Trip 44 — Ikaria Walk

Day 6: Drakano Tower loop and Faros
Tuesday, 29 April 2025

Today: 19096 steps/12.99 km/8.07 mi/3h 1m
Total: 171333 steps/129.03 km/80.18 mi/25h 59m

With my itchiness and soreness waning, I left my belongings in my room and took a loop around Drakano, Ikaria's northeastern peninsula. According to the legend, this was the birthplace of Dionysus, the god of wine, theatre, festivity, and other delights. It was only right to pay my respects.

A road brought me to Iero Beach at a pretty, round cove. From here I followed a rocky path for a few minutes to a cave, thought to be Dionysus's temple. The entrance was wide and inviting, but the floor was sloped at an angle that didn't invite much exploration.

It started to drizzle. Who was the god of rain? I thought about waiting it out in the cave, since I had a short mountain trail ahead of me. But I wanted to complete it before it got too wet.

I continued, and the drizzle stopped. The trail was rocky and sometimes steep, but it was easy to follow. Near the top was a junction of trails, and I saw the blazes going to the right.

It dead-ended at a lovely view over Iero Beach. I was supposed to have continued straight. On the way back to the junction, I lost the path for a minute, but then I got back on track.

The trail would feed into a dirt road leading to the Drakano Tower, but it took longer than I expected. At one point the trail descended steeply, with a bed of dirt and loose gravel, and then it went up just as steeply, just as precariously.

"Don't look down, don't stop," I told myself. This trail was on my paper map. Like the Karkinagri-Pezi trail, it was marked easy. I'd have called it moderate, maybe even strenuous, if the presence of a small strenuous segment puts it in that category.

The bottom half or so of the three-story tower was well-preserved. The tower was built around the fourth century BC and was part of an island-wide communications network: A fire would be lit for a time measured by the flow of water in a tank. The tank had markings corresponding to various emergency messages, and when the desired message was revealed, the fire was put out, so that the same message could be transmitted to the following tower.

I had a good view of the tower from the gate, and the site, which has a few other ancient items, can be roamed — every day except Tuesday. How did they pick Tuesday?

I returned to Drakano Rooms just before noon, and I had my breakfast. The yogurt turned out to be rice pudding with cinnamon. Between that and the Coke and the roll of cookies, Eleni had presciently respected my sweet tooth.

She hadn't given me a formal checkout time, but I figured I was pressing it if I stayed much past noon. I prepared to leave and said goodbye. As I passed the airport, another plane was landing.

The clouds had lifted and it had become a sunny day. I'd worn long sleeves and a jacket up to Drakano, but I removed them as the Faros road merged with the main road toward Agios Kirykos.

I resumed a decent pace. An hour later, I came to the turnoff to Nealia Beach. From here I could take the road for four kilometers to Therma, or I could take a more direct trail across a mountain.

This trail was on my map, but it wasn't one of the cartographers' favorites, and thus it wasn't rated as easy, moderate, or difficult. It turned out to be the easiest of the three trails I followed on Ikaria, and also the most well-marked. It was never too steep, too narrow, or too close to the edge — at least not all three at once — and thus it was simple, beautiful walking.

The main things to look out for were the thornbushes, of which there were two kinds. The little, white bushes, usually not much higher than my ankles, had such uniformly small, delicate thorns that they almost looked comfortable. But they were most certainly prickly. The day had gotten warm, but I was glad to have kept my pants on.

The others were large, green bushes with long spikes among their leaves that, when brushed against in a forward direction, did not do any harm as long as I kept going. It was only if I stopped and innocently started to lean back that they could do damage. They were sort of like a shark's skin, or those spikes at rental-car lots that you can drive over safely in one direction but slash your tires in the other.

So I followed a plan in which I carefully stepped over the former and carefully proceeded ahead when I encountered the latter. Just off the path were a couple of ancient sites: a cave and the ruins of a Roman spa with arches. If I'd continued along the side path, I would have come to some secluded hot springs — this area has long been known for its healing waters. But there were a couple of the large thornbushes encroaching on the path, and while I might just have summoned the fortitude to go through them once, I certainly didn't want to do it twice.

Besides, there were other hot springs right in town. The municipal spa would be closed until the main visitor season, but past the row of restaurants at the harbor, one could disrobe and enjoy a hot bath right there in nature's setting.

I had to be careful going out there. It was a swim of only a few seconds, but it was an entrance over mossy rock, and there were rocks beneath the surface. I was fortunate to arrive when a couple was enjoying the springs, and they helped guide me safely.

It's inadvisable to stay in the water here for more than 20 minutes, because it's mildly radioactive. The couple had about reached their time limit, and before they left they showed me the best place to sit, a sort of natural-rock chair. It was very windy, and I could just find a way to curl my arms around the rock to hold me in place, like a flight attendant strapped in on a turbulent journey.

That wind, by the way, is called the meltemi, and it refers to the northeast wind that comes from the Bosphorus. It's prevalent in the summer, but we were getting an early taste. My lunch at the Meltemi restaurant was accompanied by a most persistent cat. It's the only cat I've ever seen beg on its hind legs. When it put its paws on the table, I squirted some lemon on its head from my serving of red mullet.

Then it came back a couple of minutes later, sneaking under the table and trying to climb on me from the other side. The restaurant staff noticed and drove it away with a squirt of water, and it didn't return. And when my server brought me a glass of water at dinner, I knew it was as much a weapon as a quencher.

Go on to day 7