Toplou Monastery

The Toplou Monastery (Moni Toplou, lit. 'Monastery of the Place of the Cannon') is a Greek Orthodox monastery located in a semi-arid area of the Lasithi region, on the eastern part of the island of Crete, Greece. Situated approximately 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) north of Palekastro and 85 km (53 mi) east of Agios Nikolaos, it is at the base of the Itanos promontory from which Cape Sidero, the easternmost point of Crete, projects to the northeast. The nearest settlements are Sitia to the west and Palaikastro to the southeast; otherwise, the entire promontory is uninhabited except for the modern military reservation at the tip of the cape. Believed to have been founded in the 14th century, the monastery was placed on the upper southern slope of Moni Toplou Gorge (named after it), a tortuous, geologically and ecologically interesting ravine exiting into the Sea of Crete through a boulder-strewn declivity called "the Abbott's Beach" (he paralia tou hegoumenou). Today the ravine is one of the reasons why the whole area has been incorporated into Sitia Geopark. The original placement was made near a copious spring draining into the gorge, now the site of a windmill-driven pump raising water out of the water table below. The monastery was founded at a time when the classical city of Itanus, former owners of the promontory, was long gone, abandoned centuries

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