One final stop for me on the island of Serifos was the Monastery of the Taxiarchon.
Taxiarchon is a rough translation. It indicates what English speaking Christians would refer to as Archangels. Taxi means to move. Archon or "arches" indicates one who oversees or arches over a group. So The Monastery of Taxiarchon is The Monastery of the Archangels.
This time I remembered my scissors to gather wild grapes along the road, and retraced my steps to Piraeus.
From there, the road to the Monastery, founded in the 15th century, is about 7 km of seaviews. I found a driftwood walking stick and began clopping my hiking booths through delicate clouds of hatching flies, tiny spiders flying through the air on a single thread of their own silk. I offered some of my homemade bread to ants along the road.
Taxiarchon is a tidy white compound with a mosoleum and a chicken coop. I climbed a flight of stone steps and crept through a wooden hatch door.
On the other side, the pink double doors of the monastery’s inner sanctum came into my view, buttressed by an overhang of olive trees.
The sanctum was located in a depression in the middle of two levels of surrounding walkways. Every few feet, hatch doors marked the monk’s quarters.
A few of these tiny meditation chambers were open. They looked like dorm rooms for very small students. Not much headroom at all, so indicating seated or resting meditation. The were tidy friendly digs with refrigerators and stickers, degrees and portraits.
The leader of the order opened up the sanctum for me to inspect. I had not been inside a Greek Orthodox church of this caliber to my recollection.
The sanctum held about a dozen irreplacable artifacts. According to the leader of the order, each was about 100 years older than the next. The oldest, an Arabian cistern, dated back from shortly after the founding of the order. It resembled a very tall amphora and was posted next to arm rests, apparently made from olive wood, for the monks, who stand between them for several hours during organized prayers.
Just to the left of this this was a wall of tin press fetish articles, hands and throats and hearts, my understanding is that these indicatet illnesses and infirmities the monks have prayed for.
Additional artifacts in the room included a handsome Egyptian incense burner, just over the entry and a woven gold and platinum thread tapestry depicting the entombed body of Jesus surrounded by his apostles.
I made a donation of 2 Euros to the order. In return, I recieved a nougat of the type made by the order to support their work. It had the consistency of marshmallow, with the milk-and-honey flavor of Greek confectioners sugar.
West from the Petrias Trail and Pyrgos Trail crossroads, hikers may take the road to Koutalas Bay.
My journey was relaxing and filled with small entertainments.
One feature strongly noticable along the road was the presence of the Greek Orthodox Church.
When the Romans wanted to introduce the Christian faith, they selected Greek as the language to do it in. It has been my experience that friends and acquaintences with a Greek ethnicity or childhood ties to the church are very protective of the religion’s pride and traditions.
I enjoyed the “sugar cube” churches and prayer points along the way. One was on the south side of a livestock farm where a shepard was shouting to her flock in heavily accented English, “out, out!”
Another point along the roadside featured a handsome roadside box, containing an image of a Greek Orthodox leader along with incense and offerings which I assumed to be tributes for a deceased relative.
I crawled around a stone fortification just off the road constructed of gliting green shale. I spied an alternative route I might have traveled off the road through a property “for seize” the direct translation of the Greek word indicating a property is available.
If you are planning to trek off route in Greece, you should know how to recognize the Greek words indicating hazards or passing rights that can be found in many reputable travel manuals. I found “falling rock” and “no passing” signs to be fairly obvious in spite of the fact I do not speak the language with great depth.
The last portion of the trail included a brush by a sustainence farm replete with several birds curious at my presence and a barking dog.
I arrived at Aspros Pyrgos where I explored the relic of an white marble tower and an Greek Orthodox graveyard still in use. Some of the stones there indicated parishoners of the nearby chruch who had passed within the last ten years.
Koutalas Bay is a scenic inlet on the cusp of the Mirtoon and Aegean Seas with a cloverleaf shape.
The beaches the day I went were utterly uncrowded, though the only business in evidence was a boat rental shop, so it would be wise to bring sufficient food and water.
The Northern part of Serifos is a place of small-time agriculture. Sustenance farms, wild unpicked fruit, shepards and mule-packers.
At the beginning of my hike, I munched on some Greek dandelion roots and buds and wild raspberries. Suplimented with some oil crackers and water from my pack, they made a energy packed breakfast.
Greek dandelions have a delicate flower and soft crunchy root. The best specimines are picked between loose rock where there is not a lot of sediment. A bud or two about to open are best. As always, it is important to rinse anything you find on the trail and wash it down with plenty of water.
Located at the end of the Petrias trail, the Road to Pyrgos leads up a steep incline of thistles and spiny local folliage.
Of all my time on all the trails here, I have only communicated with two local hikers and I exchanged greetings with them on this walk.
Creon was sitting at the base of the first peak with his cane in brown pants and a brown shirt, missing his front teeth. He was very affable even though my Greek failed me. He managed to offer his name and that he was from Hora. I offered mine and said I was from California. I was wearing a very flashy t-shirt on which a stoned walrus was driving a 22 Fillmore bus out of which money was flying. I must have been quite a sight for him!
Once over the crest, I continued on the road as led to a handsome view of the island of Kythnos and the Mirtoon Sea.
It was here I found an outcropping of cedar berries. The flesh is loose with a sticky persimmon-like gel inside, the seed is astringent like pine sap. While the seed may be eaten, I discarded it since I was not familiar with this particular variety.
I also found a ripe white fig and got a surprise when I opened it and a small, albino bug was feasting on the inside. I left it on the trail to distract the many flies that were following me.
Closer to Pyrgos, I saw a good deal of livestock. A mule was very patiently and precariously vertical on a steep incline. There was a sheep herd drinking from a trough with a mother and her ewe admiring one another. In the valley, another woman was calling her sheep to follow her.
When I finally reached Pyrgos, I could see it’s sister city Gallani in the distance. Both are perched cliffside. I crawled up the steep stairs along with a mule packer and his dog for a better look. There is no visible tourist infrastructe here, but there is daily bus service in the am and pm.
On the road back, I saw some really cool bugs. I had my first taste of vine-dried raisins and then grapes, growing along the road back to Hora.
After picking them, I slipped and fell at the sound of a man singing, smooshing most of them and sustaining and injury to my elbow. (I'm healthy, just a little bruised up.) Had I not been convinced to leave my scissors at home, I might have had grapes and rasins even now!
An hour driving in any direction from Hora, the hilltop town, leads to an entirely new Serifos adventure. Beach, hilltop, relic, mine, monestary.
One attraction you cannot access by car is the peak of granite giant Petrias and the wildlife rich road the leads to it.
This is a medium hike. It is short, but requires a careful, confident step and good balance.
The trail begins just west of the Hora windmills, where patches of dry grasses lead to a granite scramble path.
About 200 meters in, a stone path emerges, set into the side of the mountain. This is the road to Petrias.
If you spend some time on Serifos, you will find that the entire island is criss-crossed with granite walls. Some tail out in ruined fortifications, but most are property dividing lines that have the secondary purpose of securing the land below from erosion and rockfall.
What makes the road to Petrias different is it was clearly concieved as a muleback transit line between Hora and the outer reaches of the island.
The rock is thick with sea-green, rust colored, golden, and black lichen. There are flashes of calcedony and iron.
During my October hike, the mountain was just wet enough to spark beautiful pale pink hyacinth, purple strawflowers, a sagelike plant with white flowers, and honeycomb bushes of a thymelike plant with tiny hard red berries. Thistles and dandelions were in evidence, too.
The primary residents on the mountain you may never see: rabbits. Rabbit scat is everywhere, but apparently they have plenty of hiding places.
Rabbit poo looks nasty, but rabbits are vegetarians with robust livers. If you don’t like stepping around it, it’s entirely nutritious to snack the stuff out of your way!
Other critters include lizards (salamander and newt) and flocks of black carrion birds.
Where the road begins to give way to brush again, you will see a “sugar cube” church. This is the Greek Orthodox parish of Panagia, misleading since the village of Panagia, to the north, is serviced by a number of other closer and more handsome houses of worship.
This is a good jumping off point for ascending the peaks of Mount Livadera (south) or Mount Petrias (north).
Climbing either peak will certainly double the duration of an outing. Both peaks have a small amount of easy-hold climbing. The biggest dangers are loose rock when it is dry and slick stone when it rains. The views are great from both.
The formal trail ends at a helipad. Following the road in the opposite direction leads to potable water and a fork. The Panagia trail can be accessed here. One can head up the surfaced road to the Koutalas Bay trail or down the surfaced road back to Hora.
The first and most popular hike on the island is the one to Hora itself.
Accesing the town from Livandi port, one can take the once-and-hour bus (1.5 euro, ten minutes) or hop a mule. Human power, however, offers a cheap and leisurely opportunity to explore. I bought a 2 euro box of sour cherry juice from the portside grocery for hydration comfort.
This is not the tidy road to the Acropolis. It’s raw and intimate. A series of shortcuts behind private residences, churchyards and schools makes short work of the road of main road.
A significant element of the journey: watching one’s step over the long stone staircases. The height and distance of the next step can be tough to judge in the wrinkling heat. One must dodge mule poo, too.
Locals are quick with a greeting. Ya-sas is the formal catch all phrase everyone has time for. Service people or folks who feel they will see you frequently may return your Ya-sas for Ya-sou, which is your permission to greet them with Ya-sou in the future.
Tourists say Kali-meh-ra to everyone before noon like it is going out of style, but locals will probably only give you a Kali-meh-ra If you are the first person they see in the morning.
Opportunities to get distracted along the way include a folklore musueum, an open air theater where plays are performed in the summer months, and a grand orange and ocean colored church.
Once up the stairs to Hora proper, keeping to the red trail markers is essential. Finding a specific location in the maze is frustrating. It took three people two hours to help me locate my digs after dark here my first night.
Even dayside, very patch of whitewashed homes, stone hovels, cactus plants, and stray cats appears identical. There are stairs to nowhere planted in alleys and corners. Most of the time, the way in is the way out.
The spacious village square has restaurants and gift shops open in the summer months. The commercial center lies just down the stairs.
The two vertigo inspiring things to see in Hora just up the street from here: the ruins of a castle turret from the times when Venetians ruled the island and the tippy topping Aghios Georgios.
On the ferry to Serifos 9/28/10. “Verdia” is a carbonated green apple juice and green tea drink.
Hey Frequency Hopper Readers:
A few weeks back, an opportunity presented itself for me to journey to Greece.
I have focused on earning money for and coordinating this travel instead of working through the backlog of posts from my summer tour of the American South.
Frequency Hopper will be out of sequence for a while. I expect to keep posting once a week through at least January. I have tons of pictures and memories to share with you to inspire your vacations!
xxoo
Dale
Welcome to Serifos! This is the home from where I will be jumping off for most of the next month.
The house has a lovely kitchen with a glassed-in cupboard, marble countertop and sink. I’ve been making use of the rough, locally made ceramic kitcheware.
View from the kitchen window looks over Livadi, a port city 2km below Hora where I am staying.
This is the living room area opposite the kitchen. The pillow on the left side is meant to ward off evil. The marble stairs lead up to a compact toilet/laundry room. Yes, this place is available for vacation rental. Email me for details!
The inside stairs are narrow but navigable. It is easiest to walk backward when descending. Long ago they likely replaced a much less steady ladder in this hatch. One can also access the second floor from the outdoors which is helpful.
I’m staying in the master bedroom which is far more spacious than this picture suggests, with a long row of white closets to the left of frame. You don't have to sleep on a sleeping bag here as there are sheets available, it's just that the last thing I want to do when I'm traveling is make the bed.
The view from the home I am staying in on the Greek island of Serifos
I arrived on the island of Serifos safely if not without challenge.
My ferry came in at 8pm by which point it was after dark. My contact left keys for me at a small excursion service near the pier.
Upon arrival, I introduced myself to the owner who made a big show of pretending he did not expect me. While I’m sure he had much work to do, he could not have been anticipating business to swoop in the door at 8pm on a Tuesday in the off-season.
He called around for a cab, but there is only one taxi driver left on the island, everyone had returned to Athens for the fall. The cab driver had turned his phone off.
The owner finally agreed to drive me himself. He took me up a long series of switchbacks to an unlit stone staircase across the street from a unassuming white building marked “restaurant” in hand painted letters.
I called my contact on the phone and she attempted to guide me to the house.
“Did you reach the fork in the path?”
“Yes, I reached the fork in the path.”
“Turn left.”
“But the path goes in three directions.”
“You want the path that runs parrallel to the street.”
That happened to be the path on the right.
My contact was being very helpful considering she 1) knew nothing about me 2) was directing me to a whitewashed building in a city of identical whitewashed buildings from memory 3) was giving the instructions in a second language.
She named the colors of the neighbors’ doors but I could not see any using only the ambient light from distant road below. I unpacked my flashlight, but the blue cast of the l.e.d.s made green doors and grey doors as blue as some of the blue doors.
After a ten minute, $30 phone call and then another where I attempted to follow her instructions from the road higher on the hill I gave up. I decided I would pull out my sleeping bag and flop somewhere along the path.
Then, my contact brilliantly arranged to call a local friend who knew the way to the house. I had to leave my luggage to the innumerable mewling stray cats and work my way back to the road. From there, I hiked the rest of the way to the top of Kano Hora where I asked and found Louis’ Bar.
A fit fiftysomething man named Stratos got up from his Ouzo to help me. We descended into the maze of the Hora and found the house 20 yards from where my intial instructions last left me.
It had been two and a half hours since I arrived. I walked back to Louis’ with Stratos and the locals conducted an inspection of me in Greek, which I only understood fragments of.
One woman in her seventies teased me about the fact I was drinking Coke instead of Ouzo and ate no meat. She called me her baby and began hand-feeding me some lovely vegetarian bites including a pancake of lightly fried cheese (which I have since been attempting to replicate.)
Later, she rubbed Ouzo on the teeth of an actual baby to much laughter. I told her she could be my yaya (grandmother) and she said she would rather be my girlfriend. She said if it wasn’t for my beard she’d ask me out for coffee.
I walked back, surprised I remembered the way. The cats, now familiar with my suitcases, followed me back to the house. I have been trying to shoo them from the front door ever since.
