“Tinos Island, Greece”

• June 17, 2020
• By Daryl
• 0 Comment

Driving throughout this island there is one thing that is abundantly clear. In the distant past, the people of this island moved a lot of rocks and terraced almost every hillside. So at one time, a lot of figs, olives and some grain crops were grown here. The terraced hillsides began around 400 BC, but most was done by the  eighteenths century during the Venetians then further expanded under the Ottoman rule. 

We have seen some stone fences with thick growths of lichen. It takes centuries for that to grow to that extent, so these must have been some of the fences that were built in BC era

We went to most all the little villages nestled deep in the hills. Most were similar with a main church and close together homes all connected to each other. They did this to protect themselves from invaders from the sea. The communities used natural stone and did not paint them like they do today. The village would blend in and look like part of the hills in a distance. Later when it was safer, they painted them white to reflect the heat of the summer. The thick stone walls kept the living quarters cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

After seeing so many villages, the newness wore off a bit, because we saw almost everything. Last night, we took a drive looking for a big Monastery we thought we had never seen. When we found it by another route, it turned out to be one that we had seen, but were turned away. This time, nobody was there, so we explored around the grounds. We came across a small church and the bottom door was open to the Mausoleum. We had never seen anything like this, in a church, where human skulls were lined up on shelves. Boxes with whole skeletons were lined up on the shelving. In one box, the lid was open and there where more bones than what it could actually hold. I opened the lid and three sets of skeletons were placed inside. I am glad that we are not superstitious, or afraid to be around dead people bones. It was an experience. 

We left the Monastery and went down roads most people would shy away from. It took us deep into the hills and past some interesting stone walls and sheep enclosures. We drove for some distance and came up to another church in the middle of nowhere. We turned around and went a different direction towards another village. The roads are very narrow and we followed the road to the end on a steep decent.  It started getting darkly as sun was going down. It was time to go back to our villa by the beach.