The nearest bank and ATM is in the old capital of Apollonia and there’s a bus every few hours. Apollonia is a typical small Greek town with a single street, frantic with traffic, and a network of steep alleyways only accessible to donkeys or motorbikes. They are full of little bars and micro shops that have their deliveries made by well-laden donkey.
In the main street, cars are not so much parked as abandoned near or on the kerb. While talking to a shopkeeper there was a loud whistle from the street, she looked at me, put her hand up and ran out of the shop. Five minutes later she returned and said, “sorry, I had to move my car.” She explained that the police don’t ticket badly parked cars they just blow a whistle calling the owner to move them – how unbelievably civilised?
The policeman went to school with half the town and is related to the other half, so as soon as he’s gone everyone puts their cars back where they were – the law is enforced, honour is preserved and everyone parks where they want - and everyone is content.
In the main street, cars are not so much parked as abandoned near or on the kerb. While talking to a shopkeeper there was a loud whistle from the street, she looked at me, put her hand up and ran out of the shop. Five minutes later she returned and said, “sorry, I had to move my car.” She explained that the police don’t ticket badly parked cars they just blow a whistle calling the owner to move them – how unbelievably civilised?
The policeman went to school with half the town and is related to the other half, so as soon as he’s gone everyone puts their cars back where they were – the law is enforced, honour is preserved and everyone parks where they want - and everyone is content.
A donkey track meanders from Apollonia down into a lush valley and then on to the islands ancient capital of Kastro. The path is partly paved but is old and broken, strewn with rabbit and occasional donkey droppings. The valley is beautiful but has an abandoned and uncultivated air; hill terracing, that cost tens of thousands of man-hours, now crumbles back into the hillside. Only the donkeys show any interest in the derelict olive groves and everywhere there’s the drone of bees and an almost overpowering scent of wild sage, thyme and oregano. The local windmill is now derelict and the few old houses with their classic triangular dovecotes of the Cyclades are also abandoned.
But the hilltop town of Kastro is a different world. It’s one of the islands jewels and is almost too pristine from the care that’s lavished on it. Gleaming white facades with vaulted arcades providing welcome shade and everywhere there are the scattered relics from a distant age. The houses were built backing defensively towards the sea as a fortification against marauding pirates and five gates give access to winding alleyways that lead back on themselves or into dead ends.
But the hilltop town of Kastro is a different world. It’s one of the islands jewels and is almost too pristine from the care that’s lavished on it. Gleaming white facades with vaulted arcades providing welcome shade and everywhere there are the scattered relics from a distant age. The houses were built backing defensively towards the sea as a fortification against marauding pirates and five gates give access to winding alleyways that lead back on themselves or into dead ends.