It is because theyĪre left alone in Antiparos. I asked my friends why they would choose Antiparos for their villas in Greece when there are so many islands that are more beautiful and have more to offer in the way of. Unless you crawl on your belly down the 400 steps with your eyes closed, you haven’t.īy the way, Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Pierce Brosnan and several other famous people all have villas on the island. They earned the right to carve their names. Ropes and pulleys, their only light was candles and lanterns. But on that subject, the people who carved their names a century ago or more, climbed down into the cave with He has 4 closed-circuit TV screens so use the rest room before you go down into the cave and don’t carve your name in the stone so people can read it a couple The guy at the ticket booth did not even mention there was one until we came out and were asking him questions about it. The stairs and railings are new and there are plenty of places to rest.īe sure to ask for the small brochure when you buy your tickets. Yes it looks kind of scary and if you are like me, the kind of person who measures any journey by the difficulty of the return, (I would rather climb a mountain and enjoy the walk down than go down into a deep hole and have to climb up) remember that I told you the climb back up is not as difficult as you think it is going to be. Of the women took one look at where she was going and turned around. As we were leaving two middle-aged German couples were entering the cave but one The Scandinavian couple who I was afraid would die on the way out, actually managed to reach the surface and as some peopleĭo, rewarded themselves for their efforts with a cigarette. The climb back to the entrance is actually not as far as it seems. But Andrea, who was climbing the walls to get photos of all the historical signatures including King Otto and Queen Amalia who visited the cave on my birthday, Septemwould not leave the cave until she saw every inch and read every signature. Stairs that convinced me that I had seen enough. There was a Scandinavian couple huffing and puffing their way up the I walked to the next to last level while Andrea went all the way to the bottom. It looks like the stairway to hell as you look down and as you descend you can’t help but thinking that you hope there is an elevator at the bottom to bring you back up. There are now stairs that go all the way down and the cave is mostly vertical. Of years and carving their names and the dates in the stalagmites and stalactites hundreds of feet below. The most important site on the island is the Cave of Antiparos which was discovered in the modern age in 1673 but is mentioned by the lyric poet Archilochus in the 6th Century BC. In the center of the town is a Genovese fortress from around the 14th century, pretty impressive once you figure out what you are looking at, and there is a small museum in the center of it. In fact you could live on Antiparos quite comfortably with a bicycle as your only transportation. The village is flat and spread out and the best mode of transportation There is a waterfront with cafes and fish restaurants and a street that leads into the village lined with cool cafes, boutiques, Greek and Italian bistros and restaurants, gift shops, craft and art galleries, many of them owned by young people who are counter-culture but still have to make a buck. Does that make sense? Anyway the point is that by the standards of the above islands it is not touristic but by the standards of someone who likes islands such as Kythnos or maybe Kea, then Antiparos will seem touristy to you. Now it is one of those 'unspoiled' islands that many people who love Greece but hate tourism look for, to the point where it has become touristic from all the people who come here because it isn't. Went to when the islands they had discovered, like Mykonos, Santorini, Ios, and Paros became saturated by tourists and the rents became unaffordable. It is somewhat touristic though the reason it is now touristic is because it wasn’t before. It is not a particularly beautiful island. Like everybody else in Greece and when you put it in these terms the rich don’t seem so well off.Īntiparos is not a spectacular island. “I guess it would be nice to have your own island”, I told him. Goulandris is a ship owner and he also owns the island as I was told by one of the guys who works on the ferry. It’s a ten minute trip past the island of Goulandris. Our next stop was the tiny port of Pounta on the island of Paros, where we caught the small car ferry that leaves every half hour or so for the island of Antiparos.
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