Poros Island
Though itself only just an island, Poros turns out to be two. Unlike the larger Methana peninsula, Poros has allowed a narrow ribbon of sea to divide it from the mainland, and to this (poros in Greek means ’strait’) it owes its present name. Across a gap of no more than 400 yards the mainland town of Galata presents an almost mirror image of the island’s capital. Both have busy waterfronts, and all day long small boats ply between the two. An even narrower channel all but seals off the strait from the north end, so that the waters here are seldom disturbed from their glassy serenity, and they afford one of the safest of all Greek anchorages.
Factors such as these, plus a swift hydrofoil service from Piraeus, have turned both Poros and Galata from quiet fishing harbours into havens for the tourist industry. Galata can claim to be more inde¬pendent of tourism on account of its profitable citrus orchards - there are around 30,000 lemon trees - which darken and scent a whole hillside nearby. Its waterfront, though, is the more modern and func¬tional. Poros still has the look of an island harbour, with red-roofed houses crowding the narrow space between the quays and the low background ridge - a ridge which culminates to the west in a tall blue-domed orologio, or clock tower.
A climb of 150 steps to the base of the tower gives you a fine view of mountains, islands and sea, while down below there is only the clutter and clatter of cafes and their customers. Even by May the scene has become crowded and rather sordid, though it must be said that mechanized traffic has been barred from the quays. Instead, an enterprising firm hires bicycles to all comers, who whizz up and down what is almost a half-mile track from end to end.
This is practically all there is of Poros island - at least that part of it which in antiquity was called Sphaeria. If you penetrate behind the ridge and the orologio you come to a canal between two arms of the sea, which is crossed by a road bridge. This leads to a much larger, virtually separate island known still by its ancient name, Kalavria. The western arm of the intruding sea accommodated the naval head¬quarters of nineteenth-century Greece before they were moved to
Salamis in 1877. This fine establishment now incorporates the Naval Training School for Boys - the Greek Dartmouth - whose cen¬trepiece is the famous old cruiser Averof, moored in the bay.
While the harbour area has lost most of its natural charm, Kalavria retains an unfading beauty. Its hills are still clothed in rich green pine woods, through which a modem road strikes upwards as far as the monastery of Zoodochos Pigi (the iife-giving spring’) where there are peaceful eighteenth-century monastic quarters behind high for¬tified walls, and a katholikon church with a striking seventeenth-century templo. There are still monks here, eight of them, of whom seven work in the fields and one (by rota) stays behind to do the household chores. The twentieth century takes advantage of the scen¬ery here as well, for in the valley below there is a big modern hotel which occupies a wide terrace overlooking a small cove - not a bad place for a holiday, if you like plenty of company.
A branch in the road near the hotel carries on upwards through the pines to the Sanctuary of Poseidon. Although remains are scanty -the ground plan of the temple and a stoa can just be traced - this grassy and flowery plateau is a pleasant place to wander in. You are not seriously hampered by a high perimeter fence which allows only one point of entry; in fact the custodian there can add to your pleasure by his conversation and directions. A surprise bonus may be to put up a cock pheasant in his summer glory, for a few pairs have been introduced here and given five years immunity from slaughter while they breed. The idea is to exploit them commercially in shoots when there are sufficient numbers to transfer to other suitable sites.
The sanctuary of Kalavria was the meeting place of an early maritime countil, a body formed by Aegina, Athens, Epidaurus, Her-mione, Nauplia, Orchomenos and Prasiae. It was also an inviolable sanctuary for refugees and the victims of shipwreck. It was here that Demosthenes, the orator who had vainly urged the Athenians to resist the power of Macedon, took refuge from the soldiers of Alexander’s former general, Antipater, when they came to take him from his place of exile in Troezen. They followed him to Kalavria, but trusting that not even Macedonians would dare profane so famous a shrine he refused to be inveigled out of the sanctuary until - as Plutarch tells the story - he had had time to write a letter to his friends: ‘He went into the temple, as though he would have despatched some letters, put the end of the quill with which he wrote into his mouth and bit it, as was his habit when he wrote anything. Then he cast his gown over his head and laid him down/
The soldiers outside taunted him with cowardice, and their leader Archias himself came into the sanctuary and begged him to come out, saying that he would intercede for him with Antipater. While he was speaking Demosthenes felt the poison he had absorbed from the quill beginning to work, and he staggered to his feet saying £0 Poseidon, now I will leave thy temple while I am yet alive and not profane it with my death’. It was not to be. As he stumbled towards the door the poison struck him down and he fell dead at the foot of the altar.