Toplou Monastery

Toplou stands isolated in bare hills near Crete's eastern tip, built like a fortress with high blank walls, a single gate and a tower, which it needed: the name comes from the Turkish for cannonball, after the artillery the monks kept for defence. Founded in the fourteenth century and rebuilt after earthquakes, it encloses a courtyard with a fifteenth-century church and cells, and its treasure is the icon Lord, Thou Art Great, painted by Ioannis Kornaros in 1770: sixty-one miniature scenes illustrating the prayer for the blessing of the waters, executed in astonishing detail on a single panel. The monastery also holds engravings and manuscripts and produces organic olive oil and wine from its estates, sold at the gate.

What you actually see

• The Kornaros icon - sixty-one miniature scenes in a single panel of 1770.
• The fortified walls - a blank-walled monastery built for defence.
• The courtyard and church - the fifteenth-century core of the complex.
• The museum rooms - engravings, manuscripts and monastic objects.

When to go

Spring and autumn; the surroundings are dry and glaring in summer. The monastery keeps a midday break and modest dress is required. It combines easily with a trip to Vai.

Honest expectations

The site is small and the visit short, under an hour for most. Photography inside is restricted. The setting is arid and treeless, which some find bleak and others striking.

Nearby

The Vai palm forest lies fifteen minutes northeast; Sitia is west along the coast.