67. Marmara & Surroundings II

Here are some more impressions from Marmara before I switch to Marpissa where I go to every few days checking for mail and doing some of my shopping.

On the picture to the left there is an old windmill which someone has renovated to live in. It’s right in the center of Marmara, next to the bus station and a famous Souvlaki den. Windmills are all over the place as Paros is famous for its grain [wheat, rye and barley], but most of them are crumbling. The quaint monastery is on the way to the beach. It’s a somewhat different style.

Now, we are in Marpissa. It’s a kind of center of the three villages with a big church on top of the hill. Being located on the main road it’s more modern than Marmara but the old part is very nice.

Here too flowers and flowering shrubs are everywhere. The nice thing is that the season never stops. There is always something in full bloom.

I am told that there is a famous pink house in Marpissa, belonging to an English lady. After searching for a while I find it. It’s rather unusual. The dominant color is blue, with a rare green or turquoise. Unfortunately the lady is not at home. She probably is on Christmas holidays. There are signs that she rents out rooms in summer. It also looks like a nice place to live, but I stick to my “castle”.

I am trying to be restrictive with my photos but there is so much to see and look and marvel at. The cupola of the church in the middle is also kind of unusual. Very often these roofs are painted blue.

On the way back from a bicycle trip to Naoussa up North I come across this celestial spectacle [picture in the middle]. I was prepared to get wet because if it rains here in winter it can happen rather quickly. But it is just a cloud show with a peculiar lighting. Back home I can later watch the evening clouds above Anti Kefalos, a familiar highlight at dusk.

The next impressions are taken during another bicycle trip, going north but along the cost. Last time I lived in Paros I met Tessi, a lady from Munich. She is a retired lawyer, painter and house builder. She told me that she was building a new house in Isterni. Passing thru this village I think this might be the house she built as it strikes me as rather special. But it is closed up for winter. There are some wild beaches around there. Maybe not very good for swimming but nice to look at.

Riding my bike thru the countryside I come to a solitary tree. It’s one of the famous Phoenician juniper trees, also called mastic. Unlike other juniper trees, the berries are poisonous but part of the tree is used for making chewing gum.

The next set of pictures is from another expedition. It’s a trip around the bottom of Kefalos. It is amazing how many different types of scenery can be found in such a small area. I pass the foothill of the volcano with – as it looks like – more extinct craters. It looks rather barren but the sheep seem to be happy. The grayish-green area in the cliff is Fango, a kind of medicinal mud used for therapeutically treatments in Spas.

Between the rocks of solidified lava I find places like in the Alps. A miniature alpine garden on Paros!

The next excursion is dedicated to the brother – or rather the sister - of Kefalos. It is Anti Kefalos, my guard on the left. The peak is only at some 600 hundred feet but here there are no roads or trails to ascend. It’s rough going through the scrubland, the Maquis. There are incredible rock formations at the top. They look like petrified man or beasts. A friend of mine claims that Anti Kefalos was a place of worship in the times of matriarchy. I have no trouble believing it.

Anyway! Below me I watch some fishermen drawing in their nets. Apparently the catch is good.

And between all these barren parts there is some green. It looks a bit like mother earth to me, with Asia on the left and the Americas on the right. It just takes some imagination.

One may not gather it from these pictures but Christmas time is round the corner. It is not a big festivity in Greece. Easter is much more important. Some houses have a kind of American touch in their decorations but my next door neighbors adorn their passage very nicely and with loving care. The poinsettia trees are amazing and the churches are open.