Greece 2. Exploring Naxos

 

Eleftheria with her hand loom in Moni

Before we got here, my geographical knowledge about the place was sparse, well, non-existent really but I can now tell you that at 430 Sq km, Naxos is a little bigger than the isle of Wight, while Paros, the next island we plan to visit, is about half the size of the IOW.

The one really fascinating shop we found consisted of a dark couple of rooms absolutely stuffed full of a variety of goods, mostly food based, from loose olives, dried herbs and spices to baskets and gourds. On the back of one door was a selection of bull’s pizzles, not a very popular item in British shops these days. It was the type of place in which we were tempted to buy far more than we sensibly should but this time we resisted. This particular shop had a sort of mascot of an old man (probably younger than me in fact) who sat in a chair and chatted to the owners, a man and his son who ran the place, or to customers. What we have found in all our travels that the subject which is a 100% certain way of having a conversation with a local is football. The two of us had a decent conversation about my team The Arsenal and his, Olympiacos. He also supported Nottingham Forest who are owned by the same man who owns Olympiacos. It might have been better if he’d spoken any English and I’d spoken some Greek but you can’t have everything.

Tsiblakis shop

yes, bull's pizzles

We explored the wonderful rabbit warren of Chora town for the best part of a day with the twists and turns destroying any sense of direction we normally have. “I think I recognise this” and “oh, this is where we are” were being well used phrases. We read that the town was designed to confuse pirates and although that’s a good story, design seems to be the last word you’d attach to such a delightful jumble. I’d hate to be a postman here.

Our intention was to walk in the wilder parts of the island hoping to see a good selection of spring flowers and while there was a bus service, it was intermittent and we weren’t prepared to do a long walk and then find that the bus was not to be found at the end of it. A car it would have to be but it seems that we are too old to rent a car easily, although fortunately at the third place, Europcar, we were able to rent on payment of an extra for ‘doddery old fart’ insurance. Still, a small car for four days at under a hundred Euros was pretty good.

some typical landscapes on our walk from Chalki

As expected, we’ve seen many olive trees, some of them ancient and twisted just like car hire companies imagine 70+ year olds to be. Old Olive trees tend to have split trunks with the heartwood rotted away in the same way as ancient Yew trees so it’s impossible to date them by counting tree rings because they’re just not there.

a grove of those grizzled old Olive trees 

On one of our walks, we found out that Emery had been mined here and we’d never thought before where it might have come from. Despite having very harsh working conditions with many miners developing deadly lung diseases, it supplanted the local agriculture which fell into disuse. In WWII when the Germans occupied the area they banned the mining (possibly something to do with the availability of dynamite – just a guess). There was no income to buy food and no agriculture producing it so the population of Skado starved. The memorial at the edge of town lists about 150 names with ages of 1 to 95 of those who died in the famine, mostly in 1942. Skado was only one of the villages mining Emery but the only one we visited and have any information about.

Koronas from a distance

the streets of Koronas

on our Koronas walk

There is still a mass of old paths between towns and villages, often lined both sides with walls of rocks or proper dry stone walls, they were sometimes overgrown with undergrowth hiding ankle break rocks but were great walking. Lots of spring flowers were in evidence, the scent of orange blossom, wisteria and herbs heating up in the sun but a cool breeze at times and sometimes well waymarked paths. This is worse than no waymarks at all in a way because it’s easy to begin to rely on them and when the realisations dawns that they’ve disappeared, it can be awkward. This was exactly what happened on one of the best walks when we could see the town we were aiming for, close but above us, a dead end in front and no apparent route to the town. Perhaps this is an appropriate point to mention that the guide to walks which we’d brought with us recommended having wire clippers to cut through heavily wired gates blocking paths. With no way forward we were faced with at least two extra miles but saw a local farmer doing some farming and I asked him in my best sign language how we could get to the village. He very kindly stopped what he was doing, walked about fifty yards or so, indicated that we should go through a heavily wired gate and showed us some hidden and narrow stone steps leading down to a small stream with a path on the other side up to the village.

being shown the way by that helpful farmer

Overall this was a lovely ‘green lane’ walk, wider than a footpath, often walled or hedged both sides but too narrow and rough for the smallest of cars. It was a lane almost certainly used for centuries by people leading loaded donkeys or mules. We’d already seen a mule with panniers carrying rubble from the centre of one of the tiny villages to the nearest piece of road to be loaded on to a vehicle.

on our way back

We saw very few other walkers on what was a four to five hour walk, one family and one very rewarding and hilarious encounter with a Canadian woman. With her N American accent I asked her where she was from to avoid any embarrassment and she said she was Canadian. “You can always recognise an Australian or a Brit or an American” (meaning United States of course) she said “because of their accents but you can recognise a Canadian because they don’t have an accent.” Absolute classic and very difficult to keep a straight face.

11 - 13 April 2025