Having wandered for years in the peculiar and wild region of northern Karpathos, from the traditional Olympos and beyond, I have been gazing – and saving in the crypt of my desires – at the opposite island of Saria. It was therefore a lifelong dream to approach and encompass it.

You want the wild beauty that inspires you from the southern aspect as you first encounter it while crossing the amazing and beautiful (rugged, steep and chaotic) path of Xyloskala, you want its fascinating history of the Minoan and later Byzantine civilizations, and even the Saracens who developed and left their traces on the island even today, you want the stories I heard about the inaccessible slopes and the very impressive route of its unique gorge, made me last summer to deny all the sirens of the Aegean and bow before its magic and its wanderings.

*

25 July and after a dramatic night journey with my motorcycle from the Wells of Karpathos to Diafani (68 km, of which 28 are dirt and under construction) I arrived one and a half hour after midnight at Diafani, where an old woman was waiting for me in her traditional costume (tseberry, silk waistcoat, a clapper skirt, chaprazia and handkerchiefs with a twist) to settle me in her guest room…

The next morning, clouds heavy and black shredded the huge mountains of northern Karpathos. Just as I had seen them for the first time in Lisa Evert’s wonderful photo album “THE MICRONESIA OF GREECE”. Little, very little information, I had gleaned from that album, but many more challenges had shaken me since it was first published in 1997.

I came down heavily on the beach. On the pier were moored two tractors and nothing else. In one of them I observed an unusual orgasm of micro-detail. Women were coming and going – women in white – children were loading small items, old men were carrying pieces of a mobile temple on their backs, and a priest was leading the loading process. The captain was lingering in the café. I read on the signboard outside the tractor that he made excursions to Saria, Vrykounda and the beaches of St Minas.  I went to ask him.

–What do you want to do in Saria, he said.

-I want to walk it, I said.

-She doesn’t walk, coughing at first.

–You can take me and what I do is my business, I cut him off.

–Come with me at two o’clock, he replied, suddenly changing his tone, I’ll take the stuff to the fair…

*

This is how my introduction to Saria began. And Captain George. The unexpected often comes from where you least expect it.

It was the eve of St. Panteleimon, in Saria there was a chapel on the mountain and the Olympians celebrate it every year. They go the day before, prepare the place, the church, the violins and the feast that will follow all night after Vespers, and until the next morning when the Mass of the saint will begin.

I stuck to the service as an overstayer and sailed at two o’clock in Captain George’s little train to St. Peter’s of Saria, squeezed past caskets loaded with materials, analogues, candles, brooms, pans and icons, three old Olympian women, a priest, a couple of nuns, a hamini and a sheep, tied to the bow, a carcass of choice for the saint.

The journey will be unforgettable. As the morning loops of clouds had long ago been loosened from the body of the mountains, we were now sailing along the shores of the island, ecstatic under its ashy and vertical body, another thing to see… Sea caves, shapes geometric and rare, sandy beaches and seagull nests alternated along this route with an incredible order and harmony that made me forget my destination.

The northern, inaccessible and inhospitable Karpathos is not the same island as the rest of the body which, hospitable, picturesque, multi-human, tame and wooded, claims the primacy of the most beautiful island of the Dodecanese complex. Saria was now a thumbnail in front of this miracle of northern Karpathos that blew my mind and eyes away…

With these ecstatic meditations we reached the famous channel, the Strait of Saria, which has a sea opening of about a hundred metres. The first curiosity of this channel: At the edge of the island of Karpathiotikos, a stone path ended and unexpectedly sank into the sea… And it (the path) continued on the other side of the sea, at the beginning of Saria. What was happening?

*

Saria many hundreds of years ago was united with Karpathos and because in Saria flourished one of the most powerful cities of the Mediterranean – and one of the four of Karpathos – Nisyros (or Argos), the communication with the rest was made by this land road, the remains of which can still be seen today. It is still used by the Carpathians, and was much used in medieval times as follows: They carried the animals and materials to the northern cape of Karpathos and from there they carried them by swimming to the other side, where the other leg of the path began, which reached after three hours’ journey to the capital of Nisyros, the legendary Palatia…

We crossed this legendary strait and emerged into the southern Carpathian Sea towards the south and west side of Saria. The sea was now boiling, but it was not dangerous. So Captain George’s little boat washed us down a little, but it was a relief to the saint we had intended to honour…

In fifteen minutes and a total of one hour from Diafani we entered an indescribable creek of rare compositional texture, luminosity and geophysical beauty. It was the only accessible cove on the western wild and rocky side of the island.

I had no eyes to look at and no soul to breathe. Irrepressible images burst from everywhere to capture our senses and make us speechless participants of one of the most beautiful scenes of our country.

The Bay of St. Panteleimon – great is its grace – which has found a home in one of Saria’s castles, the affection of the winds and the warmth of the divine rock formations to record in the natural history of the Mediterranean this astonishing epitome of picturesqueness and magic.

We are caught in a dopey dope. We tied to a rusty iron, and the sirens of miracles began to sound so cumulatively that they began to circle around our eyes and soul.

Then we took to climbing up the amazing cobbled path to the chapel. I was in the lead, occupied by an irritable anxiety and filial egotism, climbing like an anxious commando, since the others, as strangers, had conceded to me the primacy in learning the domestic beauty. The more I climbed, the greater the extent and depth of the wonders. The horizon opened up, the beauty of simple things grew, the power of the miserable diminished, and all the small and petty things of this life disappeared.

I counted two hundred and sixty-six stone stepped steps, which, as I climbed them, cornered me into the enclave of a dream landscape, which, if nothing else, introduced me to mysteries and mental turbulence.

The chapel of St. Panteleimon, wisely designed in the most hidden isle of a plateau recess, haunted everything from its position. And no one could see it. First of all, he had a magnificent front on Mount Saria, an imposing, stony and massive limestone. Then he had views of the geranium promontory, south and west, which gave the scout a great view and seismic ecstasy. Finally, below, this secret cove was divided into three smaller coves – yalos, which emeralded or geraniumed as the case may be…

And as I balanced myself on the edge of the cliff, overlooking these three glass crypts, an unlikely sight caught my eye, carrying my attention to the beautiful path that led up to the chapel. Three female figures in their white armour and axes tied around their necks were ascending in line, balancing on their heads an equal number of bogies. It was a thrilling sight to see the three f’stanelles ascending without a gasp, loaded with this peculiar burden soaring on their heads, on their “pillows”, headgear, and “revetments”.

I walked briskly down the path for two reasons: The first was because I wanted to photograph them with the emerald texture of the vagina as a backdrop and the second was because I wanted to relieve them. But they didn’t even deign to let go of their load, even though they were struggling, it was obvious.

I went down to the yale and squeezed some crates and then some cassocks of the furnishings of the new chancel that the two deacons were carrying.

After carrying them, we then tidied up the chancel flute and at the end we listened to some troparia from the priest.

But the time was approaching for the return of Captain George, who gathered us – we who were left over – to return to Diafani, leaving the priest and the women alone to arrange the Mass and the feast that was to follow.

I wanted very much to stay on the island, to spend the night in the open air, under those stone stars of Saria, to get high afterwards with the festival, to listen to melodies and violin and to dance sushi here at the edge of dreams, but the next day Captain George had promised me a surprise trip to the Palaces of Saria, and how could I miss it…

We left St. Panteleimon with a broken heart, as we felt that we had been rudely detached from those heroic figures of the Olympian women, who were involuntarily striving to remind us of their beautiful mission in the eternal world.

*

The other day hid in her tunic a rare gem of unique moments.

I never imagined that an island like Saria would have such rare geophysical relief and so many ruins from so many different eras. And cultures…

Early in the morning Captain George picked us up in his treacherous boat and we went out to the northern edge of Karpathos. His haste for this voyage had another reason. There are few days here when the winds fall asleep. And then let yourself go. Diafani faces northeast and is an easy victim of bad weather. It has no serious boat mooring infrastructure, even the big barges of the line most of the time avoid catching port.

In any case, we sailed comfortably over the swift waves of the Carpathian Sea. We passed the same rocky shores that we skirted yesterday, and in less than three quarters of an hour, crossing the channel of Saria, we were approaching the uniform stone descents of the eastern pillar of this uninhabited island.

In an hour or so we were entering a safe cove of the island which surprised us with its native composition of soil and its scattered slopes which looked about inhabited. The beach we flanked was a wonderful pebble beach with a series of beautiful and well-cut tamarisk trees. To our right, on entering the cove, a sea wall with sharp cliffs jutted out abruptly, with a strange building in a dilapidated state wedged into its roof. Above it stretched in a sparse structure a settlement, one of the most original in the Mediterranean. It was the Arab settlement of the Saracen pirates who ravaged the Mediterranean during the years of their omnipotence, using the island of Saria as a base and having built their permanent camp here. These dwellings, with those original dome roofs of the dwellings found in the interior of Cappadocia or in the southern Arab countries, stand upright as bizarre designs of architectural anarchy, but nice and interesting.

The same on the other side of the bay. A cluster of houses with the same architecture were scattered across from the first. In the distance could be seen the white-washed chapel of Agia Sophia, a magnificent example of Byzantine architecture, nestled among the heather and asphalts. And behind it a great crack in the mountain of Saria drew a steep and impressive ravine, a little strange with the island’s surroundings. And at the top of the crag that rose above the ravine, a white blotch in the grey metal of the mountain belied the hint of the island’s highlight, St. Zacharias.

We left those who didn’t waste the sea for the mountain, and with the temperature high enough, the rest of us entered the inner unknown landscape of Saria. A well-marked path cut across the island and soon reached the chapel of Agia Sophia, an early Christian church of the 6th century AD. As our host, Captain George, told us a little history about this temple, around which there were numerous capitals and mosaics, and then we climbed up towards the gorge. From a hole in the rocks came a strange light as if the ashen rocks were being filtered. Strange and very attractive these rock formations of Saria whetted our appetite for the climb. But as soon as we took the first steps, we realized that we were well into an immaculate and well-formed canyon with a magnificent section. Above us hung, like a scene of perpetual change of matter, the ledges and ledges of the rocks, while on the walls of the canyon the murmuring speech of the lilies greened the walls. Here we encountered the native plant eryssin the candium, a species of yellow violet. Spotted eagles, black-crowned sparrows and eagle owls prowled the canyon, giving a strong indication of the rich avifauna of Saria.

This gorge must have been created after the devastating earthquake of the 8^th century AD that devastated and wiped out the ancient city.

*

The noon went on uninterrupted and our course had no end, on an island that harbored a fantastic canyon with an amazing structure.

When we emerged from the narrows, the path climbed steep gradients to reach the place where the ancient settlement of Argus was built, spread over a huge pit-plateau in the centre of the island. Here there is also the remnant settlement of the Sarionites, who built their stone huts on the ridge of the mountain to protect themselves from pirates. From this ridge begins the traverse for St. Zacharias.

We enter the red trail and walk headlong into the heavenly field. There, after half an hour’s walk, we meet St. Zacharias, nailed to the horn of the upright canyon and looking at the infinite point of the point. Such a flying position is hard to find in the Aegean, to compare it with this outrageous beauty emitted by its airy word.

Ecstatic for some time we observe the fine harbour of Nisyros, the Palatia, the hilly roofs of Saracenes, the other old Settlement, the Kissolia and the stunning gorge of Argus, all under the tread of the imagination.

Strabo, who had toured the island, had well seen them from up here, and well described them to us in his great accounts.

But this villa of St. Zacharias he could not imagine. For the ancients may have had villas of their own, and caravels with the wattle and daub on the ridges, but the clause of the white sown in the blue had not yet been invented.

From here on down to the little harbour of Palatia, the elderly Captain George will opt for a return by descent – a descent of one of the most exciting and impressive descents I have yet made. He chose an abandoned rocky path that meandered between the sharp and dangerous rocks, on the vertical rocky slope of the crag, which however was not that dangerous. It was a stressful but wonderful trail.

The last part of the descent leading to the entrance of the canyon (the beginning of the route) required special attention and the assistance of hands. Upon reaching the stone cobblestone canyon entrance, I noticed something I had missed on the way up. That the ground was strewn with pottery and pebbles. Walking the last few meters of this circular course in Saria, I thought to myself that there are not many tours of this kind in Greece. That is to say, a route with such alternative originality is rare, when you have to discover a particularly important natural contour with gorges, hunes and crags on one side and an archaeological background with important settlements and ruins on the other.

We fell as we are into the Sea of Palatia reaping more images from its now unique prairie meadows.

*

Then we got into the trekantiri, and we sailed along the rest of the east side, reaching the northern end, a beautiful beach, Alimounda. Other ruins here, another state, another magical world.

What made a particular impression on me was the famous well of bees. In an ancient rectangular background that held fresh water, thousands of bees were thinned out and buzzing around.

Here in an explosive flora thrive the rare endemic Stahelina fiutikosa (Stahelina fiutikosa), the Yellow bellflower of Karpathos, the Salsola carpatha, Thalasso grass, a kind of saltwort, while you’ll see Hochilina, a subspecies of salamander, found only here, in Kastelorizo and Kassos. Finally, it should be pointed out that the frequent presence of the seal monachus-monachus has also been noted.

*

The area has been inhabited since ancient times and has kept the interest of foreign pirates and corsairs for many centuries. During the times of the Greeks, pottery flourished. Nisyros was a commercial city and exported various ceramics. Then the Byzantine city was built, which was demolished by the Arabs in the 6^th century to build their own camp. The latter held out for two centuries, but were driven out by Nikiforos Phocas. Finally the Saracens came from North Africa, passing through Andalusia and various other Mediterranean islands to settle here, staying from 827 to 961 AD.

*

When it was time to leave, I felt that this little island we were leaving was teeming with an exuberant life and seemed like a huge pillar that held the seasons of history beautifully bound together…