Orthodox Church, UFOs, NATO, and Develis Cave, Mount Penteli, Athens (Greece 2019-03)

Dear Readers,
Happy and prosperous New Year to you all! Thank you for your continued support. This is Part 3 of the summer in Greece series.

Mount Penteli is a triangle-shaped mountain north of Athens. When I was growing up in the 1950s, Penteli was out in the country. Ater a winter storm, Athenians drove to Penteli to play in the snow. Now the urban sprawl of the city goes up to and partly up the flanks. The summit is still crowned by the remains of radar antennas, but I do not know if they are used or manned any more.

The mountain has a long history. In antiquity, miners quarried the clean and pure marble for some of the monumental architecture that you still see around town. Most of the marble in the Parthenon came from Penteli. Scars of ancient and contemporary quarries can be seen from a distance. Followers of Pan (the guy who looked like a goat and played pan pipes) and the nymphs (mythological minor deities (ladies) who lived in the woods and did not wear sufficient clothing) worshipped at the cave.

My nephew told me about a cave to visit. It had been once occupied by an infamous bandit, one Develis (whose real name was Christos Natsios). The cave is also known in paranormal circles for unusual energy, strange lights, and UFOs. Also, some military group, possibly associated with  NATO, did some construction in the cave in the 1977-1983 period. Guards prevented civilians from visiting the site. They dug tunnels to nowhere. In 1983, the workers abandoned the effort and slinked away mysteriously. Well, this was too good to miss, so on a blazing hot August day, we drove up the mountain roads to a gravel road a short distance from the cave. A quick walk took us to the opening. I was surprised to see a Byzantine church under the rock overhang. As of August of 2019, the church was locked and we were unable to see inside. One of the best descriptions of the church interior is from a blog, Churches in Greece (click the link).

The interior of Develis' cave was surprisingly cool and damp, and water dripped from the ceiling. But we did not see lights or UFOs, and neither of us detected energy. Oh well, it was fun.

The black and white photograph is an Acros 100 frame from my Leica M2 camera with 35mm ƒ/2.0 Summicron-M lens.