July 20 Size isn’t everything!

 A breakfast nook overlooking the miniature Church of Hagia Dynamis (Holy Power). This unassuming wee dinky church has an impressive history. Although it is said to have been built in the C16, some parts of the church are believed to have been built in the C11. Layer upon layer of history. Going yet deeper in time, inscriptions found on the grounds suggest the little church was built on the site of an ancient temple dedicated to Heracles, the Greek demigod famous for his strength. Power indeed.

Church of Hagia Dynamis crouched under the huge Electra Metropolis Hotel

At some stage, not sure when, a 15m tunnel was discovered under the church connecting it to a large cave system that some say reaches to the Acropolis and further to the Kaisariani Monastery. 

A quirky bit of history not dissimilar to that of the Parthenon which was used by the Turks as a gunpowder store in the C17th, during the War of Independence in the early 1800. Greek munitions experts were forced to make bullets for the Turks in the church. But the clever Greeks managed to also make large numbers of them for the Greek revolutionaries, smuggling them out through the garbage at night.

We watched the people visit the wee church on their way to work to be blessed

The church bell sits outside beside the church

Church of Hagia Dynamis so tiny yet so beautiful

Today the church sits quietly between the legs of the huge Electra Metropolis Hotel; there’s a whole story in that which I won’t go into.  It remains a humble, holy and quite special little church, a living testament to resistance. Holy Power indeed - ‘might’ does not always win out!  You’ve just got to love Athens!

Still indulging our need for food with a kick and lots of flavour, we nexted dined at a Korean restaurant, Dosirak.