The Station: Travels to the Holy Mountain of Greece (Tauris Parke Paperbacks)

Mount Athos, the spiritual heart of Eastern Orthodox Monasticism, is perhaps the most sacred and mysterious place in Greece; it is an autonomous state where no woman can set foot and which has its own calendar and time.  In 1927, at the age of 22, Robert Byron journeyed to Athos with his friends and embarked on an adventure that would influence him for the rest of his life.  Through compelling descriptions of the monks of Athos, their daily lives, and the treasures held in their monasteries, Byron illuminates an ancient and enigmatic world long shrouded from the eyes of outsiders. Written nine years before his classic The Road to Oxiana, The Station reveals the roots of a fascination with the Byzantine world that would become refined in Byron's later writings and establish him as one of the pre-eminent writers of his generation.