monastery | Hole in the Donut Cultural Travel

Pannonhalma Monastery, a Benedictine Abbey that is currently home to 50 monks

Perhaps it was my imagination. The lavender harvest had been completed two weeks earlier, but as I trudged up the hill in temperatures hovering near the century mark, the air still seemed redolent with the herb’s rich, musky fragrance. At the top, I swiped rivulets of sweat out of my eyes and gazed…

Library of the Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma in northern Hungary

PHOTO: Library at Pannonhalma Abbey in Northern Hungary

Click on above photo to view it in large format: The library at the Benedictine Pannonhalma Abbey, founded in 996. The library holds more than 360,000 volumes, and the ceiling of its oval hall is painted with allegories of the four medieval university faculties: Law, Theology, Medicine and the Arts.

Wine casks in the cellars beneath the Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma, in northern Hungary

PHOTO: Wine Cellars at Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma, Hungary

Click on above photo to view it in large format: Wine casks in the cellars beneath the Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma, in northern Hungary.

Looking through fresco-painted colonnades of the Nativity of the Virgin Church to arches set upon stone columns that form the loggias of the monastic apartments at Rila Monastery

Rila Monastery, Symbol of Bulgarian National Identity

During my visit to Sofia I heard repeatedly that the nearby UNESCO World Heritage Site of Rila Monastery was a must see. Based upon this endorsement my expectations were high, but my first view of the monastery’s tall stone walls left me uninspired; it appeared to be nothing more than a simple stone…