Kaisariani Monastery

Kaisariani Monastery clings to the wooded north slope of Mount Hymettus, about half an hour southeast of central Athens. Founded in the 11th century on the remains of a late antique sanctuary of Aphrodite or Demeter, Kaisariani was an Orthodox men's monastery with a large library and scriptorium until its dissolution in 1821. The complex groups itself around a square cross-in-square katholikon, a refectory, an old bathhouse and a later chapel of Saint Anthony. The frescoes inside the katholikon date from the late 17th century and follow an unusually folk-style hand. The site has been run as an archaeological and historical museum since 1843. Today people come for the walk up, for picnics in the surrounding forest and for the spring whose water was already considered medicinal in antiquity.