Five days on Kythera

'Not all may sail to Kythera' and they say you should always allow an extra two days either side of your visit to this legendary island... the oceans might swell or the mists lower, and your plane or once weekly ferry might be cancelled. Ours wasn't exactly cancelled but it must have been a close call, as the winds were high and the white horses bucking at Kissamos harbour. The crew were handing out sick bags before the ship departed. Later we discovered we had sailed in a gale force wind - Beaufort scale of 8 - not exactly a hurricane but not far off!...In any case, we sailed, on a rolling vessel and we made it to mysterious and mythical Kythera. Once the ground had stabilised and we had driven up along the ridge with already breathtaking views, we stopped to ask directions at a souvlaki bar (also partaking of a coca cola - yes, the only antidote to seasickness) - and started to take in the peculiar mix of dramatic natural beauty, fascinating historical relics and welcoming locals that this island offers.

Looking back to the port of Diakofti and the wild seas!

Kythera is mythically the birthplace of the goddess of love, Aphrodite, who arose out of the swell of the sea (after Cronus cut off Uranus's genitals, as the legend goes...). The baths of Aphrodite, with their limestone arches rising out of the billowing seas, lure you  - you see plenty of photos on the tourist pamphlets, but, like many of the island's secrets, can be frustratingly hard to get to (but see below).

But we saw plenty! Two monasteries, two springs, two bakeries, more than seven tavernas, byzantine frescoes housed in a museum-church (that was actually open, of the 300 + that are on the 280 square kilometers of the island!), ruined Venetian castles, fertile valleys, dramatic gorges, waterfalls, a water course with disused watermills, stunning and deserted beaches and hip towns with a newly established nightlife scene alongside cafes and outdoor tavernas in the church square, incredible sunsets looking back to the Peloponnese, a pottery, a little fishing harbour...it is quite an amazing place for a small island with a population of less than 2,000 in the off season - which is most of the year. 

Kythera opens up to tourists in July and August and many - it felt like most - of these are Australians of Kytherian origin,  part of the mass migration after WW2 - returning with their families. In the most remote village, don't bother with your Greek phrase book, they will call over Philip or Yiannis who was in Brisbane or Sydney and who speaks English with the broadest accent, to help you find your spring or your Byzantine church. But despite this apparently unnatural influx of tourists, it still feels like a 'real' island. Most of the businesses do their hard work in summer but remain open all year. There are several pharmacies, ATM terminals, car hire companies, tavernas in remote locations and hotels and guest houses that are surviving and some even flourishing, due to the willingness of young Kytherians or Greeks from other islands or parts of the mainland seeking to start up something different and enticing.

North of the island, looking towards the Peloponnese

We drove to our guesthouse - Xenonas Fos Ke Choros,  an incredible construction (from scratch) by Albert Blok, originally from the Netherlands, using local stones (of which there are endless supplies) and design. Just to stay here was an experience in itself, sensational views at every turn - of the valley with hilltop towns, the Ionian sea, the dry stone walling, the brilliant blue everywhere. Inside was cool stone aesthetics and comfort, very private, space to spread out and witness the sky changing and the brilliant starry nights. 

Romantic Xenonas Fos ke Choros at night

Simple meal in the kathenion down the road completed a rough day rendered tranquil!

Albert's information enabled us to put together a comprehensive itinerary to capture the best sights and experiences. In his brochure we discovered the Monastery at Damianos was open on the 1st July (the only day it was open all year!) so we headed for that.

This ‘family’ monastery, Agios Kosmas, was set into bare hillside, with the brilliant deep blue of the Mediterranean beyond. The service apparently started at 7am but it was 10.30 by the time we’d finished our leisurely breakfast of yoghurt, honey and peaches. It was standing room only inside the church. We didn’t enter but could peek into the richly decorated interior where a whiskered and glamorously robed priest was swinging incense and chanting. 

Greeks seem to come and go quite casually during their (rather long) services. There were people of all ages. At one point everyone exited and filed down to a wooded copse, where more blessings and flapping and blessings with bunches of strongly scented thyme and rosemary continued. I managed to get a photo of the kindly priest.

Afterwards they handed out special sweet 
bread and holy water, 

at which point, having partaken of some, we departed for our next monastery, Myrtidiotissa, another one quietly sited on a peaceful slope, this one a little higher and with sweeping views to the sea. We drove down a rough track to what we thought was going to be a beach, winding treacherously down a dizzyingly high and narrow one-car lane 'road', getting lost, but looking back to an incredible view of the Agia Sofia cave (4 million year history) and the mountains plunging straight into the sea.

The roads are generally quite well signposted in Greek and English but they don’t always follow the one printed on the tourist map. Back to Mylopotamos where I had read of lush waterfalls, watermills and brooks as well as a legendary taverna under the plane trees. We certainly found the taverna, impossible to miss, and unfortunately already overflowing with busloads of tourists…who turned out to be, surprise, surprise, Australian. It looked like the taverna was not to be that day, as advised by a local woman selling gorgeous smelling botanical products, soaps and creams and such - who turned out to be Sottish. She suggested we eat after the crowds had subsided, and to walk beyond the ‘Murderess’s waterfall', down the irrigation stream that used to power the 23 Neraidos (water nymph) watermills of a bygone era.

It was certainly pretty at Fonissa, but marred by the bus crowd and people taking selfies against the waterfall. Again, the tip to continue on was rewarded, we met Philip, watering his beautiful gardens within a stone courtyard, who must have been the caretaker of a little museum where artefacts from the watermill era were on display. No longer the crowds to warrant keeping the museum open, which felt a little sad.

But we kept walking and past more gorgeous little waterfalls and through ferny glades, with a sound track of creaking frog life, trickling water; very peaceful. Back at the lower end of Mylopotamos we wandered through a strange little town of abandoned dwellings, one or two carefully renovated and inhabited…a strange experience. 

Back at the taverna, still no easing of the clientele, so we decided to head back, have a snack, rest, and venture out again for dinner.

It proved to be a great choice. We headed up to Potamus (getting lost at first again on the little winding lanes and ending up in another tiny village, mostly deserted and crumbling but greeted cheerfully by an old lady in her dressing gown). Potamus was a great little town, very 'happening', lots going on, people - not just tourists  - everywhere, lots of shops and nice big village square with restaurants and village life. Even bars and coffee shops…the new guard. We shopped for souvenirs from the Maneas general store (nice linen and a ball of sisal string, made in Greece) that really took my fancy, I don’t know why.

Maneas' general store in Potamus

I bought some tsipoura from a local artisan who also sold herbs and jams. As soon as we sat down at our chosen restaurant a man from Brisbane spotted us and came over to chat. (I guess we look like Australian tourists!) He and the other couple they were with come regularly to the place of their birth. They rent out apartments in Agia Pelagia and love their holiday there every year. Food in Crete and now Kythira I have found to always be excellent, even the most mediocre taverna serves up a great salad and the ‘fried potatoes’ are always good as they are cooked in olive oil, which just cannot be of poor quality even if it tried. We had zucchini flowers stuffed with cheese, pork in lemon sauce and roasted aubergine slices with meat and tomatoes…yum.

Next day we headed southward, down through Karvounades but missing the bakery (which apparently has its own historic wood oven) ...anyway we headed on through to Livadi, another busy little town and stopping, this time, at the bakery, also famed. I got out my Greek phrase book, ready to look up numbers and quantities of all sorts of Greek sweets and pastries, when the woman fired back at me in her broad Queensland accent. She’d lived for many years there but had returned to Livadi with her husband. We bought bougatsa, my absolute favourite, loukoumi, Greek delight with rosewater (also known as Turkish delight but the Greek version is pretty good), amygdalota (almond) biscuits and other pastries we really shouldn’t have purchased and didn’t need…

Livadi deco

Out to the back roads and a visit to the local potter, Roussos, whose father and grandfather were both potters on Kythera. Immaculate garden of orange trees, huge bushes of basil and thyme, a lovely display and some tourist sized pieces to take home, of course.

On to the little church-museum with some lovely frescoes, and to the Katouni bridge of 1826, built during the ‘British period’. A graceful construction, with overflow holes, through which you can peek at more olive groves, crumbling Minoan stone, limestony hillside, azure skies…

Then onwards through Kalamos to Kapsali and Chora or Kythira, the capital. Breathstopping views approaching these two towns – of the twin bays of Kapsali (likened to the shape of the breasts of Aphrodite) and the castle top view of Hora.

Hora (Kythera)

We stopped at an (apparently) uninhabited clifftop mansion and sneakily took photos from the top of their stone wall. 

A swim stop at Kapsali at the non beach lounge end (cute little change huts) and then the agonising choice of which taverna? We wanted local fish, the best position, a true taverna experience – not demanding at all! In the end we got everything on the list - calamari, Greek salad, bread, olive oil, views...

Kapsali

We had read that Hora is active in the mornings until about 2 o’clock, after which everyone goes for their siesta or the Kytherian equivalent.

We wandered in silence through tiny medieval streets and around houses in varying states of repair - some smartly renovated, others left to crumble. Everywhere, bright crimson bougainville crept over the whitewashed walls – I guess, typical Greek island scenery. We found ourselves at a hip café, Fossa  – not a kathenion – a trendy café with two terraces, the lower of which supplied a view across a valley, stamped with slender cypress pines, olives and orange trees, the ruins of a Byzantine church, and foregrounded with two copper church bells. You could see both bays of Kapsali peeping through curves of limestone rockface, the little rocky islet also shimmering in the distance. 


And a flat white and a honey and 
thyme infused home-made lemonade with that!

By the time we’d finished our coffees and conversed with the owner  - (pleasantly surprised I think that we were from Adelaide and not Sydney or Brisbane, and who obligingly gave us his best traveller’s tips and took a top photo of us)  - some of the little shops were starting to open. We trailed back up to the top of the town, but found the archaeological museum disappointingly closed, and decided we’d better call it a day. I would like to return to Hora, we didn’t get to see the castle with views across to Crete and Antikythera, talk with the locals, wander a little longer through those interesting little streets. 

There was still the choice of taverna for the evening meal to work out.

We took up Albert’s tip of Kokkino Spaleto - a mezzo dopolio – midway I think between a taverna and a kathenion, and only had to drive ten minutes to the neighbouring town of Friligianika. Gorgeous little kitchen spilling its tables onto the church square and the promise of very local home cooked food. We were not disappointed – a wonderful fava bean dip with capers and kaltsounia, little pies made with spinach and local greens, Andrew had local Kytherian pork sausages and salad. For the first time since we’d arrived a cool wind had whipped up and it was a little fresh outside. We moved inside to an equally atmospheric space with historic photos of the town’s women in national dress adorning the walls as well as a framed example of the crimson spaleto (jacket) itself. An Italian couple from Bologna had also decided it was a little fresh and very quickly we got chatting - this was their fifth visit to the island and they loved it best of all the Greek islands they had visited, for its unspoilt appeal. It was like joining in on a dinner party with kindred spirits and I think the waiting staff wondered if we were ever going to leave…not that they were at all pushy.

Wednesday – sadly we had to check out of Xenonas – they were booked solid and we were lucky to get the three days we did – so a quick trip up north (getting lost again, but you can never really get completely lost – you just take longer to get to your destination) to the famous bakery, Karava, that supplies the special Kytherian paximadia rusks across the country and as we found out, soon also Australia. 

We were snooping through the back door at the baking in progress and Yiannis spotted us - we obviously looked curious, so he took us on a spontaneous tour. The sprightly octogenarian told us how they had built the bakery from scratch in the space of an old olive press - the presses were still on display in the main shop.

Yiannis had gone to Australia as part of the mass migration after the war but had always said when his youngest child turned seven he would return or they would never know their roots. As it was his son was now running the bakery and 82 year old Yiannis was the man on the floor. 

We had already bought 

copious pastry supplies from the Livada bakery, 

so sadly couldn’t indulge too greatly, but at a 

minimum had to sample the spinach pies and the 

Kythirian rusks with sesame and cheese that we 

had seen in the oven. We left contact details with 

Yiannis' son, for Gaganis brothers in Adelaide 

should they want to expand into South Australia! 

Hopefully so!

The north of the island is much greener than the south – historical battles raged between invaders and refugees from the Ionian and Cretan islands over entitlements to the more fertile region, creating ‘in’ and ‘out’ parts of the island which apparently still exist today (the Brisbane ex-pats told us about this – they were from the ‘out’ part). We drove north to the springs, past orchards of peach, pear and orange. We weren’t sure we’d ever get back up again if we drove to the bottom of the steep and curvy road leading down to the springs, so we parked up the top and set off on foot, past an incredible abandoned medieval hillside town.

Karavas

The walk to the spring was cool and shady, with the proverbial babbling of the brook and the shrill cacophony of cicadas a constant. Of course, there was a taverna at the bottom, even if not yet with large clientele – we were just a little ahead of the ‘season’. Such a peaceful spot to partake of  the locally made lemonade. We walked further downwards to another spring, this one a little more obvious at the end.

Back to check out of Xenonas  - sigh - and to head on through Mitata – the oldest settlement in Kythera and once a place of windmills – one is now restored and is the icon for a retreat in this gorgeous countryside, with its lush groves, cypress pines and green terraces reminiscent of Tuscany and (people say) Sardinia. A far cry from the bare slopes around Diakofti where we first arrived. Picnic was on the agenda today, and we found the perfect spot, down below the Mitata springs, on a shady patch of grass under two pine trees and looking towards the impressive ravine, the omnipresent byzantine church and a hilltop village to our left.

We had sought directions in the village prior, me conscientiously but unnecessarily flipping through the vocabulary A-Z of my Greek-English phrase book to find the word for ‘spring’. A puzzled local indicated to wait for the guy who’d been in Australia - who announced in yet another broad Queensland accent that we just had to go on down along the road ‘about a k’. While we were picknicking he and his mate whizzed past us in their car and stopped to check we weren’t lost – the spring was above us! Funny to hear that accent in the middle of nowhere, it seemed.

We found our way eventually to the pretty little port of Avlemonas, down a steepish ravine road - windy and would-be treacherous, except that people generally drive cautiously, knowing they may encounter a car coming in the opposite direction on the one lane road. There are rules about who gives way - definitely the car coming uphill has priority.

Avlemonas is picturesque - a little historic harbour lining a perfect, clear rock pool with platforms and ladders for easy access.

Avlemonas

At first glance perhaps a bit post-card touristy, until you realise that there are plenty of locals who actually live here, and the tourists tend to be large bands of Australian youth – not travelling in the same way as they do in Bali or Thailand – being the offspring of Kytherian Australians who want their kids to know the family origins. So while the Australian accents are again ever-present, they tend to emanate from family groups – three generations and all the boyfriends/girlfriends etc. Still – they were a bit too ‘Aussie’ for what we wanted – also Andrew’s eye was smarting from all the driving and maybe a bit of grit or grass, so we decided, after a rest, to return to Livadi and find the pharmacy  - there are three on the island and open til 10pm. The very helpful pharmacist gave him exactly what was required to fix it, so we decided to stay on, pick over the Wednesday Livadi street market (though sadly couldn’t buy many more glass-bottled olive oil, tsipoura or other treats). We ate at a local taverna, with a quiet, no pretences interior, lace curtains and a view to the village on the ridge. It had a terrazzo floor in two colours, the pink an extension of the green  - as yet another Philip, the estatoria proprietor, explained: the first was laid by his father in 1965 and the second was added by Philip in 1989 when he too returned from Australia after his father died, to take part in rebuilding the island’s economy.

Day four was going to be our ‘rest’ day, so we bathed early in Avlemonas in the gorgeous little rock pool and returned to our apartment for breakfast of omelette and tomatoes (with basil filched from the huge bushes growing everywhere – nobody would really mind!), some of that indescribably creamy goats milk yoghurt, fresh peaches and honey, we found the orange juicer as well. It was going to be hot anyway – so a rest day was needed – aircon and doing what the locals do until it is nice enough to venture out again. This time to Kaladi beach which I’d seen in the brochures. We were not disappointed – the water so clear and rippling turquoise, sapphire and lapis lazuli – reflections of gold and cream against the rock. We floated – high salt content so you can just float – and tried to put off the thought that sadly we would be on a plane home the next day (it turned out we waited on a plane for an hour next day…then missed our connections home...but that’s another story).

We also managed to find the ‘baths of Aphrodite’, so called as the goddess legendarily took her bath there, and the perfect taverna, Skandia, for our last night. This one established in 1975, set under the vines, the ubiquitous cat stretching out to join us – a meal of grilled cuttlefish, grilled vegetables and meatballs in red sauce - not an Australian accent within cooee.  

Back to Avlemonas for a late night coffee overlooking the warm lights reflected in the pool – so romantic!

Avlemonas

Our last day was about packing, sadly no time to return to favourite spots. We wandered down to the harbour to take a photo of the sundial on the Kavalini mansion. According to Tzeli Hadjidimitriou, whose excellent guidebook on Kythera we followed, this house was the Austro-Hungarian consulate in the 19^th century – hard to imaginne in such a remote little port as Avlemonas - then a Customs house and coffee house before passing into an Italian family’s hands to be sumptuously restored. 

We had a last swim and early lunch of sardines and salad before making our way to the airport to (eventually) farewell this little gem of an island. We may have to return...

The baths of Aphrodite...actually not so difficult to find if you ask a local