8th June 1984 - Hiking on Naxos

Friday 8^th June Being a Friday, I decided I might do a little mountain climbing. So, I went into Naxos town, posted a letter and card home, changed $70 and caught the 9.00 bus to the other end of the island. But I got off at Halkia (Chalkio) which is in the centre of the island. Here I bought a bottle of water, some oranges and chocolate, and walked out of the village. I followed a walled path that went into another village [Kalixilos?] where the lanes (no cars) are paved with blocks of stone. Nonetheless, the locals paint lines on the ground that bear no relationship with the shape of the stones. Some lines form squares, others odd shapes. There was a woman with a bucket of whitewash and brush starting on unpainted territory. The same thing in the fortress area of Naxos.

   Out of this village and into the enclosed path. The path was cut into rock and walls of rock were built either side. Half to three quarters of the way up the walls, on the other side, is ground level where the groves of olive trees grow amongst the grass and sometimes goats.

   There was a place just outside the village where the path followed a stream (trickle). There was a building with no walls half underground to which some of the water was diverted. This was an actual wash house, ‘cos there was a pile of clothes with a box of washing powder.

   I went along the walled path for a while. A lot of it was shady overgrown by trees. There were oak trees and shrubs with long stems and yellow flowers. There were hundreds of flies in the coolest shady areas, but fortunately they couldn’t be bothered to land on a body. And always lizards scurrying for shelter among the rocks and leaves. They were green with brown tails [probably a lizard known as an Aegean wall lizard (Podarcis erharii); the males have green backs during the spring mating season]; a few smaller lizards were just brown. Some butterflies: white, red and black, brown. Big black bugs crawling in the debris, locusts, and used shotgun shells. Later I saw a couple of snakes.

   Presently I came to another trickle and the pathway opened up. I followed the valley of the stream upwards, past large rocks and wild blackberry. Eventually I came upon some goats near a huge split boulder. A goatherd was nearby. He whistled, the goats went down and I don’t think he wanted me to go further. But I did. I climber higher to where there were no trees, only rocks and shrubs and stone walls. There are stone walls all over the place – some to keeps goats in or out, others like steps on the slopes. Up I climbed and had some lunch in the shade of some rocks at the bottom of a cliff face. I went round this, across a spur with a lot of stone wall on it; down below was the village of Philotti. There’s a little shrub that has twigs and thorns at angles that make it look like bundles of green chicken wire.

   

From Chalkio to Apiranthos, central Naxos

    I never actually got to the top of the mountain – just over the shoulder and down the other side to the village of Apiranthos, where I expected to catch the bus back to Naxos. Instead, I caught the bus to Apollonas, a small fishing village in the north where a huge statue of Apollo lies unfinished in its cutting place. Just outside Apiranthos was a donkey which had had its forefeet tied to is back feet so that he didn’t have much mobility.

   

Unfinished Statue in Apollonas

   The road to Apollonas is as bendy and steep as the scenery is spectacular. We passed through villages clinging to the steep mountain slopes. The first time I have seen corrugated iron rooves in Greece. There are also plenty of churches, some in relatively remote pinnacles above the road, not near villages.  In some of the tiers of stone on the slopes, especially near watercourses, they cultivate potatoes, onions and other crops among the fig, oak and olive trees that don’t mind growing on the steep slopes.

   When we reached Apollonas, I had some moussaka and watched an old man play a young man at some sort of backgammon game. I left on the same bus to go back to Naxos an hour later (4.00).

   In Naxos I went over to the islet Palatia where stands the entrance of the Temple of Apollo, two square marble columns topped by a slab – like a Playschool window – which shall we look through today, children? The round, the square, or the Gates of Apollo? It is really quite impressive for a temple that was never completed. Very nice marble.

Gates of Apollo

The Playschool Windows

    I then bought some food and went back to my accommodation. It was windy so I didn’t go for a swim but had a shower instead, wrote some postcards, and so to bed.

   [The mountain I was on is Fanari, 883 metres high, the third highest peak on Naxos. The highest is Mount Zas, or Zeus, which has a cave on its northwestern flank known as the birthplace of Zeus. Viewing a modern satellite photo of the area, you can see that in the region I walked from Chalkia, there have been many (olive) trees planted in what were bare fields.]