Kea Island
It’s October in Greece, and autumn seems to have arrived early this year. Poseidon and Aeolos have returned from their summer holidays, and are back at work, heaping the Aegean into the “foaming crests” that have bedeviled Mediterranean mariners for millennia. Hoping to get ahead of the predicted gale, we’d set out from Cape Sounion after dinner on Thursday, headed for the island of Sifnos. It was not meant to be, however, as the winds were much stronger than predicted and the seas bigger than anticipated. We returned to the shelter of Cape Sounion, to anchor for the night, and awoke to a breezy, but beautiful sunrise on the Temple of Poseidon.
At the beginning of every voyage, I like to remind people that one of the hallmarks of a Lindblad expedition is a flexible itinerary. Local knowledge and a willingness to explore can turn unpleasant situations into great opportunities, and today was no exception. Although the breeze was still up and the seas still a bit lumpy, they were certainly navigable this morning, so we departed after breakfast for the nearby island of Kea. An island seldom visited by foreigners, Kea is the northwesternmost of the Cyclades, and offered us shelter and shore time today.
Just 15 nautical miles from the shores of Attica, Kea has a long history of human habitation, with the first occupants arriving in the 4th millennium BC. During the Bronze Age, the settlement of Ayia Irini was established in the large, sheltered bay of Ayios Nikolaos on the northwest side of the island, exactly where the Panorama anchored for the day. This settlement flourished through the Mycenean Period and Kea was a major center of the prehistoric Aegean, offering a port of call and a bridge between the mainland and the Cyclades. Our exploration today took us to another of the ancient settlements, which is the chora, or main town, of the island today.
After lunch, we set out by Zodiac to the small marina of Vourkari. Here, one of the only local buses met us, but only after the bus driver had taken the school children home! We climbed first to the village of Ioulidhia, where we visited an amazing archaeological museum. This small, but new, facility houses an impressive collection of finds from four major archaeological sites on the island. Perhaps most interesting were the terracotta statues and pottery from the 15th century BC, as well as the marble sculptures from a Hellenistic temple of Athena. After our museum visit, we wandered up the hill into the narrow, pedestrian streets of the chora. Photographic opportunities abounded, and we found it difficult to return to our bus at the appointed time. The opportunity to see more of the island pulled us back, though, and we continued on our way. We stopped for a view to the northeast, looking over the monastery of Kastriani, and then continued back to the principal port town of Korissia, where we found the bakery open and sampled the local sweets. Back at Vourkari in the early evening, we were greeted by two locals who “escorted” us to the Zodiacs. A large Bernese mountain dog and an orange and white tomcat were showered with attention as we waited for our turn to board, settling down on the pier only after the last boat was loaded.
Back aboard the Panorama, we all chatted animatedly about our day’s explorations and looked forward to more tomorrow.
