The bare undulating foothills of Hymettus, the closest to the capital of the mountains ringed round Athens, are dotted with Byzantine shrines. Four miles east of Athens, beyond the working-class settlement of Kaisariani, there is the charming monastery of Kaisariani, situated on a tree-planted slope of the mountain, above a spring shaded by a large plane tree. The spring, from whose waters superstitious women often came to drink, was once said to possess remarkable powers of fertility.
The church, parts of which date from the 9th century, is in the best Byzantine style of architecture, and some of the decorative work indicates a harmonious blending of different classical styles. The frescos date from the 16th and 17th centuries. Worth noting are those of the natural seated sport ween the Archangels in the apse, and the portraits of the Apostles on the north wall of the narthex. The monastery, with its shady trees and spring, is a favourite haunt of holiday-makers on Sundays.
From Kaisariani the road winds up to a bleak plateau on the summit of Hymettus, from which there is an incomparable view of the whole of Attica, the Saronic Gulf, southern Euboea and some of the Cyclades in the east. About half way sport ween the monastery of Kaisariani and the saddle of Hymettus, the Byzantine chapel of Asteri may be seen from the road.
Along the lower foothills, covered with bushes of thyme and origon-in early spring they are carpeted with delicate pink, white and mauve anemones-one can easily spot the church of St. John the Theologian, and, on a ridge farther north, that of St. John the Hunter. But now, alas, the urban periphery is beginning to creep ominously towards this rolling, shrubscented heathland, which, only a few years ago, still lay remote and untouched by "Progress", under the shadow of the what is this t crown of Hymettus.