From: « The Companion Guide to the Greek Islands »

Ernle Bradford, Companion Guides

Sifnos is equidistant from Seriphos and Kimolos, in this western chain of islands. The only modern harbour is Kamares, where a deep inlet cuts into the mountains on the west village, with only just room for a small village beside it and for the big concrete quay where the ferries berth. Although there is still a fishing village, with all the activity that goes with it, it is no longer mainly a fishing village. Gone is the waterborne volta, or evening parade of boats and which was seen with surprise and delight on an earlier visit. To balance that loss, the mining village to the left of the harbour has vanished, and only the white gleam of an occasional house or church lights ups the brown hillside. Now the not unattractive modern buildings beside the inner quay are for cafes and small restaurants, with guesthouses and rooms to let filling the space behind.

Perhaps fortunately, there is little room for further development, and most visitors will board bus or taxi to take them the few miles up the modern road to the chief centres of Apollonia and Artemonis. On the way up you will soon see how Sifnos differs from its neighbours. The road climbs by the side of a long steep valley green and well watered below, with clumps of pink oleander growing high up its sides.

Apollonia and Artemona, on the watershed of the island, straggle into one another in much the same way as the religious territories of an Apollo and Artemis once overlapped. You come first to Apollonia, a village without much obvious grace, but the most convenient place to stay if you want to get to know Sifnos. It straggles on a north-south axis, and the most attractive part follows the narrow street leading behind the bus stop towards the southern quarter of Katavati. Not unlike the quieter streets of Paroika on Paros, it has no ‘tourist-trap’ shops – only a few marvellously muddled pantopoleia, or general stores, where the owner will go immediately to a top-heavy pile of assorted goods and pick out exactly what you want, then write out clearly on the back of an envelope the price of every purchase.

At this point you are likely to meet a pappas (priest) with flowing beard and flying soutaine, striding down from one of the churches which stand higher up on either side of the street. After two small ones to right and left, the way gets steeper, and the sides lead up past the bigger church of Agios Spiridon in a garden of glorious flowers. The best thing in the ornate and conventional interior is a long-case clock with a fine brass pendulum – made in London. The clock face stands (permanently) at five past three. Finally comes the primary school, a fine building in a fine position, and then you come out on the main road leading south past the half-deserted village of Exampela and the big square monastery of Vrissi. (Our farm is located in the valley below Exampela and the Vrissi monastery.  You can also see it from the road to Platys Gialos just past the monastery.)

Exampela is a strange place, well worth a detour to the left of the main road. Once, apparently, it was the artistic and entertainment centre of Sifnos. Poets, musicians and singers congregated in its cafes and the resulting high spirits led their Turkish masters to call the village Aksham Bela meaning ‘Trouble in the Evening.’ The story credits the Turks with unexpected humour, but whether it really explains the name is doubtful. There is little merriment now. Many of its cottages are in ruins, and the two big schools in the neo-classical style stand deserted; in the grounds a family of goats seem to be the only pupils. Yet one can see life returning. The schools will never reopen, but young couples have come out from Apollonia to new built houses, and at every corner are gardens old and new. There are banks of white marguerite daisies, beds of Madonna lilies, masses of wisteria and roses everywhere. With no lack of water Sifnos has a show of garden flowers far more varied than the geraniums and bougainvillaea, which brighten the dryer islands.

The Vrissi monastery down the road is conventional in plan; a door in the high wall leads to a courtyard, and the church within has an arcade porch. Its foundation by a wealthy Sifniot in the seventeenth century has ensured it a good wooden templo, but the most interesting thing in the monastery is its museum of religious arts – gospels, documents, embroidered vestments and decorated vessels. There are only two or three monks now, and as they spend much of their time in the fields, it may be difficult to find one to let you in.

The road you are on leads in about six miles to the long sandy beach of Platys Gialos (also spelled Platys Yialos) on the south coast. (We recommend that people stay in Platys Gialos. ) To reach it you need a bus, which leaves the crossroads in Apollonia several times a day. Make sure you know when the last bus returns. There are rooms to let, and two or three friendly restaurants on the edge of the sand. (There are a lot more than 2-3 restaurants now in Platys Gialos. ) At the far end is a hotel (open only from June to September) (This is the hotel Platys Gialos, there is also now also the hotel Alexandros at the other end of the beach .) and beyond that a cliff path passes above some enticing rocky coves. The neat modern farmhouse at the end of the path has pigeons on the roof, while quantities of chickens, sheep and goats share the shade of the big tree behind. In a shed beyond the house they make goat’s cheese on a commercial scale, dripping the congealing milk into low round wicker baskets to set, and putting them to mature on frames hung from the roof. The young wife of the farmer, well-dressed and educated, shows you around with pleasure.

You can lave the bus a mile before the road descends to Platys Gialos, and walk down to the monastery church of Chrysopigi, beyond which there is another good sandy beach. The monastery is no more, but the church of the Panagia is kept up, standing up with its feet almost at the end of a rocky promontory. The causeway leading to the church is interrupted by a gap in the rocks, which leaves it confined on a virtual island. ( Efthimios once saw a very rare Aegean seal swimming by these rocks. ) There is a good legend about this gap. Three local women, as the custom still is, came down one evening to make the usual preparations before the next day’s service, only to find seven pirates asleep on the floor. The pirates woke, the women fled, and the pirates pursued hot foot. The women prayed to the Virgin, the Virgin split the rock behind them and let in the sea. Foiled and awe-stricken, the pirates took to their boat and vanished. Both parties would have had a good story to tell their friends.

The beach beyond the church is inviting (This is where we were supposed to be having our party.) and there is a large bar-café for refreshments before or after swimming. From the promontory you look north to another bay, at the head of which is the pleasant fishing village of Pharos (also spelled Faros). To reach it you must take a different bus from Apollonia, as the road to it forks left shortly after the Moni Vrissi. There is a of course a light house (pharos) on the cliff to seaward (though it consists only of a light fixed on a post) and beyond the path from where you can scramble down for a swim. The village beach is a nice one, small and sheltered, with a farmhouse above it, which has a terrace restaurant where the family serves good local produce. On a recent visit a baby pig had just been born, but the poor mite was destined for some unfeeling restaurant in Apollonia or Kamares. Far fewer people come to Pharos than to Platys Gialos or Chrysopigi and it must be said that the mid-morning and late afternoon buses to and from those popular places can be quite crowded.

Chrysopigi means ‘gold spring’, and Sifnos in antiquity was described as ‘ rich in gold and silver and adorned with Parian marble.’ But the mines were worked out, or submerged by a volcanic change in the seabed, during classical times. Pausanias attributes the destruction of the mines of Sifnos to the anger of Apollo. The people of Sifnos had been accustomed to offer Apollo an annual gift of a gold egg, but on one unfortunate occasion they attempted to deceive the gold by presenting him with an imitation gilt one. No doubt there was an efficient assay-master at Delphi, for the ruse was at once discovered. Hence, legend has it, the anger of the god and the destruction of the mines of Sifnos. As for Parian marble, Antiparpos is almost as close to the east as Serifos is to the north, and the Prophet Ilias on Paros glowers at his opposite number on Sifnos across no great stretch of water.

Another bus journey will take you from the crossroads in Apollonia to Kastro, the old capital and one of the most special places in the Aegean. It lies on the eastern side of the island, clinging like all of these old townships to its protective hill, and hedged round with a fourteenth century wall. Unfortunately, as from so many of its date, the glory is departed, the older mediaeval buildings are in ruins, and the streets have an abandoned air. (Much has changed on Kastro since this was written.  Many of the old houses have been restored and there is an excellent bakery that makes giant butter almond cookies and savoury cheese pies with fresh mint. ) The most distinctive houses are those built into the wall itself, facing across the sea to Paros and Antiparos. Here, unusually in the Cyclades, one finds wooden balconies (somewhat reminiscent of Malta) built out beyond the walls. One is also reminded of Rhodes, and it is true that the walls were built by a member of the Spanish family of Da Corogna who had served there with the Knights of St. John. In 1307 he established a sovereign state on Sifnos, independent of the Duchy of Naxos.

John Da Corogna’s castle on Sifnos (or Siphanto as it became known by one of the many corruptions from Greek to Italian at this time) stood intact for three hundred years. In 1465 it passed to the more powerful Bolognese family of the Gozzadini, who managed by the diplomacy to keep it out of the hands of the Turks until 1617. The castle and its owners, however, were unable to protect the people of the island from the murderous inroads of Turkish freebooters – and this was true of most of the islands of the central Aegean. We read that during the 15^th century:

At both Naxos and Sifnos, there was such a lack of men that that many women were unable to find husbands; in fact the small and wretched population of the latter island, still the absolute property of the Da Corogna, who had a tower there in a lovely garden, was composed mainly of females, who were zealous Catholics, though they did not understand a word of the Latin language in which their services were held. (William Miller, op.cit. pp 58-59 )

In that tower and garden war and terror must have seemed far away, and today there are few quieter or more peaceful places. Three arched gateways, or loggias, pierce the wall on the landward side. The bus stops below the middle one, and you can spend a happy morning wandering through the narrow streets, sometimes passing under small bridges thrown out by houses to connect them with the higher ground where the next street runs. You can explore the ruins of the stately houses at the northern end, where the big window spaces of the upper storeys still illustrate the elegance of their owners’ lives. On the highest ground of all, from where you can look north along the rock coast, are the marble foundations of a classical temple, probably of the seventeenth century BC, which would have been a landmark for sailors approaching from Paros to Serifos.

In the village below it is easy to get lost, and here Georgios Moussa’s guide to Sifnos is invaluable, because it has a detailed map of Kastro on the last page. With its help you should be able to find some of the many fascinating churches which have survived from the 16^th century, and although not many people are about in the streets you can usually trace the key to a house nearby.

The pick of them is the Panagia Eleoussa (Our Lady of Mercy) in the broader central street leading down from the old quarter. The key is kept in a house beyond and round the corner to the left. The carved lunette over the doorway has on each side the bows of a ship under sail. The date there is 1635, but this only marks the years when it was last restored – a sign of some prosperity under the Turkish rule. Indeed one must remember that, though the Turkish conquest was a disaster for the Latin overlords, it brought peace to the islands by eliminating all resistance and silencing the constant feuding between ambitious families. Once in control, the authorities put a stop to most of the piracy and allowed the Greeks to worship as they pleased.

The loveliest thing in the Panagia – and in the whole village – is the icon of the Virgin. Her face goes right back to Duccio or Giotto, and the eyes look at you sideways with an inner light behind them. The child is independent, even perky, and holds a scroll in one hand. You should also look for the museum, which after temporary lodging in a disused church which has at last found a home of its own. So far not many of the inhabitants know it is there, but there is a good collection of pieces from all periods, including Greek and Roman items which are not otherwise given much publicity here.

The most distinctive part of modern Sifnos is the district of Artemona, a barely separate village on higher ground to the north of Apollonia. Here you find substantial neo-classical houses standing in large gardens behind high walls. Some are now put to municipal use; many were built by wealthy citizens at the beginning of the century, or as country houses for Athenian families. Empty for most of the year, if not already deserted, they contrast a little sombrely with the clean and lively intricacies of the more Cycladic streets around them.

The island buses all begin and end their journeys at the plateia of the Pano Artemona, a quiet spot with an authentic kapheneion (café) and a good basic Greek restaurant. Much more interesting is to walk up there from the corresponding plateia in Apollonia, taking the narrow street which begins between the Hotel Sophia and the café Lakis. This way takes you through the quiet suburb of Ano Petali, across the deep bed of the stream which cuts it off from Artemona, passes the far end of the plateia and carries on higher and higher till you come out among farm cottages and open fields. A restored windmill is the only building between you and the eastern cliffs, and the view back over the white houses and churches of Sifnos is one to remember. Not many people find their way up here, or enter the half dozen very individual churches you pass.

One relishes even their name, though each has something of a special interest inside or outside. There is the Panagia Ouranophotia (Our Lady of the Heavenly Light), which stands on the site of a seventh-century BC temple to Apollo; the Panagia ta Gournia (Our Lady of the Troughs) above the stream where the frogs croak in the spring; Agios Georgios tou Afendi (the Effendi’s St. George) away in the eastern quarter called Agios Loukas, on the other side of the main road; the Panagia tis Ammou (Our Lady of the Sand); the Kochi, another Panagia on the side on the site of a temple to Artemis; and the Panagia tou Vali, built by a Greek governor of that name under the Turkish regime, and still privately owned by his descendants.

The oddest church name, with an odd story behind it, is the Panagia tou Barou (Our Lady of the Baron), said to be a miniature replica of the mediaeval convent Theologos tou Mongou, which still stands outside the town to the west. Apocryphally its wealthy founder, scolded for extravagance by his wife, replied ‘je l’ai fait a mon goût.’ The nuns’ taste however was for a good life, and according to the great Cycladic traveller, Theodore Bent, the convent became ‘the favourite rendezvous of all the gallants of Sifnos.’ The story further goes that one of their recruits had been pursued to the convent by a Frankish baron, who built the little church nearby so that he could continue his suit disguised as a monk. As he could make not progress in the convent, despite its reputation, he took to seducing other ladies of Sifnos, until he was reputedly the father of a quarter of the children in Apollonia, which were given the surname Barades.

However, you take all of this, Sifnos must have been a lively place to live during the Turkish occupation. The liveliness is not so obvious now, although its people are warm and friendly. The impression you get is rather of a dignity and independence, which comes from a long and often prosperous history – a kind of ‘style’ which you do often find in this part of the Aegean.