GREEK ISLANDS – PART 4

After riding the public buses for a few days, we rented a car to begin our second week on Naxos and headed north along the west coast to the village of Apollonas. The cost of renting the car was quite reasonable but paying almost $3.50 a liter for gas gave me a bit of a start! Our Ford Fiesta has a five-speed transmission but I never got her out of fourth gear on the twisting, hilly, narrow road. The views of the sea far below were fantastic and we were tempted to visit a couple of the small villages along the coast, but would have needed a 4x4 to get there and back safely.

Apollonas is a small fishing port that was once utilized to export the region’s fine marble. It’s a sleepy place at this time of year as the tourist season is over and most seasonal residents have left. But the beach is very nice and the setting is beautiful. 

We headed along the island’s eastern shore and took a side road to Lionas after bypassing the picturesque village of Koronos. I was interested in seeing what remained of the area’s emery mines, known for their high quality, and exploited since antiquity. As children, Elva and I remember our mothers using emery paper to clean the top of our Kemac kitchen stoves.

The switchback drive down to the seaside village of Lionas was an adventure but the destination was well worth it. We had lunch there, walked around a bit and had a nice conversation with a couple from Koronos, relying on Google Translate to help us communicate. Although emery’s heyday is long past, one can still see mine shafts here and there, and rusted rails that carried the ore cars from mine to roadside. Our last stop of the day was the village of Moutsouna, the port from which emery was shipped after being transported there by an aerial cableway, the remains of which can still be seen, more than 40 years after the mines shut down. Fewer than 100 people live in Moutsouna today. Elva and I sat on a bench in the pretty seaside park watching waves break softly on the pocket beach and had the place all to ourselves.

The second day with our Ford Fiesta didn’t start off very well as the battery died just after we gassed up. Fortunately, the gas pump attendant (yes, they still have those on Naxos!) gave us a boost to get us away from the pumps, and we called the rental company to come bring us another car. The tiny and underpowered Mitsubishi Space Star had seen better days but it got us up and down hills and  everywhere we wanted to go.

We drove east to the small village of Kinidaros, home to several of the island’s marble quarries. Naxos marble is known for its high quality and has been a source of the material for Greek statues and structures since ancient times. The marble consists mostly of transparent calcite crystals, giving it the the appearance of depth. We stopped a few times to take pictures of the quarries high on the mountainsides, and then came upon a building where the stone was being cut. Elva walked up to the door and boldly asked the workman if we could watch. He waved us in and showed us the whole process. The photo shows a large circular saw lubricated by water cutting 1-centimetre-thick sheets from a big block, probably to be used as flooring. It's one thing to view a distant quarry, but to see the finished product being made in front of your eyes made it special!

I’d read about the village of Keramoti and, since it lay only a couple of kilometers out of our way, we headed down the dizzyingly steep road, parked the car in a tiny parking lot and walked into the village that sits precariously atop a knob of rock with nothing but steep ravines on three sides. Only 50 or so people live there year-round but the houses are immaculate and you could eat off the walkways. There is even a reconstructed traditional olive processing plant filled with original equipment. We visited the impressive village church and had a chat with a man who was refinishing the church door.

Cousin Aubrey, four years older than me and far wiser, instilled in me a longing to explore when I was about ten years old. “Exploring” to us meant heading deep into the woods around Wellington and basically trying not to get lost. I’ve loved exploring ever since.

We saw a sign on a sideroad pointing to a place called “Panagia Argokiliotissa”. I’ve only ever liked one poet, Robert Frost, and remembered these lines from his poem, The Road Not Taken: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” We rounded a curve in the one-lane road and came upon a monstrous church standing on a hill overlooking the sea on a dead-end road in the middle of nowhere. A sign noting that the European Commission had contributed $8.1 million Euros to the site certainly got my attention.

Iconography is central to the Greek Orthodox faith. In this case, an icon of the Virgin Mary (Panagia) attributed to the Evangelist Luke was found in a cave at the site. A couple of churches built there to house the icon still stand. In 1997, construction of the new “temple” began, the largest in the Cyclades. I struck up a conversation with the caretaker who was kind enough to unlock the new unfinished cathedral and let us experience its massive interior. We left there wondering why it was ever built.

Back on the main road, we headed to Apollonas, a village we’d visited the day before, and stopped for lunch at a café that was virtually empty. Others nearby had already closed for the season. Our objective was the Kouros of Apollonas, a 10.7-meter-long unfinished statue weighing an estimated 80 tonnes. Archaeologists estimate it was carved sometime before 500 BC and may have been intended for the Temple of Apollo in Chora. No one knows why it was wasn’t finished. The sheer scale of the thing is hard to appreciate unless an old man, foolish enough to climb onto it, agrees to have his picture taken. Best thing about our visit to the Kouros; not another soul around!

Next on our list was a trip down the island’s southeast coast toward the end of the road, Panormos. The drive along the coast was nice, but nothing we hadn’t seen before. It was a cloudy day when we left Chora but the weather had cleared by the time we reached our destination. Goats and sheep wandered everywhere, including the middle of the road.

We wanted to visit the ruins of the Panormos acropolis, defined as “a citadel or fortified part of an ancient Greek city, typically one built on a hill.” This one was built about 2,500 BC and included stone walls and a fortification that would have sheltered locals in the event of attack. The site is said to be unique in Greece because it marks a significant change in society from small rural communities to a larger urban settlement. The site didn’t offer much to see but the view was impressive.

We walked down through the tiny, mostly deserted, community and made our way to the beach. A local told us that everything was closed until May but that didn’t deter us in the least as the place looked so inviting. A row of palm trees lines the waterfront and a couple of boats were moored at the tiny nearby dock. I couldn’t resist a dip in the crystal-clear turquoise water and, although it was a bit on the cool side, I’m glad I did!