Day 1, 06Oct, USA to Thessalonica - Greece
Depart on your overnight flights to Greece. In-flight meals and beverage services are provided at overatlantic flight. Get some rest on the flight.

Day 2, 07Oct, Thessalonica
Arrive Thessalonica afternoon. Visit Zeytinlik, The Serbian Military cemetery Macedonian Front in First World War. Massive battlement Byzantine wall to the citadel for panoramic view of the city, St. George Church, an ancient Roman monument (Church and Basilica St. Demetrius): famous Via Egnatia. Drive to Ouranopolis Hotel Theoxenia dinner and overnight.

Day 3, 08Oct, Ouranopolis – Mt. Athos
Hotel Theoxenia breakfast - Transfer with small boat from the town of Ouranopolis to the port of Jovanica, transfer by minibus to Monastery Chilandari. Agia Oros is the oldest monastic republic still in existence, a state-within-a state and a living museum and spiritual center of Christian Orthodox World. Holy Mountain or Mount Athos is simly one of the most beautiful places on earth, more like a fantasy than what we know of as reality. The landscape is stunning and wild, with small green valleys and gorges, well wooded peaks interspersed with precipitous ravines and an inaccessible coastline. Small streams of crystal clear water run free under the deep shade of the chestnut trees. Here and there in this wilderness are the fortified walls of the monasteries, with small vegetable plots around them, encircled by a silver-green sea of the olive groves. Today there are 20 monasteries of which 17 are Greek, one Russian, one Serbian, and one Bulgarian. Evening services, dinner and overnight at Dormitery of Monastery Chilandari.

Day 4, 09Oct, Mt. Athos – Monastery Chilandary
Monastery Chilandari-early morning liturgy , breakfast, The monastery of Chilandar is first mentioned in a Greek manuscript of 1015. It was certainly established a good hundred years earlier, a certain George Chelandarios (Boatman), was probably the founder of the monastery. Chilandar was renewed by the Grand Zhupan of Serbia Stefan Nemanja (the monk Simeon) and his son Rastko (St. Sava. In the Middle Ages Chilandar was the true representative of legitimate Serbian nationality on foreign soil - the territory of Byzantium, in the Turkish period all Serbs looked to it as indestructible evidence of their former free life, their state, their Church and culture.Dinner and overnight at Dormitery of Monastery Chiladari.

Day 5, 10Oct, Mt. Athos – Monastery Zographou
Morning liturgy at Monastery Chiladary, breakfast – transfer to the Monastery of Zographou / The Saint George the Zograf / Bulgarian Monastery is located at the south-west side of the peninsula. It was built during the tenth century by the monks Moses, Aaron and John from Ohrid. It is dedicated to Saint George. In the Late Byzantine period, the monastery was destroyed by Catalan pirates and rebuilt with the support of the Paleologan dynasty, as well as that of rulers of eastern Europe. The monks are all Bulgarian, since 1845, and the services are performed in Bulgarian. The collection in the monastery library preserves a significant presentation of Bulgarian culture. It contains manuscripts from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, including copies of the passionals of St. Naum of Ohrid and St. Petka. The monastery also has two miraculous icons of St. George as well as icons of the Virgin of Akathistos and the Virgin Epakouousa. Dinner and overnight in Monastery.

Day 6, 11Oct, Mt Athos - Monastery Esphigmenou
Morning liturgy at Monastery Zograf, breakfast at transfer to Esphigmenou Monastery stands on the north-east side of the peninsula in a precipitous location by the sea. Probably established in its present form in the tenth or eleventh century. According to Athonite tradition, it was originally founded by the Byzantine Empress Pulcheria in the fifth century. The monastery library contains 372 manuscripts and over 8,000 printed books. Among the treasures held by the monastery, Esphigmenou's most treasured possession is the icon of Our Lady Eleousa. In addition to relics of saints, the monastery possesses the so-called cross of Pulcheria and a large part of the tent used by Napoleon. The tent remnant is used as the curtain for the sanctuary door in the katholikon on the feast day of the Holy Ascension. The fathers of Esphigmenou struggle against the heresy of ecumenism which states that there is no one church which possesses the Truth. The Orthodox Church believes, as the monks of Esphigmenou Monastery believe, that the Church has never lost the Truth or its unity. The Nicene Creed states the Orthodox Church’s dogmatic basis, “I believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I believe in one baptism.” Ecumenism rejects these fundamental truths of the church by teaching that there are many churches and many baptisms.

Day 7, 12Oct, Ouranopolis-Vergina-Meteora
Hotel Theoxenia breakfast-Drive to Vergina King Philip’s (Alexader’s father) tomb, one of the most outstanding finds in all Greece. Drive to Meteora Monastery , Roussanou Monastery from 15th century and the Holy Monastery of Saint Stephen (Agios Stefanos, in Greek), separated from the rest of the mountain by a ravine, straddled now by an 8 meter long bridge. Hotel Edelweiss dinner & overnight.

Day 8, 13Oct, Meteora-Delphi-Piraieus-Athens
Hotel Edeweiss ,breakfast: Varlaam Monastery - an important collection of relics, intricately carved wooden crosses, icons, embroidered epitaphoi and many other ecliastical treasures. Megalo Meteoro or Metamorphisis, the first church of the Transfiguration is the best known of the Monasteries and is built upon the highest rock. The Serbian Emporor Symeon Uros gave the monastry all his wealth and became a monk it became the richest and most powerful of all the monasteries and contains some of the most beautiful wall paintings and post Byzantine Mural art. Drive to Delphi, the most popular archaeological site in Greece. Delphi in ancient times was considered the center of the known world, the place where heaven and earth met. This was the place on earth where man was closest to God. Dinner and overnight at Hotel (Glifadi).

Day 9, 14Oct, Athens to USA
Hotel in Glifadi breakfast - transfer to the airport for fligt to USA.

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