The islet looms faintly from the horizon, a conical mass, distant and cut off from the rest of the islands. As it squeezes, it looks like a wide-open embrace. In the centre, a sandy beach with turquoise waters. At either end, the white houses of the settlement, like open arms, eager to shake hands…
Donoussa didn’t leave me much room for emotional choices. I was bound to fall in love with her. And in a flash. Before I’d even set foot on her soil, even from the boat, from my first sight. Just like when you fall in love with someone before you talk to them, before you touch them, just by their aura.

The islet looms faintly from the horizon, a conical mass, distant and cut off from the rest of the islands. As it squeezes, it looks like a wide-open embrace. In the centre, a sandy beach with turquoise waters. At either end, the white houses of the settlement, like open arms, eager to shake hands…
Donousa didn’t leave me much room for emotional choices. I fell in love with her out of necessity. And in a flash. Before I’d even set foot on her land, even from the boat, from my first sight. Just like when you fall in love with someone before you talk to them, before you touch them, just by their aura.
THE FIRST HOURS IN DOULA
“Skopelitis” sails to the pier of the small harbour and, a few minutes after 7 pm, we step ashore. The first person who welcomes us to the island is the President of the Community, Yannis Prasino. He understood us by instinct and came straight to us.
-Are you the ones the community is waiting for?
-We are.
-So welcome and I hope you have a good time. Go and settle into your room, take a bath, relax a bit and then we’ll see you later.
Anna observes the light of the dolphin, as it sweetens on the all-white houses. Built on the smooth slopes around the cove, they start at sea level and reach up to the high ground.
-It would be nice, President, to walk around for a while, to photograph the place before darkness falls.
He looks at us in a strange way.
-You still haven’t set foot on land and have your mind on work? What kind of stress is that? Enjoy the cool of the evening. And tomorrow’s God’s day, Donosa won’t leave her seat.
We take the President’s son up a paved hill with a terrible gradient of more than 15%. A lot of our luggage weighs more. At one point I look up and see the end of the driveway at the top of the hill. I immediately push any pessimistic thoughts out of my mind. And yet, our room is where the hill ends! A few more steps and we finally reach the room. A narrow corridor and a few metres beyond that a little terrace with three tables and chairs. On one of them a young man is taking a nap. We take a look at the object of his rhapsody. All our discomfort disappears in an instant. What a sight is this, what a supreme beauty! At our feet lies the settlement and the harbour. The Aegean, deep blue and serene, stretches to the edge of the horizon. To the south-east, the incredible long ridge of the Amorgos massif can be seen. Behind, the sun paints the sky of Naxos red. And high in the sky the thin arc of the new moon begins to take shape.
-Good for them, says the young man cheerfully. My name is Dimitris. I see you sweating, you must be thirsty.
He brings from his room a bottle of ice water and two glasses.
-I’m not from Donoussa either, but 15 years in a row, I feel like a local.
Here’s another incurably in love, I say to myself. We forget tours and photo shoots in the sunset light, even Anna. No photograph can capture the moments, the changing images and colors as the sun disappears.
We stay in the tarantula until nightfall. Then we slowly descend to the ouzeri of the harbour, where a bustling and multilingual crowd enjoys raki and sea snacks, late August in Donousa.
WINDING THE ISLAND
-If you want action, you will have it, says President John Green in the evening at the tavern. Before the sun comes out and the heat catches up with me, I’ll be treading the last grapes of the year. The hour is wild but interesting.
So we start the first day in Donoussa from… the night. Luckily! Because already at 5:30 the President starts preparing for the footing on the top of the hill, a little above the lodge. There is the family’s old wine press, stone and tiny. Inside it, the President presses the last grapes in the traditional way of our ancient ancestors, with his feet. As I imagine the scene in the wine presses, which the ancient Greeks carved into the rocks, huge rocks in desert places, which we have admired in Maroneia and other places in Greece. Under the wine press the must is collected, scarce but of high quality, which will form the basis of the family’s wine.
The day is getting darker, we can clearly see around us many prickly pear trees, a small threshing floor, dry stone walls and low buildings, the family’s old warehouse with the barrels and the smell of wine and raki. A landscape of strange simplicity, full of charm.
Before the sun is even high, the pressing is over.
-Come over from the community to have coffee, says the President. Then a tour of the island awaits you.
We walk through the alleys of the settlement of “Stavros”, which is locally called “Kambos” and was characterized as traditional in 2002. Uphill, downhill, cobbled alleys, white that blinds us. Interspersed with touches of red bougainvillea and blue orange trees, greenery and small trees.
After our coffee we head down to the port. Here Mitsos Kovaeos, our guide, is waiting for us. We settle in the nine-meter-long Community launch with 10 other passengers. At the end of August there are only foreigners, who go by boat to various beaches of the island. We leave the harbour heading south. The longhorn of Amorgos fills the horizon. High up, dominates the “Papas”, with its triangular peak. We pass by “Kavos Panagias”, named after the homonymous chapel on top of the hill. The coast is rocky and inhospitable, but after the cape a creek with an opening of about 100 meters is revealed. It is “Kedros”, with a wonderful sandy beach and clear waters. In the sand of the seabed you can see the traces of a German ship that sank during the war.
-Until the late 1930s there were copper, alumina and some gold mines here, says Mitsos. The ore was loaded from the hillside to the bay by wagon. There was also a rock that came out, what we call “sloppy” rock, a white and transparent rock that makes sparks if you hit one against the other.
Several tents are set up on the beach. Some of the passengers are waving at us and jumping on the sand. Off Cedros we pass the “Kavos tou Mylou”. High on the ridge stands a ruined windmill. Vertical rocks end in the water and make the coast inaccessible and hostile. Immediately afterwards, Donoussa shows us its friendly face again. It is the tiny cove “Vathi Limenari”, of unparalleled beauty and great archaeological importance, since the remains of an ancient fortified, geometric settlement were discovered in its bulwarks.
We are now sailing along the “Tsibouri” area with small terraces and running water. In the past, orchards and vineyards were cultivated. Today only reeds remain. In front of us stretches the bay “Livadi” with a wonderful sandy beach, a clear seabed, free camping and some nudists. It is an extremely popular coast, with plenty of greenery and a windmill on top of the hill. Next door is “Fykio”, a small beach with a concrete jetty and a few tents. Further out is “Glaria”, a cluster of small rocks sticking straight out of the water. Two pairs of cormorants have taken refuge on them. The small houses of “Mersinis”, built on the slope, are whitewashed high up and next to them is the chapel of Agia-Sofia.
We ride the cape and for the first time the outline of Ikaria is visible in the northeastern horizon. We pass by the location “Vatos” with the tiny island “Englezos”. In front of us rises a rough rocky mass. It’s Korakoftero. A wild goat is watching our course, hidden in the shadow of a rock. In our wake, wild pigeons and a few hawks fly by. The coast unfolds along its entire length with wild beauty, a continuous wall of solid rocks, interrupted now and then by cracks and small caves. At one point the cohesion of the rocks is violently broken by a geological crack, which looks like a trauma deep in the sides of the rocky outcrop. It is the “Fokospilia”, a triangular opening of immense size, at least 40 metres wide and over 10 metres high. We enter slowly, in awe of the depths of nature, an embrace of half-darkness, cool after the merciless sun of an August morning. Clear waters, an authentic turquoise colour. On the walls “coral”, a stalactite decoration that we have encountered several times.
We go back out into the heat and light. In front of us is the “Kavos Moschonas”, a peninsula of impressive volume and ruggedness, a sheer rock. Behind it, however, the coast is once again calming. After a long time, the landscape becomes friendly again. It is the wide bay of Kalotaritissa, surrounded by a gentle coastline with low altitudes and successive small sandy beaches.
-This is where the asphalt road network of the island ends, in the settlement of Kalotaritissa, says Mitsos. In winter it is inhabited by only three people. The youngest is over 70.
A beautiful triangular-shaped island adorns the northeastern edge of the bay. It is “Skoulonissi”.
-It got its name from the bulb “sculo”, which grows on its slopes and becomes pickled, explains our friend.
We leave the protective embrace of the bay, this huge unimpregnated pool and we go out into the open, we pass the “Kavos lantern”. The breeze cools, the surface of the sea loses its gloss, becomes wrinkled and dark. We are already at the northeasternmost tip of the island, completely exposed to the northern winds. For the first time, the imposing bulk of Naxos is visible to the west. We set sail for Cape “Kavi”, a rocky cape, blackish towards the land and light in the sea. A lily sandy beach is unexpectedly inserted into the overall wildness of the coast. There’s the “Kavi’s Dry Dock”, 300 metres offshore. At its top, two seagulls and four cormorants rhythm. As we pass, they remain indifferent.
A vast bay opens up before us, even larger than that of Kalotaritissa. It is “Xylobatis”, a poetic name given to it by the islanders, from the abundant wood that the butis washes up on the coast. At the west end of the bay, the presence of the “White Crab” dominates catalytically. It is a rocky wall that penetrates into the sea like a slightly curved blade several hundred metres long. Of great geological interest is this rugged coastline with its vertical cliffs, the variety of rocks and the huge dome of the ‘Cave of the Wall’, from the roof of which stalactites hang. The dome of the cave has a perfect curvature, looking like it was carved by a human hand at a height of at least 20 metres above sea level. The waters are serene and clear, an attractive natural pool. But not for long. We arrive at “Dondi”, the tip of the peninsula. Here the garbi awaits us. All this time he’s been lurking hidden behind the cape. Now it’s hitting us sideways, with a force of more than 5 Beaufort. The boat is bobbing wildly, the waves are soaking us, our stay on deck is no longer pleasant.
Half an hour is spent fighting the waves and the uncomfortable chill in the heat of the cabin. Then, suddenly, they always calm down. Captan-Nicolas ties the lance to the port, the rocking ends. What remains is the exciting memory of the incredible variety of images that the circumnavigation of Donoussa revealed to our eyes.
GOURMET AND MERMAID
After the spectacular tour of the island, the mainland landscape and getting to know the inhabitants is next. Every hour that passes, with every human contact, Donoussa reveals its true face, charming and diverse, hospitable and spontaneous, distanced from the artificial face of the tourist-developed island destinations. The mass and anonymous crowd here is unknown. In a few days almost everyone becomes known, addressed by their first names, locals and foreigners alike. In the micro-society of Donousa, everyone’s movement is visible, from morning coffee to late night rakes. If a local offering services doesn’t pay attention to service and quality, he will lose. The customers are specific and few, not the one-time passers-by as is the case on larger islands.
We start our first acquaintance with Donoussa by following the asphalt road network that ends in Kalotaritissa. The road surface is new and good, built in 2002, an important infrastructure for the development of the island. In its passage, however, it cut off several sections of the old cobbled road that connected Stavros with Messaria and Mersini. Traffic is almost non-existent, we drive slowly and enjoy the changes in the landscape, small farms with a few olive trees, gullies and ditches and between them terraces with terraces, most of which remain abandoned and uncultivated. The sandy beach of Cedros, which we had admired from sea level, is revealed on the route in a plan that captures all the splendour of the bay.
We leave a little higher the settlement of Mesaria with its only inhabitant, we pass outside of Mersini and ascend to Kalotaritissa. At the highest point of the ridge, a solitary dwelling appears below the road, outside any settlement. It is located in the middle of a gentle slope. Around it are small gardens, so well-tended that they reveal an owner with knowledge and care. We are not out of place. Michael, along with his partner Ruth, have transformed the 6 acres of barren hillside into a farmhouse to be admired. We wander through the aisles of the vegetable garden. The diligence, variety and order leave us amazed. There’s hardly a zarzovy that doesn’t thrive in this orchard. We are impressed by the various types of peppers, as well as the five varieties of tomatoes, the most spectacular being the long-necked “kumenderia”. Lemon and orange trees, peach trees, apple trees and apricot trees stand up, large or small, in various parts of the estate. A large fig tree is laden with black figs. Here is a tiny peach tree, with a single peach on its branches. It reminds one of a woman who had a child in her teens.
We drink coffee with our departing friends, we let our eyes wander to the incomprehensible view of Amorgos and the sea, we listen to Michalis saying that he still has a lot of work to do before he can use his land to the last centimeter. Before we leave, he fills a large bag with almost the entire variety of his products.
We continue our route with stunning scenic views of the Moschona Cape, Skoulonissi with its beautiful shape and the surrounding turquoise waters. A different feeling from the sea level and another from above. At the location “Moschonas”, at the A foothills of Vardia, an elongated plateau stretches alongside the road, with fences of dry stone walls and vineyards. Here was once the main vineyard of the island, today few vines remain.
We are descending to the shores of Kalotaritissa. The waters are calm, ideal for yachts. Here’s a pebbly little beach, the Soapstone, with a width of no more than 10 metres. In the past it had much more sand, but it was used for building houses. A few hundred metres further down is the longest beach, Vlychos, a beautiful and uncontaminated sandy beach, affected only by the easterly winds. Some kids are fishing with rods, the place exudes an incredible serenity. Immediately afterwards we enter Kalotaritissa, 11 km in total from Stavros. The settlement is small, crossed all along by a cement road slightly uphill, which ends in a dirt road and then a path. This path continues in direction D, passes through the neck at the foot of Papa and then descends to Stavros. A few years ago it was the main road connecting the two settlements.
The houses in the village are low, none of them more than one storey high. They are in harmony with the unpretentious landscape and the simple lifestyle of the inhabitants of the village. They are all traditional, built with local stone. In some it is exposed while in others it is covered with lime, beautifully combined with green and especially blue orange windows. Interspersed are fig and prickly pear trees, bougainvillea with vivid colours. Some impressive old cedars stand on the village’s battlements.
We walk slowly along the main road and at the very first houses we meet two of the three permanent residents of the settlement. They are Mrs. Maria and Uncle George, his younger wife. Good-natured and sweet-natured people, they live in a simple little house, with poor furniture, a stove that burns coal and sex. On the walls are a few old photographs in frames. The dominant figure among them is Grandfather, George himself.
-Do you like our place? Uncle George asks.
-Every, I answer him
-Only to stay as it is, not to become Mykonos, he adds.
A little further up we meet the lady – fan, the circle of the permanent residents of the village. The tiny courtyard is coloured by a bougainvillea. Pots of basil are lined up in rows. As we touch them the atmosphere becomes fragrant. The cottage surpasses its predecessor in austerity. Inside, the parastille is preserved, “so that the bean soup can boil slowly,” says Mrs. Fanny. The window is small, “like a war room”, adds her daughter Maria, who lives in Piraeus. 11 months of the year Mrs. Fani lives as a nun. But in the summer, her daughter comes for a month. Her two sons are sailors. I ask her how she can bear so much loneliness.
-I can’t go to Athens, he replies, I’m fine in the village. I have my chickens, my cattle, my vineyard. Near 75, Mrs. Fani makes cheese with the milk from her goats, wine and tsipouro from her small vineyard.
We are approaching the highest point of Kalotaritissa. Someone from a courtyard invites us, but he is not a local. It’s Saya Minasidou, from the far north, the Trifilli of Giannitsa. She came to Donousa many years ago with her husband, arrived in Kalotaritissa and fell in love with the place. They bought a dilapidated house in 1991. Since then, summer after summer, carrying the materials with donkeys and boats, they created a wonderful home that keeps the traditional character of the place unchanged.
-We are still building it, concludes Saya, it is our favourite summer retreat.
We bid farewell to Kalotaritissa, this sweet place, which is very likely to have a small guesthouse and taverna at some point, without being in danger of becoming Mykonos. We take the ascents to Mersini. In the high ground we are rejoined by the garbi, the blade of Michael and Ruth’s wind turbine spinning like crazy.
Built with Doric simplicity, the settlement is clinging to a steep slope wide open to the sea. The houses are small, stone-built, flat-roofed. Chickens and piglets prowl in the courtyards. We immediately find the famous haunt of “Gigi – Gigi”. A beautiful place with exquisite decoration and a terrace with a breathtaking view over the whole ridge of Amorgos, across the pelagic horizon. A little sign sways in the wind. He writes in artistic letters: “To gaze at you, sea, not to be satisfied”. Two large shells and many smaller ones come and go with a grainy sound in the blowing wind. I don’t know many places like this haunt, the ultimate “balcony of the garbi”.
-How did you come up with “Ji-Ji”?I ask Evangelia Papapavlou.
-It was my father’s nickname.
Born in Athens but with a grandmother from Mersini, Litsa decided in 2005 to renounce the “sirens” of the capital and take refuge in the lands of her ancestors. Her friends and acquaintances called her decision a cut-off, but she won the bet she had made with herself. On June 25, 2006, she served her customers their first coffee. In no time, Gigi – Gigi became a favourite of all visitors to the island. Coffee shop, ouzo bar, bar and tavern, she gets A’s in everything. The local goat with potatoes in the pot is amazing, either with sauce or lemonade.
From the beach “Livadi” tourists arrive panting and sweating. It is half an hour uphill in the heat. They quench their thirst with cold beers.
We returned to Gji – Gji sunsets and nights. The surroundings each time are overwhelming. Of the people and the place we keep the most beautiful memories (tel: 6973 – 207569).
IN MESSARIA AND THE GEOMETRIC SETTLEMENT
Kalotaritissa with three permanent residents is, compared to Messaria with one resident, very populous. At the age of 75, Mrs. Sophia has been the only human presence in the village for the last four years. We climb 100 meters along the cement road between old, stone houses, some whitewashed and others dilapidated, but all with a unique view of the vastness of the Aegean Sea. We find Mrs. Sophia tidying up in her kitchen. Unsuspecting as she is, she is a little scared at first, but she comes to her senses in a moment and makes our presence a great joy.
-I haven’t heard a “hello” in three days, he says with a complaint.
He makes us sit down, shows us the shack where he makes the food, the inner cistern where he collects the water, the old net “lantern”, which reminds me of my childhood. He insists on buying us coffee. We don’t refuse. She tops it off with sweet cherry, made by her daughter. They start talking full of nostalgia for the old days, when 60 souls lived in Messaria. She remembers her husband and the wood-fired oven, where they made bread and nuts, cheese pies and stuffed ‘rifi’, not only for the needs of the family but also for others in the village. At one point she picks up and reads us some verses she has been digging up in her loneliness lately. We bid her an emotional farewell.
We ascend to the end of the village, where the magnificent cobbled road that once connected Messaria with Mersini and Stavros passes. The houses are all made of stone but many are in ruins. There is absolute silence. Not even the voice of Mrs. Sophia reaches here.
Across from Messaria and under the asphalt road, a 600-metre dirt road leads to Kato Messaria, deserted for years. Together with the archaeological guard Stelios Markoulis, we start an indistinct path towards the sea. In about 8 minutes we are above Vathi Limenari, a tiny but stunningly beautiful pebbled shore. High above it dominates the best preserved mill on the island, while to the E rises a peninsula with steep slopes, where the remains of the ancient settlement survive. When, on my return to Thessaloniki, I spoke to my good friend, archaeologist Kostas Tsakos, about Donousa, I heard his voice full of nostalgia. A few days later he sent me a text, which is worth reading, because it captures experiences and memories of a time that has passed forever.
“Memories from Donoussa of a bygone era.
-I went to Donousa and I was enchanted, Theophilos told me on the phone, still fascinated by the magical and remote Aegean island. Memories of Donoussa from another era were awakened in me. Back when the journey to the island was only slightly shorter than Odysseus’ journey.
Until 1965 I don’t think I had heard of the small island with such a catchy name, swimming in the Aegean waters all alone, somewhere between Naxos and Amorgos. That year I came down from Thessaloniki to the Cyclades and started counting the Cycladic islands – priceless(1) pearls in the Aegean necklace. The following year, I organized a tour with my colleague archaeologist Fotini Zafeiropoulou to East Naxos and the surrounding islands, where antiquities plundering was flourishing. The road, which she knew best, having already worked for some years on the islands, brought us to Donousa. We asked for a conductor with a mule, Kostakis was found with a donkey, but he had a mule saddle(!) and we started wandering around the island like Indiana Jones. We combed the area looking for antiquities all over the place from the sea and the Cross to the top of the Pope’s 385m high peak. The walks were long and long, but we had the donkey’s mule for rest and Kostas, small and skinny, bragging and bragging and bellowing: “the woman, Candle – Lightning, needs a beating, a beating in the morning and you have her alone all day”. Photini boiling… later we learned that the bully probably got a beating every morning from his other well-fed …and a half, so like the Koutalian, as the song goes, he boasted away from her. We once came to a ravine where a cobbled desert path, very downhill, led. I, prudent who, preferred the safety of my feet, but Fotini, fearless, mounted the donkey and set off singing. Suddenly the strap that held the saddle to the neck broke, and it flew forward with Fotini on it, landing on it with arms and legs high, like the little turtles that always fall backwards and cannot get back on their feet. After seconds of panic – I immediately thought of breaking a pelvis in Donoussa, in the wilderness, without a doctor – Fotini gets up, terrified, rummages around, and starts looking for the wooden Dr. Scholls clogs she was then necessarily wearing. When we saw that nothing was broken, we continued the march with Kostakis repeating in a shrill voice: “Thank goodness, Kerra – Bright, that you are fat and not hurt.” Once, twice, he got angry at Fotini who was still in pain. “Shut up too, Kostas, I don’t have enough pain, I have you too, fat and fat”.
The adventure ended in Stavros where we stayed, a deserted araxovoli, without piers and an organized port, with a delicious meal in a picturesque tavern. A fresh lobster, huge, nicely cooked – it was easier to find a lobster in Donousa than a human being. The next day, after wandering around, we found ourselves on a beautiful little beach among high cliffs. It was November 17, our November 17, before we had even experienced the other one. The day was beautiful, the sun was beating on the rocks and warming the place. Without thinking much about it we fell into the turquoise water and didn’t want to get out. The captain of the small boat we had hired to bring us from Moutsouna in Naxos was in agony:
-“Let’s go quickly,” he said, “it’s going to be stormy soon. We laughed,
-Where do you see the storm? The sea is oil.
We left towards evening. As soon as we opened up the sea started to get rough. The sea open to the B. Aegean, the northerly winds from Thrace are blowing it down. Soon the Beaufort force approached ten. The captain was worried:
-Get down to the hold, it’s safer.
It most certainly could have been. But there was George the watchman and two villagers, untainted by the sea, vomiting non-stop. We went out on deck again. For hours we struggled against the waves. We wore raincoats, but the water rushed from the front, through the hood and out of the trousers. But it was better that way than in the hold’s grave. About ten o’clock at night we reached the deserted Mutsuna. Total darkness, the area was then almost uninhabited. But George, the taxi driver from Apeiranthos, waited for us patiently as always. Haste and impatience were words that people in East Naxos did not yet know. Pothole after pothole – the road unpaved and rough – we arrived at Apeiranthos, f Aperathou, as the locals like it. From there the road to Chora was long but safe. We arrived after midnight still frozen. A hot bath was the happy conclusion to the adventure.
The benefit of the tour, apart from the identification of sites with antiquities, was the discovery of a new very important settlement of the Geometric period, as was evident from the many interesting shells – shells in archaeology are called pieces of broken clay vessels – found scattered throughout the small cape with the craggy slopes, which was buried in the sea, next to the beautiful sandy beach of Vathi Limenari. We decided to investigate the site better and planned the excavation.
At the beginning of August 1968, it became possible to carry out the project. The first to go were Fotini, Rodoniki and Leander. I followed them a week later.
-What should I bring?I asked on the phone from Athens.
-Bring some thirty watermelons, I heard in amazement.
I took the ferry to Naxos, arrived at noon. Our faithful George was waiting for me at the port, we bought ten large watermelons from the shops of Yalos and set off for Moutsouna. We arrived in the afternoon, about the time the boat from Donousa was due to arrive to pick me up, as we had agreed. We unloaded the watermelons and other supplies, tools, materials.
-“Shall I wait?” asked George.
-“No, go away, I said, they’ll be here any minute. I was confident, even though the weather was not at its best. But I knew George had to work and I didn’t want him to be delayed waiting. I sat by the pile of watermelons and supplies and waited. The hours ticked by, the boat was nowhere in sight and I began to worry as night fell and barking dogs from the nearby stables began to approach me. Knowing that the dogs don’t mind you if you sit as quietly as possible, I sat still and numbly waited. Despite the worsening weather eventually, in the darkness, I spotted the boat arriving. The captain and his son Elias came ashore in a sea weather mood and began to make excuses for the delay due to the weather. Finally we loaded the trunks and set off. But the weather had gotten pretty rough. We were forced to seek shelter in an asparagus behind a rock at Makares, the small desert islands between Naxos and Donousa. We secured the boat and fell asleep on deck, waiting for the night to pass and the winds to die down. Tired from the all-day suffering, I slept soundly. I was awakened by the jolting and the noise the boat made as it hit the rock. The currents had swept us up to the rocks of the shore.
-Ilias, Elias, I cried out in exasperation. Neither Elias nor the captain woke up. I began to pull the chain of the bow anchor to pull us away from the rocks. Eventually Elias woke up.
-“What happened, brother,” he cried, half asleep but calm, and ran to help. Meanwhile it was getting light and we decided the safest thing to do was to get going. We arrived at Deep Limenari. A lantern had been left lit all night on a rock on the shore so that we could find our way when we arrived. The others were still asleep in the tents by the sea, unsuspecting. We hung out, put out our trunks and watermelons on the sandy beach, the excavation workers came in, the day slowly came alive and I was beginning to enter into the atmosphere of peace that was all around. The sea in the small harbour did not participate in the turbulence of the sea. Small waves licked the sandy beach, with a soft murmur that caressed our ears.
The excavation had its own magic. The small houses of the Geometric settlement were beginning to be revealed, the wall that protected the settlement from the land was becoming clearer – from there came the danger, from the sea only the benefits of communication with other places. As the place had remained unspoilt since antiquity we could feel, in the little doll’s houses and in the courtyards over the sea, the aura of the few inhabitants of the ancient settlement, who were certainly few in number. Towards midday, as the sun rose and the heat increased, I understood the importance of watermelons. Water was almost non-existent, coming from afar on a mule, real this time, and we used it as a holy water. The watermelons quenched our thirst.
In the evening we got ready for dinner. The people “in charge” of the food set up the pan on the fire near the sea.
-What are we going to eat? I asked in surprise, since I didn’t see any big preparations.
-Wait and see, they replied.
Peter took the boat and went into the water. The little fish, the “oopakia” as the locals call the gopakia, who were puked on in the sun and eaten on the Sunday walk like passatembo, gathered in the shallow water to escape the dangers of the night and looked literally covered in salt. There were more “oops” than water. Peter dipped into the pond and lifted it full. He drained the little fish and dropped them into the big blackened pan.
-Does it matter – Bright? he asked.
-“Come on, Peter,” she replied, “are we paying for it? Take out another one. This ritual was repeated every night.
That’s how the days passed. Work until noon, a swim in the sea that awaited us deliciously, a quick wash in the monsoon, the little pot with the faucet hanging on the rock, work settling in the afternoon with the coolness, food from the “storerooms” of the sea – freshly caught fish – and late at night stories by the fire that lit the camp.
The day we finished the excavation and got on the boat to leave I felt like I was leaving paradise. The others came back the next year and the year after that. I didn’t have that luck. Other obligations kept me away. So the dream stayed in me unscathed, unaffected by the changes that tourism brought, unaffected by the saturation that repetition and habit can bring. Perhaps it was better that way…
Ah, what you reminded me of, Theophilus!
The other of the protagonists, the honorary curator of Antiquities Fotini N. Zafeiropoulou, honored us with her own text, scientific and full of interest for the past of a place unknown to many. We quote it in full, as well as the first one.
“The Geometric settlement in Donousa.
Donousa, an isolated, lonely island in the eastern Cyclades, about 10 miles E. of Naxos, is on the line to the Dodecanese, with very difficult access, because the sea in the area is always rough. Its area is small and does not exceed 15 square kilometres, with the highest altitude being 439 m. The vegetation is poor, with onions being the main product of the inhabitants’ agricultural activities.
But this present rocky piece of land seems that in antiquity and even in the early years, it was for a period of at least one generation, at the end of the 9thth century BC, an important anchorage in the central Aegean, a place for the movement of goods from mainland Greece, Attica, Euboea and other eastern coasts to the south and east, to the Dodecanese and the western and southwestern coasts of Asia Minor, where cities with Greek populations had begun to be established. In the middle of a sea route from NW. to SE. Donousa was a place for the gusty winds of the region.
In the middle of the south coast, in the area of Messaria, almost 1 ½ hour south of the central village of Stavros, on a narrow, steep cape that penetrates deep into the sea, about 30 m above sea level, there was a settlement at Vathi Limenari in the cove of a wider bay, offering safe protection from the northern winds and from enemy raids. A steep path led from the harbour up to the point where the only possible access was located, to the north-west of the site, which was blocked by a fortification wall, meaning that the site was of general interest to the half-peaceful traders who circulated in the area. Inside the wall, to the SW extended the settlement, part of which unfortunately seems to have been precipitated over the centuries into the sea on the south side. In the site we carried out excavations in 4 periods, 1968, 1970 – 71, 1973 which brought to light twelve buildings, most of them two-roomed, in which we found plenty of beautiful pottery and several bronze objects, doors etc. The houses were rectangular in shape, not always regular, with rooms measuring between 4/4.50 and 6/6.50 m. The roofs appear to have been flat with wooden beams and planks or reeds between them, judging from what is true today on the islands, where climatic conditions have not changed. The settlement of Donousa is one of the few of this period in the Aegean area that is fortified in the Cyclades; three others have been discovered to date: in Aghios Andreas of Sifnos, in Zagora of Andros and in Minoa of Amorgos.
The pottery produced by Donousa is also important, with a great variety of shapes: large vases for storing and transporting liquids, amphorae, hydraria, with an average height of 45-70 cm, wine vases of height 45-70 cm. 40 – 60 cm, as well as a number of small table vases, cups with two, with one or without a handle, and cooking utensils, the latter of which were unscrupulous, while all the others were beautifully decorated with geometric designs, quite complex in most of them, which were related not only to Cycladic workshops, especially those of nearby Naxos, but also to the Dodecanese, especially to Kos and Rhodes.
This settlement, despite its fortification, was a short-lived settlement in the form of a trading post, probably dependent on neighbouring centres, which was abandoned by the sailors for another better spot on the same sea route, perhaps on the west coast of Andros, at Zagora. However, Donousa did not lose its geographical interest since it is mentioned in ancient sources that in later years, specifically in the second half of the 1stth BC. However, it must have been generally known for its location on sea routes, because even Virgil in the Aeneid, as he describes the journey of Aeneas’ flight from Troy to Italy, mentions Donousa among the other islands of the Cyclades that his ship sails along the route from Delos to Crete.
ON TOP OF THE POPE
For days now the Pope’s peak has been looming over our heads, seeming to challenge and mock us for moving only to the lowlands and beaches.
-The sunrise is very spectacular from up there, says the President. But you must start early. Take Mitso the Cowboy with you, he’ll get you there sooner.
All night long the north wind did not stop for a minute. It hit the shutters with such fury that it made them creak. The weather forecasts had given an early forecast of 8 Beaufort. And we found the day to plan our ascent of Papa.
At 5 o’clock in the morning all the stars in the sky are above our heads. Donousa is still fast asleep. The only one awake, apart from us, is Mitsos. Our good friend does not refuse us his services on sea or land. We meet him just in time, down in the harbor. In a jacket of about winter color. Even though it’s the first of September.
-“It will be cold and windy on the top at this hour,” says Mitsos. You should dress more warmly.
One and a half kilometres after the port we go uphill to the left along a rough road, which had started to reach Kalotaritissa but was left in the middle. At 3.7km the road ends at the neck, at an altitude of 250m, under the Pope. The wind begins to blow in gusts.
-And we are still low, Mitsos observes.
He starts to turn on his torch, but quickly turns it off. The eyes quickly get used to the blur, we don’t need it. Yet there is no clear path. Now and then we follow a goat track. It goes on for a few dozen yards and then branches off, taking us off course. So we decide to put our heads down and climb vertically to the top of Papa. It’s not an easy climb. The slope is steep and the ground is loose, covered with low bushes and rocks. In 20 minutes, however, we are next to the concrete bollard of the G.Y.S. at the top of Papa. We are not alone, of course. A fierce north wind, descending from the depths of the sea without a land barrier, is blowing on us with all the gusts it has gathered in its path. We seek shelter, we answer, unable to bear such cold and such intensity. We finally find a big rock on the edge of the cliff. All three of us huddle like this behind it. We relax and gaze at the horizon, which is opening up. Opposite us, to the SE, we can see the Bardia, the second peak, smoother. Far in the east, above the horizon, a few long clouds take on shades between red and violet.
At first a reddish nose emerges above the sea. We stare at it fearlessly, right in the eye. As the seconds pass, it becomes an arc and then a purple disc, we avert our eyes from it. The glow of the other cannot be borne. Islands everywhere, across the horizon, large and small, inhabited and uninhabited, an endless array. Wherever we turn our eyes, Greece. There are the Makares, the desert islands on the A, in front of Naxos. Beside them forms a triangular shadow. It is the faint imprint of the conical top of the Pope, illuminated on one side by the sun. Below, low down, the Calotaritissa. Glistening in the first light are the whitewashes of its houses.
We are having fun with the goodies that Mitsos has brought, we drink hot coffee, we get psyched. For an hour we stay captivated by the extravaganza at the top of the Pope. Then we go downhill and go to the port. In front of the land the sea is calm, but offshore, in the channel of Amorgos, it is foaming. The few travellers wait in vain for the arrival of “Skopelitis”. The 8 Beaufort of the tramuntana is too much for him.