Kythnos Island
The whole aspect of any Greek island, especially those most recently opened to tourism, was changed once they were included in a regular ferry service connecting them with Athens; the next stage was when the improved harbour facilities attracted small boat sailors within a weekend’s sailing distance. Kythnos is a good example of the second stage, where in the past all a yachtsman might do was to anchor briefly in the bay of Loutra, and after a visit on foot to the inland Chora, leave for more immediately attractive or welcoming islands.
Within the past decade a substantial harbour has been built at Merihas, half way up the western coast, and this has completely changed the character of Kythnos for the visitor. From seaward nei¬ther the western nor the eastern coastline is arresting. The back¬ground hills are low, the vegetation you see is scrubby, and nobody seems to live there - not even a whitewashed church breaks the sequence of empty rocky coves. Merihas though is a lovely harbour. The enfolding shores look inviting as you turn in from seaward, and
Kythnos more than most islands shows the strain of being caught between two worlds - the old island ways and the new commercial life based on tourism. Many people you meet around Merihas seem rough and lazy - not characteristics you expect to find in the Kyk-lades, but quite possibly there was always a tendency that way in their nature. Yet there is much to enjoy in a short holiday here, and in the evening when outlines are softened, and the Skops owl sets up his persistent one-note cry of lGkion, Gkion’, you can be well content at your table by the edge of the quiet harbour.
The first view of Seriphos, as you approach the main harbour of Livadi at its south-eastern corner, is enchanting. The eye rises from the sheltered blue waters of the bay, alive with the masts of small yachts and fishing boats, to the conical hill beyond, up which climb the white houses of the Chora. At the very top, perched or stranded on the highest pinnacle of rock, is a gleaming white church. In any light - morning, evening or mid-afternoon - it is one of the loveliest sights in the Kyklades and could well represent the ideal Greek island.
At this end of Seriphos there are no traces of the trade in iron ore from which until thirty or forty years ago its people still earned a hard and tenuous living. More wealth comes now from tourism, yet much less than in other islands has this distorted, swamped or spoiled the naturalness of the place and its people.
This is principally because the most frequent visitors are yachts¬men - individual or charter-borne - who sail down from Piraeus through this comparatively little known chain of islands. They can anchor out in the bay or tie up at a convenient and well equipped jetty, backed by a line of good simple shops, cafes and restaurants. The big ferries come in with a great sweep to a long quay only just inside the harbour mole, but this and the yacht basin further in are kept spotless - quite the cleanest landing you will find in all the islands.
If you have landed as a passenger from a ferry without accommo¬dation already booked, it is best to walk down the long quayside till you come to the main group of shops and cafes opposite the yacht berths. There are three hotels around the perimeter of the bay which cater for different kinds of patron, but at any of the cafes they will tell you what rooms there are to let.
From the pleasant open space behind the yacht basin a bus leaves at irregular hours for the Chora - the only fixed one may be the school bus which leaves at 8 a.m. during term time. Alternatively there is a stirring walk up long flights of ancient steps which cut impatiently across the loops of the modem road; this takes about half
There are some fine beaches on Seriphos. Most obvious is the wide tree-fringed sweep of sand which runs round the inside of Livadi bay. This is clean and safe, though a more secluded beach can be found across the headland to the south of the harbour entrance. Better than either is Psili Amnios, which we have glimpsed from the high rocks of Pano Chora. It can now be reached by a roundabout road leading off the far end of the main beach. Quicker for the walker, and far more pleasant, is to strike off the beach before you come quite to the end, and make your way up beside a partly dried-up watercourse which leads through a lovely flowery valley. The lower part may still have water flowing, but if you negotiate this a sandy path will take you through tufts of cistus, thyme, lavender, purple vetch, scarlet poppies and the low-growing thorny broom all in full bloom during May. In the swampier parts you may see white egrets, and skylarks will urge you on your way.
After the valley narrows and turns right, cross a low wall on your right and take any of several goat tracks which climb to the saddle between you and the sea. From there you look down on one of the loveliest bays in any island, and at the edge of the soft sand are two inviting little bar-restaurants. One is owned by a fisherman (whose boat is on the beach), and his wife will give you to eat whatever they have. It may not be much, but you can wash it down with a copper canful of true Seriphos wine. You can swim off the beach or off the rocks further on, and in fine calm weather the sea is like champagne. If you swim a little way out you get the reverse view of Pano Chora, topped by the church of Ioannis Theologos, while sometimes a pair of buzzards wheel hundreds of feet overhead. Another ten minutes over the far headland will bring you to the smaller beach of Agios Ioannis, lovely and peaceful too, but with nowhere to eat or rest.
There is a pleasant walk in the other direction from Livadi, be¬yond the southern beach. After the first half mile, which takes you by a metalled road through an outlying part of Livadi, the way follows goat and donkey tracks across a green headland to the few houses which constitute the well named hamlet of Kali Ampeli, or the ‘Good Vineyard’. There are little beaches below, but no easy way down.
Two more distant places are worth much effort to get to see. The harbour of Mega Livadi is the old centre of the vanished mining industry on the south-west coast, and the only place on Seriphos where a hint of sadness remains. A deserted pier and a rusting gantry mark where the ore was shipped, but now it has reverted to a quiet