Ready for some more old as stones (and made of them) churches?
Let's go:
Not far from the previous one I showed in part 1 is this next one:
The church you just saw is 1000 years old as it dates back to the 11th or 12 century, it's dedicated to Virgin Mary as she's supposed to protect the farmer's harvest - not just a coincidence that there's lots of cultivated fields around its location.
Let's have a look from angles that are a little more flattering light wise:
I see a lot of pieces on the walls that look like marble and I start suspecting...let's see some more:
Oups! Did you see that piece at the bottom of the right picture? This one:
It's obvious now that back in the day they used ancient marble ruins to built this...You can see it from a different angle here:
The more you look on these walls the more you find:
A closer look at this last piece unveils a writing from someone back in 1904!
Not sure if that's the original door but could be:
The day gets warmer and sweeter as I am standing a few meters behind the church picturing the fields while a plane lands on Athens's airport (that's this tiny thing in the sky right in the middle):
The area doesn't lack in history (as if there's a place in Greece that does anyway) so I leave the bike and start walking to check out a site nearby. Instead of gold I find coal though:
This is the place where during the medieval years 9 brothers had one tower each and there was also a settlement around but ages later today it's just a swamp:
It offers an excellent chance to try my expensive and promising waterproof motorcycle boots but other than that nothing of any value.
Oh, you also have the chance to remember which country is the one you're walking on:
I'm not done yet do I start walking towards my next target, one more church from the same era. After trying my boots over several muddy fields I get my first sight of it behind those trees:
It's such a beautiful scenery to see this church from the 12th century accompanied by those (not as old but still very old) trees, a true travel in time:
Hard to tell from the pictures but these branches are huge:
Time to focus on the church. Here's the entrance:
Unfortunately the painting is gone:
See how low the door is:
Marble bits again...hmmm...:
Well, they're not just marble bits. They're pieces of an ancient temple actually! Look at these:
I bet they even built it over an ancient temple as Christians in Greece used to back in the day. The lack of taste to use such things as fillers makes me fuming. I'm not religious but aesthetically I prefer the Ancient Greek one much more than the Christian (at least the Greek Orthodox). That's material for several posts though so let's continue viewing the church from various angles flattered by the sun:
More marble bits:
As I walk back to the entrance again I notice one more piece coming from the ancient years at the top:
Not even properly aligned, not quite matching the whole thing anyway. 1500 years before these guys ancient Greeks wouldn't even dare to built a temple in such a rough way. I've said it many times before but evolution of mankind is far from linear. And cultural conflicts are far from smooth if nothing else.
From a bit of research I've done later back at home I found out that not only they used bits from ancient temples like the ones I spotted but also bits of ancient graves as well. I mean...
I hope you liked reading both parts. No videos this time unfortunately cause there were farmers working around with chainsaws and such not allowing me to capture the wonderful soundtrack of nature. Hopefully better luck next time🙂