The prettiest village

 Saturday 17th September Hora and Killitisos, or Kentarchos

After my wander around  Hora yesterday, I had a look at a walk map near where the bus leaves. It documents one walk off this page. The start of this walk is actually the same as my reservoir walk, so I knew how to get started. Killitisos, or Kentarchos is said to be the prettiest village on the island. It does look lovely if you are lucky to see it when you ferry goes past that side of the island. Meanwhile here is this mornings sunrise photo.

So after going to the bakers and buying myself a nice lunch from Sophia, I set off, on the walk turning off as indicated on Google maps. Here things went slightly wrong, the path was not clear and various bits of fence and rubbish made following the direction required impossible and I was soon off track. I past a wreck of a lorry with a load of chickens hiding under it. The problem when this happens over here is you have an unforgiving landscape and dry walls dividing it up and if you are trying to cross over to get where you want to be, it can be very difficult. There was a landmark to aim for, a church, the first on the walk. Once I got there, I was back on track.

The church is known as Agios Stefanos. Note the handy bag of sand, ready for repairs! From here my path was clear and easy to follow. When the ground under my feet became like scree and unstable, I was reminded what I heard on the BBC Ramblings program today, where Claire Balding told us to put your toe down first and not your heel! A piece of advice from me, if you are relying on Google maps, download the map on your device beforehand in case you loose your signal. I saw several Swallowtail butterflies, there was Fennel for them to feed on and this flower, which looks very similar to the ones that come up in the Spring, in fact their dried up remains, are still there.

Puzzling were the signs indicating this path. Normally they are a white and red stripe. Now and again this would be replaced with a pink blob. At one point I was walking in an overgrown stream bed and I felt this pain in my left arm. Some huge insect was on my arm, so I brushed it off and no swelling ensued. I was being followed by a load of persistent flies, I was sweating and that was attracting them to me! I could see a Zante ferry in the sea, heading for Livadi. There was a second church, not on our path and as there was no clear way to it I just took a photo of it from afar.  Google translate says it’s called Lower Cross

I will need to think about the walks I do at certain times of the year. Where I am sitting now, on the roof of the house, it’s blowing a gale, but lovely and Sunny. Over where I did the walk it was sheltered and very warm. I am glad I took my big water bottle. By the third church I met another walker and he gave me a few tips which was kind, there were lovely views of Hora and Livadi behind me.

It’s a pity, but I can’t include every photo I took, the landscape here has huge boulders just lying about.  There was a lot of broom about, that will be nice in the spring. Don’t forget the description of this blog has a link to Google photos, where they are all there.

I eventually got to the village, it’s a bit like Hora in that there are no roads, you have to walk down steps to get to the actual village itself. There are lots of nice houses, shrubs flowering with more Swallowtails on them. There were lots of olive trees around, I tried one, it tasted terrible! I met a dog, he barked at me, but he soon got bored with doing that and lay down.

There were no cafe’s or Taverna’s, so after a rest in the shade under a tree, I retraced my steps. I did look at the map, the problem is the roads here, run around the circumference of the island, so if I took them, the route back would have been even longer. I met some Germans on the way back, I tried a “Gruscot”, but that didn’t work for some reason. Hora was in view most of the time, I think it felt easier on the way back, as you could see where you were aiming for. Again when I got to the farm, the path went awry and I ended up having to make that part of the walk up. When I got back to Hora, I had an ice cream and cold drink.