Patmos convent

The first place Antonia took us to yesterday was the monastery of the Annunciation, not too far from Grikos Bay, where we are staying (although nowhere is too far from anywhere here, anyway.) It is a 'working' convent, in fact I think the nuns must work extremely hard, given the beautiful state of the gardens and the entire complex. In order to enter the church, those of us women who were wearing trousers needed to don a skirt first, but there was a supply of these provided by the convent for our use. We weren't allowed to take photos within the church itself, as seems to be the case for most Greek Orthodox churches, and while we were welcome to take pictures in the grounds, we were asked not to photograph the nuns themselves. As I have mentioned before, I am not a great fan of the inside of most of the Orthodox churches we have visited, they seem unnecessarily dark, and a little over encumbered for my tastes, but this one had some lovely paintings and embroidered screens, all the work of the nuns who live here. Antonia told us that during her 18 months preparation to be received into the Greek Orthodox Church, she came to this convent weekly for instruction and appreciated getting to know some of the nuns. Even though we didn't officially meet them, there was a lovely sense of their hospitality throughout the place . When we came out of the church, they had laid out cups of water and handmade Turkish Delight for us.Read more