I took a little wander along the new ‘road’ yesterday. For some time, there has been talk of a new road linking the main road of the village to the area of Ag Athanasios in the centre of the village. The area was originally only reachable by foot, but over time, local residents have made adaptations, putting in temporary ramps, or more permanent features to enable mopeds to reach further into the village; it’s happening all over. As with many things in a small community, the new road was subject to much speculation and gossip, and with anything like this, unless you know which horse’s mouth to hear straight from, it’s best to wait and see for yourself. I remember all the questions and outrage, ‘You can’t build a road from Lemonitisa to there without knocking down houses and widening the path…’ That kind of thing.
Turned out the new ‘road’ was the widening of a path, but without knocking down houses, and it is just that, a path. Half of it was already there; there was just a short part that needed to be developed and that ran across empty land anyway. You can’t get a car all the way, not a large one, and even if you did, where would you park it? If you’re too lazy to walk the 50 yards from the village ‘high street’ to the church, or you are unable to, you can now drive a moped ten times that distance from the Village Square to near Alamina Square just below Ag Athanasios. In fact, if your bike is small enough, you can get even further among the houses thanks to pre-existing, ‘temporary’ concrete ramps on some stone steps and the natural lie of the land.
This ‘road’ has been in for some time, and I’ve walked it a few times. It’s a bit steep and dodgy in places and cuts through the village below the Kastro. It starts/ends next to what I was told was called ‘The Artisan’s House’, a popular site because it still shows the colours and decorations of its original glory, and, they say, houses adorned like this would have been built/decorated by people showing off their skills. In other words, if you like the look of it, the person living there can do the same for you. I don’t know if that’s true, but it makes a kind of sense. The house is now lived in by wild fig trees and becoming harder to see every year, but what’s left of it still stands, and the new road hasn’t affected it. Yet.
The ‘bypass’ (as it was also called, he added, sniggering) has also opened up some previously buried ruins, or parts of them, which is my other photo today. You can just see a small arch revealed. This might have been the arch of the well cover, or an oven (can’t see a chimney though), or simply a small window in a storeroom, but there’s something under there…
In other ‘news’, tonight in the village square there’s a political rally for the currently elected local party, and the local council elections are on Sunday. Only European citizens can vote, so Neil’s alright, but I am not.
