Our host's advice was that Uber was not reliable in Athens, but people are using a service called FreeNow. So yet another app joined the crowded screens on my I-phone. We needed to be at the wharf in Piraeas at 0645 hrs for our 0745 hrs departure. We'd booked the fast ferry service to Sifnos run by Sea Jet. They have a big fleet and many large catamarans. These are drive-on drive-off style, with comfortable passenger seating for around 700 people and about 200 cars. The trip is about 140 km and takes about 3.5 hours, so the ferries do rocket along. In the old days it would have been about 11 hrs for the trip.
So we booked a FreeNow taxi for 06 00hrs and it was a relief to see it at the door on time a couple of minutes before 6.
The logistics all worked well, and we were deposited at Sifnos' main port, Kamares. No taxi booked, or available but a very cooperative cab driver got us up the hill to our accommodation in pretty quick time, between jobs. Kety's House is well appointed with a terrace where we can sit for breakfast or an evening drink.
Our village Exambela, has a couple of small supermarkets all within walking distance, so setting up for breakfasts and a few other meals was pretty easy.
The island's hills are all extensively terraced mainly with schist and have apparently been this way for hundreds of years. The stone walls mark boundaries, trap the meagre rainfall, minimise erosion, and allow for planting olive trees, gardening and a bit of grazing of sheep and goats. We did see one dairy farm, but it would not have required a tanker to collect the milk, perhaps a billy cart.
It's subsistence farming in the main, but the work that has gone into the building of stone retaining walls would have been immense and taken lifetimes for many generations I think.
The island is dotted with white walled, blue domed churches and chapels with twin bell towers. As well as these there are small grottos and icons. Greek Orthodox Christianity is very much part of life and religion and state are entwined. The larger churches all fly a Greek flag or two.
Our first day's ramble took us around a small hamlet in Exambela, no car access, but the narrow paved pathway could cope with scooters.The houses are small with plastered stone walls, wooden shutters and most have just a small paved yard. Some have a few square metres of stone walled paddock alongside, catering for a bit of gardening, olive or fruit trees, and the odd milking goat.
For our second day we walked down to the next village, Apollonia, capital of Sifnos, for a coffee and a look at the retail area.
There is a pedestrian walkway connecting our village and Apollonia. Turns out there are several routes available, we took the wrong one getting there but came home on the right one. It's all new experience, going the wrong way doesn't particularly matter. Lots of interesting shops and restaurants and, as in Athens, cats of all colours everywhere.
We had intended eating at a restaurant just a few doors from our house, however when we turned up there, we found the restaurant had closed (yesterday if you please). So we took another stroll down to Apollonia, on the correct walkway this time and took pot luck at a likely looking restaurent. The food was good local fare, braised pork belly for Ann and chicken kebab for me. The walk back up the hill probably means there won't be too much pain from any calorie overload that may have occurred.
We decided we needed a car to see the rest of the island. While nothing is very far, the local bus service is not very frequent, so we organised to pick up a little Citroen C3 and headed down to the hire place at Kamares to pick it up midday Sunday. It was pretty quick and easy, and required an IDP (International Drivers Licence) to complete the hire. Ann was delighted to see me using it. Avis NZ had told me "don't need one" and that's been true for all my car hires in Europe mainly with Avis and EuropeCar since 2008, so my intial position was "don't need it, won't get it". Lucky for me I relented!
We picked up the car and headed to Heronissos at the northern tip of Sifnos. Twisty, narrow steep little roads with decent drop offs, and plenty of lovely views. This one of Kamares, the port town.
All good fun driving the little manual gearbox. We had some short walks, enjoyed the views and then drove down to the beach, taking in the scenery while sitting in the shade enjoying a drink.
The drive home took us down the eastern side of the island, high up on the hills. Lots of other islands visible in the distance, but we have yet to orient ourselves with their names.
Now we are mobile we have a plan to see the whole island. Our first port of call at the start of our second mobile day was Chryssopigi, home to the most photographed church/monastery in Greece. It's only a few kilometres away so we were there earlier than most and had the viewing virtually to ourselves, just one French woman in attendance with us. The building is on a little peninsula, which now has a bridge over the gap which cuts the facility into two bits. According to local legend the monastery originally had a number of nuns in residence, and when the place was invaded and attacked by pirates, all the nuns fled to avoid being captured and mistreated by the invaders. However one nun didn't flee in time and so there was a lot of praying going on as the pirates raced up the peninsula towards her. Lo and behold, as they raced along, a chasm opened up in front of the racing pirates and they all fell to their death.
We drove on from there to the little beach of Apokofto, and enjoyed the view back to the monastery over a coffee.
Then we walked around the headland to another beach and the small port of Faros. All this in beautiful sunshine and a lovely sea breeze. Again plenty of great views, also some ruins of old mining activities from relatively recent times judging by the steel RSJs left in place on what was part of the loading structure. The ore was loaded on smallish vessels and exported from the island.
Our visit to the southern reaches of Sifnos was completed with another short drive to Platis Gialos. This town is built right up to the beach and is described as the most cosmopolitan in Sifnos with quite a few restaurants and paid beach lounging areas. We contemplated a swim, but the logistics of that weren't particularly appealing. Nothing in the way of changing rooms available, so we walked the beach and harbour areas enjoying the totally different approach to boats and boating. Lots of small netting and long-lining fishing boats still at their moorings.
Kastro, the ancient and mediaeval capital of Sifnos, is on a promontory on the east coast. Its name derives from the fact that it is built on an ancient Venetian castle site. It also has a ruined acropolis, so plenty of history. There's even the occasional sarcophagus on the narrow streets. Ancient city walls still enclose the village and we had to walk through a low tunnel to enter the village.
It has about 120 permanent residents, quite a few B and B houses and plenty of abandoned real estate.
Below the village is the Church of the Seven Martyrs. This is located down a long narrow walkway on a small point just a few metres above the sea. The walk down wasn't inviting and we satisfied ourselves with a few birds-eye shots. Apparently it got its name from a mediaeval past when seven young early Christian men (Ephesians for those familiar with the Gospels) sheltering from Emperor Decius were trapped and sealed in a cave.
The road down from Apollonia, had some exceptionally narrow bits. Our worst driving experience though was having to back up to give an LPG tanker room to get round a hairpin bend. I got some good cheerful help from locals who moved the odd parked motorbike, and confirmed the mm of space between us and the tanker and the inconveniently parked cars. The photographer was too overwhelmed to capture the moment!
After lunch at home we went back to Faros and swam and lounged on the beach with the other tourists.
Despite being spring the hillsides are very dry. Sifnos has almost no rain in summer but already there are very few patches of colour as we walk the tracks. However in the villages the oleanders and bougainvillea are spectacular.
Our final sightseeing day on Sifnos was a visit to Vathi, a bay on the west side of the island. On the drive over the hills we took a small detour up to Agios Andreas. From the front door of our house we are looking at the Church of St Andreas on the very top of the hill in front of us.
The church is built on an old Mycenean site occupied from about 2000 years BC. It is an archeological site that has been worked on now for about 50 years.
The Myceneans mined silver and gold in the hills nearby and were a very wealthy society. This archeological site is on one of the high points of the island so has commanding views over the southern part of the the island's 74 square miles. The view over the Aegean sea would have made detection of intruders pretty easy. To allow communication from this prime site the whole island has 74 towers at strategic points, used as watchtowers and protective shelters, and at least initially to protect the mining sites from pirates.
The site restoration is still a work in progress, and the small museum on the site displays lots of the artefacts recovered. Plenty of clay pots and vases as you would expect, and many small clay figurines, and busts. Many of these are tiny and unpainted, but the detail is terrific. Hard to believe they are dated as between 6th and 2nd century BC.
The area where gold and silver were extracted is outside of the hilltop town on the slopes of the adjacent mountain. A large part of the hill has slumped, probably with a combination of the impact of mining and the spreading of the spoils from tunneling required to extract the metals.
It was a great spot to visit, and enjoy the reciprocal view back to our house about 2km away (as the crow flies) on the left side of the photo or closer in the pic below!.
We continued on down the hill and to the sheltered harbour at Vathi. Our plan for this bit was pretty simple. A walk, some lunch and a swim. Unlike other beaches we have visited development is basically right up to the tide mark for much of the beach. We had a strong westerly breeze blowing into the bay, so a few small waves were running up the few metres of beach.
We walked past a bit of broken sea wall, and had a closer look on our return trip. I'd wondered why there were small road cones buried in the sand as we came past initially. on the way back, a quick look up showed why the cones were there. Part of the house had been demolished as the sea wall collapsed, but there were still roof sections cantilevered out over the sand. The ceiling still contained plenty of rocks and stones plastered and concreted between the wooden rafters. There is more rubble yet to reach the ground. Not a place to tarry.
We enjoyed local sea food for lunch, marinated anchovies, fried squid rings and local cod with lime and onion. Our table was front row for the seaview, and on the sand, with a metre or two to the water. Entertainment was provided by a couple of large catamarans mooring at the adjacent block. One 55 ft and the other 42 ft.
Our swim was a pretty quick dip, a windless day would have improved the experience.
We depart tomorrow for Naxos having seen virtually the whole of this island, and enjoyed some of its food and history. Our ferry departs from Kamares, a smaller one this time. A pic from an earlier visit to Kamares!
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