There are also mini-gondola-like mechanisms. The baskets we saw were about the size of a grocery shopping cart.
After we visited the first monastery, we started to follow the book's directions, walking up the street looking for a "white chevron" near a path. We found a path, but no chevron and decided to take it. There was a guy there who looked drunk (or some other kind of wasted), listening to the radio from his open car door while he sat on a park bench. We passed him and walked up our "path". The "path" quickly turned into a stream bed and we decided to keep following it; surely, it must connect to the path "soon".
We kept going up the stream bed, over rocks, up slippery surfaces, through brambles, under big rocks. At one point, we were near the "drainage" from a monastery, and Bill was a little ahead of me. He got a little wet from the spray, warned me and kept telling himself, "It's only water. It's only water." Neither of us was very convinced.
It was after this that we turned a little and went through/under some rocks. We did a lot more scrambling and took some water/rest/photo breaks frequently, but never for very long. At one point, I took my shades off and hung them on my shirt neck. Later, I thought, "I should put these in my backpack", but decided against it when I thought I might put them on again quickly (soon) and noticed Bill's on his head.
Towards the top, we had to almost crawl under some overgrown branches up a ravine. We kept laughing about how this probably wasn't the "normal" path. We knew we were approaching the road. Finally, as we got near the top, a Greek guy looked over and talked to us. We caught a little of it in English eventually..."wrong turn?". We agreed. We had climbed to the parking lot of Moni Varlaam. It was closed today.
After a minute or two, I realized I'd lost my sunglasses. Ack! What a fool! After some consideration and self-kicking, I decided to climb back down at least part way. I was hopeful that I'd lost them in the last brambles which weren't too far back. The idea of losing them, not having shades for a while, and having to buy more was unappealing at best. I left my camera and backpack at the top with Bill and clambered back down. Finally, I spied them toward the end of the last brambles and reached out carefully to them, trying to not move and knock rocks on them. I was successful...
From this monastery, we continued to the others on the roads, since there didn't seem to be any paths after that. I suppose I could tell you a lot about the insides of the monasteries -- the cellars, the charnel house, the workshop, the [gory] frescos, etc, but I enjoyed the climbing and the views the best.
By the way, if you do visit the monasteries, be sure that the guys have long pants and the women have long skirts and both have shirts with sleeves -- at least for visiting the monasteries. I pulled jeans over my shorts and put on a windbreaker for sleeves. Different monasteries have slightly different rules, and some will lend skirts to women.