HOME




Monday, June 16, 2025                                                                                                  

Sunrise on the mountain was awesome.  

One of the local dogs joined me about halfway along my trek down to the beach, hung around while I waited for my shot, and walked back to the hotel with me after.  Later in the day, he found us in the village on the mountain. 



I really liked the rocks in the foreground, and the sailboat, but think I will try again tomorrow and see if I can get the actual sun disc rising over the water.  Today I got great color, but didn’t wait for the actual sunrise.

Ioanna took us on a tour of the local supermarket after breakfast (which included multiple cakes and cookies, and the marvelous Greek doughnuts called loukoumades).  I know a supermarket tour sounds weird, but it was great.  We learned about which is the best chocolate, and where to find really cost-effective spices.  You can buy saffron and cinnamon bark for a fraction of what it costs in the states.

Then we crossed the bridge into the old town of Monemvasia.  There is a lower town, where people still live and where you can find restaurants and hotels, and the upper town that is just in ruins.  There is no water on the rock and people depended on cisterns to catch rainwater.  Today water is piped from the mainland. 


People first came to live here during one of the plagues.  By isolating themselves they escaped the sickness and decided that the rock was easy to defend and that they preferred to remain.  They were later conquered by the Venetians in a 3-year siege.  Because the island was both easily defensible, and had good access to the sea, it was appealing to the seafaring Venetians.  It changed hands multiple times over the years, later becoming part of the new democracy of Greece. 

Building are built very close together and even on top of each other, but it is lovely, as the following pictures show.


Much of the architecture is Venetian.  All of the buildings would originally have been covered with stucco, as the one in the top right corner.  Without the stucco, plants take hold and can damage the integrity of the stone.



This church sits at the end of a plaza used in older times by the military.  Cannonballs are still scattered across the stones.

This is the most favored place in Greece to be married, and the wait list is years long.  If they cannot be married here, many people come here just to take pictures in their wedding attire.

Large clay storage jars stood in several places around town, some complete, and some just the lower half.  Complete original jars are quite valuable, and some people cement them down to keep them from being stolen.  Many houses have these jugs in the basements.  Some are too big to fit into the doorways and the houses were actually build around them in the older times.


Lyle stayed at one of the cafes while Julie and I hiked up to the church near the top.  About half of the path was stairs, then it changed to stones embedded in the soil.  It was fairly steep and some of the stones were so worn as to be polished smooth.  We tried not to step on the “shiny” rocks either going up or coming down.  Here is a picture about halfway up, looking down on the lower town and the beautiful Adriatic Sea.


The church itself was fairly simple inside, but the exterior of the dome was intriguing.  I counted 16 arched windows in the dome.


There was at one time an Upper Town also, but it is in ruins now.  You can see the ruined walls through the arched wall of the portico of the church.


While we were there, two priests who we had seen earlier in town walked into the church and began singing.  It was very beautiful and only about 60-90 seconds long.  After that they crossed themselves and walked out, disappearing around the corner.

Before we went down, I took a picture of this ancient olive tree.  Ioanna said that you could tell that it was really old because of all the stumps of branches in the center where it had been pruned many times over many years.

At this point we headed down, thinking that we had reached the top.  We should have known better, because those priests went somewhere, right?  And later we learned from Brannon and Katie that there were better ruins a little farther up.  And we definitely would have gone.

But we headed down, drifting left to take a quick look at the lighthouse.  The lighthouse itself wasn’t that picturesque but the sea beside it was.




Before dinner tonight, six of us took part in a cooking demonstration.  We made chick pea patties, tzatziki sauce, moussaka, and baklava.  Then we had a buffet dinner together featuring the things we had made, as well as multiple other dishes.   


This is the first time that I’ve had fresh warm baklava and it is a game changer!  I really liked it before, but this was amazing.  I have to try it at home.

Since this is our last night here, I took a sunset picture of the rock.  I had seen a postcard taken with these rocks in the foreground, and wanted to see if I could find it.  It is the same place that I took my sunrise pic this morning.


Before we left Monemvasia the next morning, I dragged myself up at 5 am again and walked back down to the waterfront for another sunrise picture.  I had the perfect shot lined up:  a row of sailboats silhouetted against the orange sky with the mountain at the right.  Then a yacht motored away from the dock and stalled right in the middle of the scene.  I was walking off when I looked back over my shoulder and the sun was peeking over the water.  I had shifted positions and now I wouldn’t get the mountain, but the yacht was also out of the picture and the sailboats were still in.



Ready for Mystras?