Beyond Kastráki the road threads between the huge monoliths of Áyion Pnévma and Doúpiani, the latter adorned with ruined Pandokrátor, among the earliest monastic settlements. To avoid road walking, follow instead the street – later a track – that starts from the northwest corner of Kastráki's village square. This passes right under the cave-shrine of Áyios Yeóryios Mandhilás, low on the flank of Áyion Pnévma, its cavity marked by what looks like a lot of colourful washing hung up to dry. These are votive kerchiefs or mandhília (hence the saint's epithet), changed annually on April 23 by a couple of hundred daredevil youths, both local and from wider Greece, who climb or abseil up and retrieve last year's kerchiefs for luck. The rite is televised nationally, sometimes with a grisly conclusion; the final overhang is exceptionally challenging, and many have quite literally fallen from the saint's favour.

The track deposits you, after twenty minutes, at the base of the stair-path up to diminutive Ayíou Nikoláou Anapavsá (Mon– Thurs, Sat & Sun 9am–3.30pm; closes 3pm Nov– March). This has superb frescoes from 1527 by the Cretan painter Theophanes in its tiny katholikón (main chapel), which unusually faces almost due north rather than east because of the rock's shape. On the east wall of the naos over the window, a shocked disciple somersaults backwards at the Transfiguration, an ingenious use of the cramped space; in the Denial of Peter on the left door-arch as you enter the naos, the protagonists warm their hands over a fire in the pre-dawn, while above the ierón window is the Sacrifice of Abraham. On the west wall of the narthex, a stylite (column-dwelling hermit) perches in a wilderness populated by wild beasts, while an acolyte prepares to hoist up a supply basket – as would have been done just outside when the fresco was new. Other Desert Fathers rush to attend the funeral of St Ephraim the Syrian: some riding beasts, others – crippled or infirm – on litters or piggyback on the strong. There are also post-Theophanes, naïve images, such as Adam naming the animals (including a mythical basilisk), low on the west wall below Ephraim's funeral.