Last night, I was supposed to meet Joshua Robinson, another American student here doing Greek for the summer (albeit at a different point along the timeline), at Petraki Monastery. The way he explained to me how to get there, it sounded pretty easy and like there was no way I could miss it; looking at it on the map, once again, it seemed like it would be tough to not know exactly where it was once you were within a block or so of the place.
You already know where this is going, don’t you?
I walked around that neighborhood for a good 40 minutes without ever seeing anything that looked remotely like what I was looking for. I ultimately walked back to the metro station, checked the map there one more time, walked back, tried going into a particular building thinking maybe that was the monastery only to be told by a very confused-looking resident that it was actually around the corner.
Arriving at Petraki, it was clear that it was just far back enough from the street for me to not be able to see it in the light I had, and that’s why I hadn’t seen it before, and I also realized I had walked past the monastery at least two or three times — it was just dark enough that I couldn’t tell. It was well past when Joshua and I were supposed to meet by that point, of course, and he was nowhere to be found.
So, lest this happen to you, here is exactly how you get there:
- Take the metro to Evangelismos Station.
- Exit the station on the Evangelismos Hospital side.
- Proceed in the direction the stairs spit you out (that would be east) along Vas. Sofias Street.
- Go left on Ioanni Gennadiou.
- The monastery will be on your right after about two minutes, between Iasiou and Evzonon. For purposes of clarity, this means you do not have to go down any side streets, despite how it looks on the map. Just stay on Gennadiou. If you reach the Gennadius Library, you’ve gone a block too far.
(Just so you know, it’s that last step where I got messed up.)
Leitourgeia kai Qurbana: Contra den Zeitgeist 