Day Trippers
Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sat 16 May 2009 07:39
Got bored waiting for a bus heading to town so eventually we hailed a
passing taxi and forked out a whole 3 euro for the trip!
Picked up a hire car in Khios (27 euro for the day) and set off on a
cultural tour of the island planned by Sarah with the help of various guide
books and a very small map donated by the car hire firm.
First stop was Pyrgi which is one of the renowned mastihohoria villages
which were all built in the 14th and 15th centuries as pirate proof
strongholds by the Genoese. They are all laid out in a dense rectangular
plan, their narrow passages are overarched by earthquake buttresses, with
the backs of the outer houses doubling as the perimeter wall. Pyrgi however
has a unique feature in that most of the house facades are adorned with
xysta which are geometric black and white patterns (see photos). One of the
main means of motorised transport in these villages seems to be these
wonderful two wheel rotovators, which can have their digging blades removed
and a two wheeled trailer put on the back making an extraordinary little
truck (see photos) but sadly the biggest regret of the day was the missed
opportunity to photo two black clad, elderly ladies driving one of these
contraptions across the main road.
From here we drove to Olympi (another mastihohoria) and after a good wander
around we had an interesting coffee in about the only taverna before moving
on to the nearby spectacular Cave of Sykia, which is a 150 million year old
cavern only discovered accidently in 1985. This has been very carefully
handled and the quirky tours down into the 60 metre deep cavern ensure that
you do not disturb the spectacular multicoloured stalactites, stalagmites
and other extraordinary rock formations.
Next on our route was Mesta which is considered by some guide books to be
the most unique experience you can have anywhere in Greece. This is a
mediaeval castle town (the finest of the mastihohoria) with its narrow and
labyrinthine streets which are billed as car free, but we did meet the odd
tiny van and ubiquitous rotovator truck! Mesta is an ingenious example of
this mediaeval defensive architecture, with a double set of walls, four
gates and an overall pentangle structure. As with all these towns, the
rooftops are interconnected (photos) allowing defenders to move around at
will. We had lunch in the small square here near the Byzantine church and
were very impressed by the behaviour of a large group of Greek school
children on a coach tour, who ended up on the table behind us.
There is no doubt that if you are going to visit this part of the world on a
holiday, then this about the best time of year. There are virtually no
tourists at all and so you get to wander and explore freely, the Greeks are
all fresh and enthusiastic still, the flowers are all in bloom and the sun
is not yet too hot!
After lunch the trip took on a more dramatic feel as we headed north up the
west coast on roads that twisted and turned round hairpin bends as we
climbed higher and higher, before plunging down into deep valleys. We
encountered almost no other vehicles at all during the next few hours and
visited a number of villages and beaches before we reached the dramatic
hilltop town of Anavastos (photos) which is a crumbling near-deserted town
perched precariously on the very top of a towering crag with a familiar
tragic tale in which some 400 townspeople hurled themselves to their deaths
off the precipitous cliff rather than face capture and retribution from the
Ottomans in 1822. Sarah felt the need for us to walk up to the very top of
this deserted former citadel which was not something me and my vertigo
enjoyed too much!
Finally we headed for Nea Moni, a 11th century monastery which is billed as
one of the finest surviving examples of mid-Byzantine architecture and was
founded in 1049. The Byzantine mosaics inside are quite superb whilst the
monastery itself is now a World Heritage listed site. Disastrously the Turks
also torched these buildings in 1822 and massacred the monks. One of chapels
houses a rather macabre cabinet displaying many of the murdered monks
skulls! Then further damage occurred in the earthquake of 1881 which brought
down the central dome of the monastery damaging many of the mosaics, but
restoration of the building is underway and the remaining mosaics are
considered the greatest surviving examples of Byzantine art in Greece.
The scenic route home became a little more circuitous than planned when
suddenly the road signs ceased to exist and we were left to guess (largely
unsuccessfully) our way back into Khios town.
The south of the island is particularly well known for the cultivation of
Mastic trees. These trees produce a very special resin (mastic!) which makes
a form of chewing gum that has had all sorts of properties attributed to it
over the millennia. The trees seem able only to be to be grown on this
island and the mastic is so important to the region that when the Turks
slaughtered the population of the island, they allowed 1,800 to live solely
to continue the cultivation of the mastic trees.
Lastly, Khios (Chios) also lays claim to being the birthplace of Homer. This
may or may not be true, but according to the testimonies of ancient writers,
he certainly lived and taught here.