On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Athenaze and Ariobarzanes
Our last post focused mainly on Andros’ trail network. Our hike, of course, also took us to the island’s major towns as well as through lots of little villages. As we noted in the introduction to our last post, Andros feels decidedly less touristy than other islands, and instead showcases landscapes and places where people actually live and work (and have, in some cases, done so for centuries). Old and new often sit comfortably together.
This picture, taken near the village of Mesa Vouni in the southern part of the island, presents a clear juxtaposition of the old and the new that defines the landscape of Andros. The terracing you see is the oldest feature, and may well date to antiquity. The building in the center is a dovecote, probably built during the Venetian occupation. And, of course, the solar panels are decidedly modern.
According to local folklore, the village of Menites takes its name from the Maenads of Dionysus. It is famous for its fountain, which delivers spring water (rumored to have therapeutic properties) through six lionhead spouts. Regardless of whether or not these stories are true, the lionhead spouts definitely evoke ancient architecture. Similar features can be seen on buildings from antiquity elsewhere in Greece.
This is definitely a picture for the Balloon Juice commentariat. We think this is a Muscovy duck. We saw many of these wandering freely in settlements around the island (we encountered this one in Menites). It’s a duck that says “I used to be a dinosaur.”
This is a picture of Fourtalia, a traditional dish on Andros. It is similar to a tortilla española and contains slices of potato fried in pork fat, which are mixed with eggs, sausage, and herbs, before the whole thing is baked. It’s a hearty dish and incredibly delicious after a long day of hiking. You can find it not only in traditional tavernas, but also in more upscale restaurants that specialize in New Greek cuisine.
The capital of the island, like the main towns on other Greek islands, is called Chora (“the town”; in Greek, the “Ch” is pronounced like a harsh “H”). The town was founded in the Venetian period and sits on a spit of land that could be easily fortified. The buildings of the town today are mostly in a neo-classical style, and reflect the wealth of Greek shipping families that based themselves on Andros in the 19th and 20th centuries. Some Venetian and Ottoman buildings remain, most notably the so-called “Lower Castle” of the Venetian period, visible on the rocky outcrop just to the right of the town.
This picture shows the Venetian Lower Castle in Chora, as seen from the square (“plateia” in Greek) at the easternmost edge of the modern town.
The Lower Castle was one piece of a larger network of Venetian fortifications, which also included the Upper Castle, located a few kilometers to the south on a promontory overlooking Chora at an elevation of 580 meters. The Upper Castle itself is now mostly in ruins, which are visible in the background of this shot. Today, the heights are dominated by a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary Made Manifest (Panagia Faneromeni).
Chora is a small town, but its main streets (many of which are not accessible by car in the oldest parts of town) can be lively in the evening. This kid and his dog played ball for hours outside his house in the street just outside our hotel.
Van Buren
Need Fourtalia shipped here ASAP.
Rob
@Van Buren: I agree. And, that is indeed a Muscovy Duck.
sab
I am re-reading Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles. Lymond leaves the Levant through Greece. These amazing photos, 600 years later, bring it to life.
eclare
Beautiful photos!
sab
I am so much going to learn how to make fourtalia come winter.
Athenaze
The Fourtalia was amazing. Salt and fat and really flavorful fresh herbs (oregano, for sure). We also put some tzatziki on it (which you can see in the picture as well). It was tasty either way. We couldn’t finish the whole thing that night, and had the leftovers cold the next morning. It was still good. Even now my mouth is watering just looking at the picture and remembering how good it was.
frosty
Great pictures of a really interesting place! I can imagine one of them coming to the US and saying “The oldest buildings are from 400 years ago? And you think that’s old???”
O. Felix Culpa
Ms. O and I love through-hiking, with a room and a shower awaiting us at day’s end. I’ve done several caminos in Spain and we did a great hike along the southeast coast of Sweden the year before the Great Plague. How challenging is the Andros hike? I can do distance and some changes in elevation, but am not a fan of mountain climbing. :)
Ariobarzanes
@O. Felix Culpa:
It’s possible that a through-hike on Andros will involve too much mountain climbing for your taste.
Andros is a long and skinny island (35km long, 13km across at its widest), and four big ridges cut across its long axis, the highest of which reaches about 950m. This means that virtually every stage of a through hike involves climbing up and walking around the shoulder of one of the ridges, or going over a saddle, or even going over a summit.
So, on our easiest day we walked about 12km, and ascended for a total of about 580m, with an equivalent descent on the other end (sea level to sea level). On our hardest, we walked about 19km, ascended 1040m in total, and descended 1340m; that day involved going over the island’s highest point, just above the chapel of Profitis Ilias that was in our photo collection yesterday.
The trail surfaces themselves sometimes add to the challenge. The Andros Route volunteers have done a spectacular job, but there’s only so much they can do with, say, an old Venetian road that has had a lot of its nice, flat, paving flagstones plundered over the centuries for building materials…
Anyway
Great pictures and captions. Thanks.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ariobarzanes: Thanks for your informative response! I’ll keep Andros on my list, in case I get to feeling ambitious.