The island is composed of marble, though gneiss and mica- schist are to be found in a few places. The island is of a round, plump-pear shape, formed by a single mountain (724 m (2,375 ft)) sloping evenly down on all sides to a maritime plain, which is broadest on the north-east and south-west sides.
is 21 km (13 mi), and its greatest breadth 16 km (10 mi). And I'll catch the ferry to neighbouring Antiparos, the laid-back summer haunt of Tom Hanks and his Greek wife Rita.Paros' geographic co-ordinates are 37° N. I'll make sure I amble through the Valley of the Butterflies, which every summer is blanketed by thousands of Jersey tiger moths. I'll also hike along the Byzantine Road, a 1000-year-old marble trail that connects the sleepy mountain villages of Lefkes and Prodromos. I vow that next time I'll spend a day at Golden Beach, a world-renowned spot for kitesurfers and windsurfers. I spend it enjoying a simple dinner of grilled whole dorado at a beachfront restaurant while reading about all the Paros attractions I didn't have time to see. Our time here is fleeting, just an afternoon and an evening before we strike out for Mykonos again (unsuccessfully, as it turns out). Until then, your best bet is to visit during the quieter shoulder months of June or September. There's talk about limiting the number of cars on the island but local authorities seem reluctant to act. In Parola, the magazine Kalogianni edits, she describes last August as being "out of control" with "crowds swarming the alleys and the beaches, queues in the restaurants irritation and rough behaviour". Paros is nowhere near as popular as the Cyclades' big guns, Santorini and Mykonos, but it's starting to experience similar problems. The meltemi isn't the only thing to sweep through the Cyclades in August tourists also swarm to the islands during the peak summer season too. "Unfortunately, the fountain had to be turned off 50 years ago," she adds, "because tourists started showering in it."īy submitting your email you are agreeing to Fairfax Media's The next day they simply returned with louder metal ones. They soon became a popular social hub for local housewives and she tells the story of a man who lived above the fountain breaking their clay jugs to protest about the noise. Kalogianni stops by an ornate marble water fountain, one of three installed by a wealthy local businessman in the late 1700s to bring fresh water to the town. Leaving the church, we wind through the town's photogenic maze of narrow alleyways, past toothpaste-white houses with azure-blue shutters and doors. The Ekatontapiliani church in Parikia old town, Paros island, Cyclades, Greece.
#Paros island greece free
We're being shown around Parikia by Avgi Kalogianni, the editor of Paros' free local tourism magazine, on a tour that's been hastily arranged by our two Peregrine guides. Its name, Panagia Ekatontapiliani, translates as the "church of 100 doors", and a local legend asserts that the hidden 100th door will magically appear when Istanbul is returned to the Greeks. Allegedly it was, so her son, Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, built the spectacular 1700-year-old Byzantine pile that stands here today. When rough seas diverted her to Paros, she prayed at the small local church, promising to construct a larger one if her pilgrimage was successful. While our journey has been one of sunbathing, swimming and superlative cuisine, Helen's quest was a little more virtuous – she was on her way to Jerusalem to search for the Holy Cross. We've had to abandon our attempt to visit Mykonos, a scheduled stop on our nine-day Peregrine cruise around the Cyclades, and take refuge in Paros' capital, Parikia, instead.
But the reason we're here on Paros, the third largest island in the Greek Cyclades, is the same one that forced Saint Helena here in the 4th century – the meltemi, an angry wind that roars through the region in August. It's not every day you get to follow in the footsteps of a saint.
0 kommentar(er)
