Byzantine Walk

After our Easter Extravaganza, we were invited by some of our new friends to take a walk. Sounds a bit funny until it was explained to me what the walk exactly was.

The walk was not just a stroll around town, it was the byzantine walk. The byzantine walk is a cobbled path that has been in place since the byzantine times, obviously. The road was used to get to the towns up in the hills. The hills served as protection from invaders for the inhabitants of the island, and it was better for crops, which wither too close to the sea. There  in the hills lived the real greeks, and the pirates - or shipping people, who lived in the towns by the water. They were very separate lives  connected by this road.


Well the greeks had the right idea. It was absolutely amazing up in the mountains. All the spring foliage was out and at it's peak bloom. There were amazing yellow flowers covering the hills in all directions. The terraced landscape look ancient and majestic. Dotting the hills were small white washed chapels which gave you a bit of scenic contrast to all the nature.

Our friend Alexandra told us a quant little story while walking this beautiful path. She said her friends great-grandmother came from a different island to marry her husband. As she arrived in Paros, she was taken by donkey up the byzantine path to the village of Lefkes to marry her husband in the chapel. As you can see this path has been used for many different passages throughout time.