A literary tour of Patmos
Inveterate traveller Sarah Anderson again packs her trunk with books, this time bound for the Greek Islands
Many of the visitors make their way to the Cave where St John is reputed to have written the Apocalypse: “The roof, which is very irregular in height, is of solid rock likewise” (Marquis of Bute), and on up to the monastery in Xora, a building that dominates the island.
I was staying with two different groups of friends, splitting my time between two houses, both in whitewashed Xora. I was unexpectedly left alone for the second part of my visit and found myself in sole charge of a large house with myriad terraces.
At least I thought I was alone but I quickly realised that I was sharing the house with a variety of cats, nothing new as I read: ” … and passed some score of cats, most of them yellow (I afterward learned that there are forty monks and sixty cats in the monastery” - (The Isle that Is Called Patmos, William Edgar Geil, 1897).
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