist lived here. Although we board buses once again, the ride is very short.

We first visit the Cave of St. John – the Cave of the Apocalypse. This relatively small cave, now also has a small chapel. This cave is NOTHING like the stalactite filled, touristy one we visited a few days ago. This is where St. John is said to have received and wrote the Book of Revelation from a vision of Jesus.

Next we visit Chora village and the Monastery of St. John. The small chapel here is covered with frescoes – there are also frescoes at the entrance to the chapel typical of other Eastern Orthodox churches we’ve seen. We also visit the monastery’s treasury. A small, but interesting museum. Some of the interesting items are many manuscripts, some manuscripts from the 11^th century. There are also chunks of the frescoes that fell off during a earthquake – very cool, the chunks of frescoes, not the earthquake.

one of many tiny chapels

Chris hotel

After the monastery, we took a walk through the winding streets of Chora village. There are houses here from the 16th century. We stop at a 300 year-old house which a 90 year old woman still lives in.

Lastly we stop at a taverna, where we have some Greek mezes while we watch some Greek folk dancing. Thankfully we were able to avoid being part of the ‘show’. Some people LOVE audience participation and they really looked to be enjoying themselves – we are NOT those people.

Chora village

outside monastery

The tour description outlines this tour as moderate to strenuous with 15 minutes of walking up hill. Although I often find the descriptions to be a bit inaccurate, this one was bang on – wow. I can’t say I saw any fat Greeks on these streets.

After the tour we wandered around Skala, (we find the Chris hotel) the port town a bit before returning to the ship to pack. I think anticipating the end of a vacation is worse than the actual end. Of course we’ve had a wonderful time, but I’ll be happy to be home. I guess being home isn’t so bad when I don’t have to go to work on Monday.

It is an EARLY night considering we have the alarm set for 4:45 AM!!!