Travel just over 100 kilometres south eastwards from Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki, and you will reach a rocky outcrop jutting into the sea. Populated by chestnut trees and long pines, this peninsula hides its inhabitants within a dry brush of Mediterranean forest, climbing high to eventually reveal clearings dotted with towering brick structures miraculously attached to the hillside. More than just dwellings, these buildings are the site of a Christian Orthodoxy that dates back over a thousand years; places of ritual worship and song where women and children are strictly forbidden; the monasteries of the Byzantine era, largely unchanged and now populated by 1400 monks. It is both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a holy space. This is Mount Athos.