Four magical seasons, Twelve wonderful months, Three hundred sixty and five discretely different days!
The annual life cycle in the Mount Athos Area (eastern Halkidiki) is simply dreamlike. Why is that so? Simply because nature creates daily a colourful drawing pad consisting of a vast number of chromatic shades produced by and intermixed with varying weather conditions all of which, interacting in harmony, lay out unique sightings and ways of life!
White Winters
Each year, white veils are the natural ornaments that place themselves atop Halkidiki’s three mountains. Holomontas, Aristotle Mountain, Athos. Each mountain top gazes out over the next, signaling one to the other as if they are eager to spill out the day’s gossip.
In between, red tiled home roofs and villages surrounded by thick forests which on their part attempt to hide without success the endless mountain paths and routes. Christmas traditions, Lent Carnival and festive Sundays, soothen the cold of winter scenery and turn each consecutive day into a bright, lovable, sentimental story!
Green Springtime
Next in line the green that comforts vision, strengthens the shadow of the trees, pours its own paint to the colour of sea. Shades galore, smells that find the way into every human cell and revitalize the senses. The songs of the birds, permanent inhabitants of the mountains, prevail all over them and over the wild flower beds that cover the newly born nature on their slopes. Vibrant new life, in speechless enchantment. Small stone and white painted country churches scattered around as Holy marks, while the Easter prayers of nearby Holy Athos meat in divine harmony with the bird sounds of the fertile fields.
The azure summers
After a smooth, hard to discern transition from spring, its summertime! The Sky and the sea mingle together and celebrate their daily dominance. Children playing vibrantly along the sea shores, watermelon and peach aromas, stowaways on the warm wind, divers happy with their catch brought on shore, row boats strolling amidst the sandy isles, loud pop music at the beach bars, night feasts and heady, soul soothing music at the solitary little gulfs, noon -ouzo type – local spirits at the fish taverns , all of these together and separately if you please, compose the Aegean Mediterranean uniqueness. And the ones who piled up as much of these experiences as they can handle, surrender to the arms of Orpheus for their summer siesta under the hot sun that passes through the body and the senses.
Golden Autumn
Finally Autumn time! Immeasurable colours in the forests and on the fertile plains. Hazy mornings, bright noon times, velvet afternoons, sweet nights. Impudent shades of gold, yellow, orange, red and green come in congress with the azure mediterranean sky and they join the dark blue of the Aegean. The strong smell of the equally strong ‘’tsipouro’’, charcoal baked mushrooms, spicy baked meat, local traditional pasta, and ‘louvidia” accompany the feasts of “tsipouro” fermenting. The numerous forest paths and routes wear step by step their sentimental garments of years past, of history and of the promise for the years to come.
