Kea (Tzia) Island
The western group of the Kyklades is quite distinct from its northern and eastern neighbours. The nearest island to Athens is Kea, which the inhabitants often still call Zia, the name by which it was known during the centuries when it was ruled by Italian family dynas¬ties. Its classical name was Keos, and it was once the most important of all the Kyklades; only thirteen miles south of Cape Sounion, with a fine natural harbour on the north-west coast, it has always been exceptionally fertile, with a constant natural water supply.
Keos was much more a part of Athenian life than the smaller islands of the Saronic Gulf which are now so quickly reached from Piraeus. Aristotle praised her constitution, and among her sons were Simonides and his nephew Bacchylides, two of the most famous poets of the sixth and fifth centuries. Aristophanes originated a pun¬ning proverb which distinguished between the drunken and dishonest Chians and the honest and sober Keans* which no doubt gives satis¬faction in Kea today. In more recent times it was the emporium of the Kyklades long before the Chian refugees built Ermoupolis on Syros; they had been refused asylum in Keos, being perhaps still distrusted for the reputation Aristophanes gave them Keos was the first island to aid Athens in the Persian war of 480 - her ships fought at both Artemision and Salamis - and the first of the Kyklades to join the revolt against Turkey in 1821.
Today it seems improbable that Kea was ever important, though it is still beautiful. The ordinary tourist is discouraged from coming by the shipping companies, who ignore it when scheduling the ferry services down through the western Kyklades. Instead it is served by a small local ferry based on the distant port of Lavrio at the southern end of the Attic peninsula, grudgingly connected by bus with central Athens. The passage takes two and a half hours, longer than the distance warrants because the ship has to negotiate the northern cape of Makronisi, the strange long barren island (not even goats find sustenance there) off the eastern coast of Attica. However, a useful
hydrofoil service connects Kea with the neighbouring island of Kyth¬nos, and once there you will find it a good deal more interesting and attractive than Kythnos. Kea is uniformly hilly, with a largely barren ridge running down the eastern coast, but the feature of the western countryside is a chain of deep narrow green valleys between softly rounded hills. There are fruit trees in plenty, much water (with springs actually flowing in summer) and all you need to live on is in good supply.
The harbour of St Nicholas is one of the finest in the Aegean, a sea which has so many fine ones. A fairly narrow entrance widens out into a double-ended bay, with the main harbour of Korissia to the south. This is where the ferry lands you, but there is nothing much to catch the eye. The waterfront is pleasant but undistinguished, offer¬ing little else but a row of bars, cafes and shops. What life there is comes from the yachts which tie up often double-banked along the quay, while the fishing fleet is confined to a smaller mole nearer the harbour entrance. This tendency to favour the yachtsman is even more obvious at the north end of the bay, where a deeper inlet reaches the once quiet fishing village of Vourkari. Here life can be frenetic, with yachts of all sizes squeezed together like sardines, while the bars and cafes do their best to supply the needs of the crews.
It would be a mistake to let this put you off, if it does, for though swimming is officially discouraged because of human pollution, it is a lovely stretch of water, and on a low headland opposite there is a remarkable survival, no less than a substantial Bronze Age settlement incorporating a late Minoan palace and possibly a temple, where Linear A inscriptions were found by excavators from the University of Cincinnati in the 1960s. Work still goes on, and it proves to be one of those delightful sites of the period, close to the sea, sheltered but indefensible. Its inheritor is the little church of Agia Irene which crowns a low tree-clad promontory; although you are not allowed into the fenced-off site you can clearly see the big blocks of schist which line a ceremonial way.
After Vourkari the road from Korissa turns inland to reach the northern coast at the bay of Otzias. This is not a long walk (though taxis are available) and it gives you a good idea of the gentle country¬side in this part of Kea, once you have passed a couple of brash-looking ‘discos’ on the outskirts of Vourkari. Mostly agricultural, it grows corn, pistachios, apricots, figs and vines, and it supports some healthy-looking cattle. Beside the road you will see a few examples of the island’s once famous and prolific product, the oak tree. Theo¬dore Bent, writing in the 1880s, says that there were then some 1,500,000 of them, covering all but the northern slopes. The acorns were huge, ‘as big as eggs’, but the export trade dealt mainly with the cups, which provided a juice used in the tanning of leather. The acorns themselves sustained the island’s gourmet pigs, and of course the timber was of great value in ship-building. There are still plenty of oak trees all over the island, if not in such numbers, and some of them are marvellously ancient specimens. No one knows why they grew almost exclusively in Keos, but one result is that the olive is comparatively rare.
The beach at the head of the Otzias bay is messy, but the few houses of the village nestle among trees on the east side, where families come to swim and splash, and the cliff path beyond looks down over the rock-fringed bay. There is an excellent taverna in the village.
The same road continues past Otzias, though with a rougher sur¬face, as far as Ormos Kastri, a bay which took its name from a mediaeval castle poised on a rocky outcrop. In the eighteenth century this was demolished to build the monastery of the Panagia Kastri-ani. The older of its two churches dates from 1708, and it contains one of those ikons of the Virgin which are miraculously discovered
by shepherds at the centre of a mysterious glow; in this case they saw it on top of the headland, so that is where the monastery had to be built. The church which is most used is larger and later, built in 1910, but there is a harmony between all the monastery buildings on this exceptionally beautiful site.
The road across from Otzias has lovely views to seaward, though the hills behind are bare and brown. About a mile inland from the halfway point in the road is the village of Kalamos, near which can be seen the ‘miltos mines’ which produced another of the island’s major exports. Miltos was a red ochre dye extracted by heat from a reddish-brown ferrous rock, chiselled away from deep cavities in the hillside. Athens imported it as a paint, and it was widely used to decorate the bows of ships. They are called miltoparioi, or ‘red-cheeked’ by Homer, so it must have been a very ancient industry.
Keos, like Kephalonia, was a tetrapolis. Its four cities were Koris-sia, Poiessa, Kartheia and Ioulis. All four can be traced, though there is little to be found at the first two sites. Ancient Korissia was on the ridge to the west of the harbour, and a few sections of wall can be seen from below. Poiessa was at the foot of a long, deep, almost Alpine valley near the west coast, a place now occupied by the village of Pisses, which has a holiday beach below it. Further down the coast is the big modern Kea Beach hotel at Koundouros. The most important of the four cities was Kartheia, in the bay of Poles (probably originally Polis) at the south-eastern end of the island. Ruins of temples, a theatre and the city walls were unearthed by the Danish archaeologist Bronsted in 1811, and it was clearly a major centre of Greek civilization. Unfortunately the old road which con¬nected it with Ioulis (the modern capital and Chora) has never been rebuilt for wheeled traffic, and there is no practical access for visi¬tors, who can no longer count on hiring a donkey or mule for cross¬country journeys.
Ioulis is a different matter. As you approach the entrance to St Nicholas harbour you will see a patchwork of white-walled, red-roofed houses apparently stuck in tiers to the hillside above and looking as though they might slide downwards at any moment. Here was the ancient city and the mediaeval kastro; here is now the Chora, easily reached by a short modern road from the harbour. It is perhaps the finest of the island Choras, light and airy, with an engaging mixture of alleyways and open spaces, and the most magnificent views to the north and west. The kastro was built on a separate high point by Domenico Michelli as early as 1210, but it was demolished
in 1865, while the earlier temple of Apollo had long ago been plun¬dered for material. Only the gateway and one section of the wall are preserved, and most of the space it occupied is now taken by a hotel. The main plateia is next to the demarcheion, or town hall; it is adorned by a glorious spreading oleander tree and ministered to by a delightful taverna which serves authentic Kean wine (red and white) from the barrel.
Above the town a footpath leads past a church and cemetery to an amphitheatre facing north, terraced to grow a few olive trees. On the same level as the path you come upon the Lion of Kea, a unique sight. He is a charming creature, carved from grey granite, lying on his side in a natural pose with the most amiable expression on his face. This is no maned and lordly African animal, but a smooth-backed Assyrian lion with body and legs carved in lovely flowing lines. His ‘happy fellow’ expression comes of course from the ar¬chaic representation of the mouth which features in human statuary of the period (probably seventh century BC) but the effect is remark¬ably benign, as though he had just had a good meal of Nereids. The story is that the neighbourhood was so much troubled by these crea¬tures (in Greek mythology Nereids are always malignant influences) that the people imported a lion to drive them out or otherwise get rid of them. This he did, and the carving was made as a perpetual deterrent.
Near a spring higher up there is thought to have been a sanctuary of Pan, one of several in Kea. This ancient cult of the patron of flocks and herds was transferred to the Christian St Anargyris, who has churches near secret grottos in both Kea and Kythnos. Myth also associates Kea with Aristaeus, Virgil’s patron of bee-keeping and agriculture* who successfully countered a devastating drought by sacrificing on the top of Mt Ilias to Zeus and Sirius, the Dog Star of Canis Major which rules over the hot dry months. The result of his sacrifice was a period of cooling winds which lasted for forty days, just as the meltemi do today in the months of July and August.
The main road up from Korissia goes on past Ioulis to Pisses and Koundouros. At about the halfway point a rougher track leads down¬hill to the right as far as the church (once a convent) of Agia Marina. The convent buildings have almost disappeared, and the plain little church is dwarfed by an enormous square tower. Built of huge blocks of schist in the lower courses, their size reduced higher up, it still
climbs to a height of more than three storeys. Today it is a shell, but the dark yellowish stone walls, built without mortar, constitute a unique fortified monument of the early classical period. The original height, estimated at about 300 feet, would have been enough to afford a clear view from the battlements down to the western sea, while the tower itself would have been invisible against its back¬ground. The tower had an internal stairway which in 1840 was in good enough condition for King Otto and Queen Olga of the Helle¬nes to climb it and write their names at the top. Unfortunately the King asked for a piece of carved stone to be removed and given him as a memento, whereupon a good deal more masonry collapsed. It was built not only as a watch tower but as a refuge in times of danger, and seems to have had accommodation on a par with Norman keeps in Britain.
It is to the Chora one feels drawn to return, most of all in the evening, when from the lowerplateia where wheeled traffic ends you can watch the red sunset path spread across the strait between Kea and the dark outline of Makronisi, with distant Euboea and the his¬toric mountains of Attica filling in beyond. It is said that in the great days of Kean sea trade merchant ships would lie up in the harbour of St Nicholas waiting for a beacon to be lit on Mt Hymettus - a signal that a ship was wanted for loading at Piraeus. As near darkness falls the scene is incomparably beautiful, the sea still gleaming between sculptured slopes which gradually deepen from grey to black.