The Bloggers’ Exhibition was the center of interest for both Greek and foreign visitors that had the opportunity to see it at Mount Athos Center’s building and at Philoxenia 2010, where a part of it was also presented.
It is clear from discussions that took place in GΝTO (Greek National Tourism Organisation) that the exhibition will soon be traveling abroad.

This exhibition encouraged Xavier Casanova and Ismael Manterola to visit Thessaloniki and Mount Athos Center and travel to Mount Athos from where they sent us a sample of their photographs. The impressions from this visit we present bellow with our special thanks.

Last August Xavier Casanova, a designer from Barcelona and Ismael Manterola, an art history professor from Bilbao (The Basque Country) visited the Agioritiki Estia (Mount Athos Centre) in Thessalonica. It was the previous step before leaving to Ouranopolis the port when we both had to take the ferry to Mount Athos.
Kindly guided by Anastasios Douros in Agioritiki Estia we found a convenient introduction to the atmosphere and life in Mount Athos monasteries. The large bookshop has a considerable amount of bibliography about Mount Athos, Byzantine art and orthodox religion. But one of the best places to learn something about Mount Athos was the well-organized and original photographic exhibition call “The Bloggers’ Mount Athos”. The idea was brilliant, the organizers have asked bloggers around the world for photographs they had taken in the past in Mount Athos and show them in the exhibition room they have in The Mount Athos Centre. The effect is amazing, visiting the exhibition you can admire the spectacular Mount Athos landscape, but moreover, you can see the everyday life of the monks, their prays, their work, their songs, their life together, their loneliness when they decide living alone in the mountain, etc.
Pictures are beautiful but the visitor know they are not pictures taken only by professional photographers, instead that they are people who visited somewhen Mount Athos and put their pictures and texts in their blogs in the Internet. Therefore the exhibition offers us very different point of view about the holy place, far from touristic and trivial pictures. We can feel the atmosphere caught up in each photo and make comparison with our personal experience in Mount Athos.
We both hardly recommend people who want to visit Mount Athos (specially foreigner or non orthodox people) to address first to Agioritiki Estia in order to collect information and introduce themselves in the atmosphere of monasteries and religiosity. Furthermore you will be able to see some copies of artworks you are not be able to see in monasteries, because are in hidden or forbidden places for foreigners or because the diamonitirion (permission) is for short time.