Another quiet day yesterday. An early morning walk-thing, some work, a vegetable lunch, some reading… Quiet summer days staying out of the heat. A breeze helped keep things a little cooler, though I still sit by an open window one side with a fan on the other.
Somebody asked me the other day about alternative routes up to the village. There is the road, which you can walk up, or get a bus or a taxi up, and then there are the steps. There’s not just the Kali Strata, which, if it’s your first visit or you are only over for a day from Rhodes, is not that easy to find. The Kali Strata is the main way up by foot, and was a track until it was widened in the 19th century; the original way up being the Katarakis at the back of the harbour. That’s still in its original form and you can walk up and down that way, but there’s not a lot of shade for most of the way.
So, find the bottom of the Kali Strata by heading to the south west corner of the harbour, the Trawler Square, or the Vapori Bar, Bella Napoli or Harani Bar, it’s there in that corner. You can follow the steps all the way up if you want, just follow the main, wide ones, there are about 380 of them to the village square that way. Or you can come up any of the side steps that join in, but here you’ll need to keep an eye on where you are going. I went on one of these paths the other day.
Start at the bottom of the main Kali Strata, go up past the Old Markets hotel, and the old door, and then the old ruin that everyone wants, the ‘Doctor’s House’ as it’s sometimes called, and you get to the renovated red property on the left. Here you can turn right and there is a very steep set of steps facing you. Go for it – as long as you’re fit enough. They are steep but they get you to half way up the hillside in only about 100 steps (I haven’t counted them). There you find the start of a zigzag path that first heads out to your right, and then starts to hairpin back. The area here has been cleared of trees recently and I hope not just so some rich house buyer has a better view.
Keep following the zigzag heading upwards and you will eventually come out on a road; this is the road to the domed church H Lemonitisa that you can see from the harbour. Turn right towards that or left towards the village square. You can also come up any of the side steps that lead off the south side of the harbour, behind the taxi rank, just past the bus stop and so on. These will start to join the Kali Strata at some point. Further along, heading out of the harbour, you find steps heading up to Petini and from there you can meander through to the village or up to the windmills.
Whichever way you go, take your time, don’t rush, do stop to admire the view and get your breath back and take photos. In summer, take water and wear a hat. It doesn’t take long to get up if you are fit, it takes me five minutes from bottom to top at a slow pace, without stopping. And coming back down from the village is easy of course, no matter where you are. You just keep heading downhill and you will find the sea eventually. It might be the wrong bay, or the back of the island, but at least it will be the sea.
