St Nicholas Monastery & Cape Lefkada

The St Nicholas Monastery stands in a place where the vegetation is different from the rest of the island.
A mix of high mountains and windblown hills.

To get there, the most beautiful road is the new one that climbs southwards from Vassiliki.
Once past the junction of Porto Katsiki, the landscape becomes bucolic, splendid and wild.

Goat herds alternate with shrubs and olive groves.
The road becomes so narrow that two cars would struggle to pass.
A ribbon of black asphalt winds through the bush.
The landscape changes so much depending on the season, we visited it in all conditions, I will never forget one of the first times, it was the middle of Winter.
We arrived at the Monastery and found the gate closed with a sign hanging.
“what does it say?” asked Alina who got off Gypsy to read better, or to try to understand what was written there since Greek for us is still… Greek.
‘I think we’ll have to wait half an hour. There’s Mass at this time. “said Ali
“a ok…let’s go back to that clearing we passed, the dogs will like it.”

Before the mound there is a piece of land with a single tree in the middle and a lot of grass all around.
There was only a watering trough for the goats then nothing but mown grass.
The dogs, as expected, liked it very much and launched into wild runs and chases, pretending to fight and then rolling around on the grass.
After half an hour of play they were exhausted.
“The nuns certainly chose the place well to make a Monastery,” said Alina.
In fact there is great peace up there, besides the view, which is something incredible…”.

It is said to be dedicated to St Nicholas because the 80 intrepid sailors from Bari who removed his bones from the Ottoman invaders stopped over in Lefkada.
As irrefutable proof of this, there is a relic with a bone fragment in the ancient church.

It was cold that day. The wind increased in intensity, moving the branches and causing the last leaves to fall, which in a reckless embrace of life had tightened their grip, dying there where they were born.
The dogs stopped and looked towards a fixed point in the bush.
The wind in the bushes sang, a young voice like that of a maiden.
Bibi began to bark and I called him back.
Then in the distance a shape hovered in the air.
Like a cloak, it rose into the sky to fall back a little further, hidden from view.
Before we realised it was the remains of a shearing we were a little surprised.
“Sometimes this island is strange,” I said.
“Yes, I don’t know if strange is the word, but yes, something is,’ Alina answered.

We left the clearing and headed back towards the monastery.
This time the gate was open.

The place is beautiful: there is a tiny Church, a small access corridor with a little shop on the right and a wooden bench on the left.

The view is breathtaking.

Further on is the new building with the nuns’ rooms.
We entered the shop and a rather fleshy nun greeted us with a beaming smile.

The inside of the shop resembles a old-time bodega.
There is honey, medicinal herbs, handmade creams and candles, lots of icons and several crucifixes.
There you can buy cheese, fresh eggs, oil, wine and liqueurs made by them.
Alina chose several products that turned out to be very useful and gave me a crucifix that the nun put around my neck, blessing it and saying “you must become Orthodox!”
Then she gave us a small bottle of bitter to dilute in water a few drops at a time.

We left the monastery with that usual feeling of bliss that pervades us whenever we come here.

“How beautiful it is here,” I said.
“yes… what do you say we stay the night?”
We stayed there.

Ali prepared a delicious dinner using Gypsy’s alcohol stove that was always ready for the occasion, we drank some of that bitter mixed with water and the starry mantle opened before our eyes.
The peace that reigns in that place is surreal.

We remained gazing at the stars, drinking that bitter in small sips and listening only to the sound of nature, the waves in the distance crashing on the cliff, the wind in the branches of the trees and the wintry scents permeating the air.
The night went quiet and still.
Gypsy was a white dot on the jagged coastline of Cape Lefkada.

The monastery turned off all external lights at night and only the lighthouse with its monotonous flashing signalled the tip of the island, marked on every nautical chart and famous since ancient times.
In the morning I was awoken by light footsteps.
A black, hooded figure was walking down the driveway and had arrived at Gypsy’s height.
The view was not optimal as the windows were fogged up, the stove had worked well during the night and we had not felt cold.
The figure grew closer and closer, massive and determined.
Until I saw her tying an envelope to a rear-view mirror.

Bibi slept on the seat closest to the mirror but gave no sign of life.
Then the figure as it had come was leaving.
“congratulations Bibi” I said to myself.
“if Tarallo were still here at this hour he would have woken up even the deaf nun who sleeps with her earplugs two floors below.”
Then driven by curiosity I opened the sliding window and stuck my head out to take a better look at the envelope.
Nothing much, an anonymous white envelope hanging from the mirror. Only it had a peculiarity: it smoked.
I got out of the warmth of the sleeping bag against my will. I opened the tailgate and no one, neither Alina nor the dogs moved. Bibi even snored.
“what a guard dogs oh… fantastic…”
I slipped on my shoes without tying them and stepped out into the cold night.
I trod on a puddle and heard the dry sound of breaking ice.
We had gone below zero.
I walked around the bush and approached the steaming envelope.

Inside was a paper wrapper with eggs and a piece of cheese.
I got back into the car and the sound of the door closing finally woke up the merry company.
“What are you doing… it’s still dark,” Alina protested.
“technically it’s dawning, and since it’s the middle of winter, dawn means 8:30 in the morning…”
“emmè?” said Alina using a Bari intercalary meaning And so what?
“and so I don’t know about you but I’m hungry.”
“you’re always hungry…. ”
“eh…anyway we had visitors last night…”
“Oh yeah? Who?”
“I don’t know, he was big and fat and hooded in black.”
“mmm did you see him or dream about him?”
“I saw him, he even left us a souvenir…”
“which was?”
“boiled eggs and cheese.”
Alina at this point raised her dishevelled head doing that typical funny look of hers that characterises every morning when her brain is at 3%… that is every morning in the pre-coffee phase.
“Really?” she asked.
She was beautiful… her platinum blonde hair all tousled, her eyes bright green and her cheeks with a sprinkling of freckles.
“yes apparently there is someone who cares about our breakfast.”
Ali walked over to the envelope, moved the edges with her hand and looked inside.
“mm must have been the nuns”
“a yeah?” I chanted
“mmm are you gonna make us coffee?”
“oook”

That morning we had breakfast of boiled eggs, cheese, dry bread and coffee. A real Greek breakfast.
The day turned out to be cold and bright. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the dogs were stretching their paws in the car park sniffing who knows what among the blades of grass, the scents of that part of the island are unique, in Spring they reach their peak with the blossoming of heather and white thyme.

In Winter, the smell of wet earth, mown grass, the perennial saltiness and the ever-present smell of sheds prevailed.

These aromas whirled through the air carried by the wind and invaded the nostrils, awakening dormant senses.

We spent the whole day walking among those deserted places.

During the season, the monastery is much visited, especially by Balkans, but out of season it feels like being on another planet.
It was very cold.
“What kind of wind is this? Mistral?”
“Yes, full blast,” I answered.
“Well, at least if there’s a mistral it means it won’t rain”.
What a sailor girl I was getting…
We went to the lighthouse to admire the sunset, which comes very early in winter.

There was no one there either, only the immensity of nothingness where the Gods play.

Apollo was running fast pulling the Sun in his chariot. A yellow trail to the west ended as it plunged into the dark blue of Neptune.
The clash of the Titans was a silent explosion of colour that tinted the sky in shades of pink and pastel as if the palette of those who painted Eden had been overturned.