Amazing

Daily Photo Stream posted a picture similar to this a while back and of course I had to research it......

St. George's Monastery - Wadi Qelt

St.George's Monastery is an ancient retreat hollowed out of the sheer rock wall in the deep and narrow Wadi Qelt gorge. The monastery was founded in 480CE around a cluster of caves where, according to tradition, St. Joachim learned from an angel that Anne, his sterile wife and mother-to-be of the Virgin Mary, had conceived.

In 614CE invading Persians massacred the monks and destroyed the monastery. It was partially reoccupied by the Crusaders in the Middle Ages but only fully restored at the end of the 19th century. Some attractive 6th-century mosaics remain, and there is a Crusader-era church with a shrine containing the skulls of the martyred monks.

The sixth-century cliff-hanging complex, with its ancient chapel and gardens, is active and inhabited by Greek Orthodox monks.

 It is reached by a pedestrian bridge across the Wadi Qelt, which many imagine to be Psalm 23's Valley of the Shadow, and where shepherds still watch over their flocks, just as Ezekiel 34 and John 10:1-16 describe. The valley parallels the old Roman road to Jericho, the backdrop for the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37).

The ringing of the bells at the monastery.....

The monastery is open to pilgrims and visitors.

If I had a bucket list.......this would be on it.