Thursday 16 June 2022

Herronissos

We took the bus from Kamares Port to a small hillside village called Artemonas where we had to change buses  to get to a tiny little bay on the north west of the island called Herronissos.


We had to wait in Artemonas for our next bus. Artemonas  is a tiny little village where apart from the bus action,  very little was moving.


We drew the short straw and landed the bone shaker bus, however the driver  took it much slower than yesterday  and it felt a lot safer even though the bus was pretty old. It looks good from a distance :)

 We covered a lot of ground over steep mountainous terrain with sheer drops down to the sea as we chugged along  to  the end of the road. 

Looking out the bus window as we travelled over the mountains,  as far as the eye can see are terraced pastures with either olives or low growing juniper and wild oregano.


 The land looks shaley and so dry. I kept my eyes peeled for ancient towers, there are 57 apparently dating back to 6th century BC, I think I saw the ruins of one far off in the distance. They were signal towers (smoke) and later protective structures for women and children. The vistas seem almost from biblical times, the ancient stone walls, old old olive trees, wandering goats,  a donkey ...even the village names conjure up Greek mythology - Apollonia, Artemonas, Herronissos, it's fantastic.



At the end of the road there was a dusty path down to the bay.


The bay is tucked away through a narrow opening from the sea with steep steps down to a little track along the waters edge to beach.

Again the water is crystal clear and the little kaiki looks so pretty bobbing at the waters edge.

It is a functioning village, a fishing fleet operates and locals live here year round.


It must be so quiet out of the summer season as everyone we saw today, apart from the staff at the two taverna,  were visitors. 





We had a fantastic swim and a bite to eat before the two bus trips back to Kamares Port. We had the business class bus back - it had air conditioning :)

I've been reading up on the history of Sifnos and it's fascinating -  too much to detail here though. However it had gold and silver mines so naturally was fought over numerous times - Macedons, Persians, Venetians, Romans, Turks....until 1821 and Sifnos joined the revolution and won freedom with other Cyclades Islands. It's got bags of history and has two little archeological museums.

A wonderful day.






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