Last week we ran into a wine festival in Karystos and visited a political prison camp on Makronissos.

Karystos

From Kavialliani we sailed south and had a plan to have a stop on the island of Megalonisos. But even the wind came from north and the bay was on the southern side it was too bumpy and windy to stay there. We anchored for lunch and sailed further to Karystos, the southernmost town on Evia.

After a bumpy ride it was beautiful to moor in the harbour. The lady who took our ropes could tell us that the next day it was a wine festival here. That was perfect!

It was a lot of rain through the night, but in the morning it stopped and we could have a walk around town after breakfast, though it was not much to see. Not much people around, maybe because of the weather, and because they were waiting for the festival…

Agios Nicolaos church

Later that day, waiting for dinner, we had a walk along the sea.

Karystos was an ok city for some days, but we didn`t explore that much because of the weather.

We stayed for free at the city harbour, without water and electrisity.

Two amazing kittens. It is nice to see people feed the cats.

A long breakwater around the harbour, and a lot of people had a walk here.

On the other side of the harbour you will find a castle. Unfortunately it was closed when we walked by.

Can you see the cat?

This one was easier to see!

Beautiful sky in the sunset.

An old steam road roller outside the museum. The museum was closed (I am not a fan of museums anyway)

All the restaurants along the harbour was growing that evening. We could almost ask for the food to the boat. But we ordered a table so we could see the stage when the consert started.

We couldn`t have any better place for dinner than this!

A lot of people met up, both for having dinner, or just to see the consert. The musicians was some of the best in Greece so it was really top music. They didn`t finished until 04.00 in the morning so it was a short night…

A video from the consert:

The next day we sailed to Lavrion on the mainland. We wanted to go there because we were waiting for new lithiumbatteries coming to our friends in Athens which is only 1 hour drive away.

In the evening I used my omnia-oven to make dinner. Salmon, poteto, carrots, red onion, tomato, green pepper….

Cream, salt and pepper, and cheese on the top.

Really good dinner, and we had dinner for two days!

Lavrion

Lavrion is a typically place where people are coming to rent a sailboat for a week or two. So you can`t come here Friday/Saturday when the boats are changing the crew. But other than that, it is just to find a spot and stay. The harbour authorities came to see our papers and get paid.

You can almost get everything you want here in Lavrion, and if not, Athens is just 1 hour drive away.

We rented a car for a day to go to Athens to pick up the lithiumbatteries, which our friend Thomas had picked up for us. On the way to Athens we had some stop for shopping (Thomas was working so we couldn`t come there until late anyway), and I bought a inflateable kayak and a walkingpad. Both was hard to find, so I was really happy when we found it! We visited Thomas and Nantia and went to a mexican restaurant for dinner together.

Because we were driving, Athens city center was not on our list. It is not recommended to drive through the city center. But when we were in Greece to look for a boat we visited Athens for a weekend and we saw most of the things worth seeing, and you can read about it in our previous blog post:

A weekend in Athens, what to do?

Here is the marina where we stayed. It is many charter companies so you can choose were to stay.

On Thursdays you will find a market here and that was amazing. I am not sure if I have been to a market since Türkiye??

It was time to leave Lavrion!

Makronisos

We didn`t sail that long, only to the next island, Makronisos. This is a small, long island right east of Lavrion, and we sailed to the eastern side of the island where we found a nice bay to anchor. Only a small motorboat was there and we had enough room to put two lines ashore. Then we were protected against swell, since the wind came from north and the swell from east.

Mikronisos is an island with a sad history, and the Greek people just wants to forget what happened.

Mikronisos was a site for a concentration camp from 1912 to 1952, then for a quarantine for refugees and then an exile islet for Greek political prisoners. One of the most known prisoners (for me) is Mikis Theodorakis. If you don`t know his music, pick it up on youtube and listen! I have been singing in a choir which have had several conserts with his amazing music, and through that we learned a lot about his life. So for me it was very special to came here.

Mikis Theodorakis died in 2021, 96 years old.

When we finished anchoring we decided to have a walk. There is a gravel road from the beach to the other side of the island, so we wanted to follow this road to the top of the hill to see the sunset.

You can barely see our boat!

At the top on the hill (at the road) we could see over to Lavrion, where we sailed from earlier that day.

There were a trail going on top of the hill to the south so we wanted to explore that. You can find a lot of old ruins along the trail.

What a view up here!

Nice terrain to have a walk. But I guess not many people has been walking here the last 20 years.. (or more)

Ruins from an old house, or maybe shelter for the animals.

We walked to the end of the trail. We came to a huge area of ruins, but with no explanation I can`t tell you how old it is or what it is. But I guess at one point someone lived here, or at least had their animals here.

Our plan next was to sail to Kea, the island in the background. Follow us next week to see where we sailed…

On our way back to the road.

Down on the west side of the island you can see a part of the prison. We will go there the next day.

Nice temperature to have a walk in the evening. It is really perfect!

We don`t know what this is, it was empty inside.

Nice colours in the sunset.

When we came back to the road we saw some other buildings on the north side of the road, and decided to check it out before walking back to the boat.

Just some old ruins.

We could see the motorboat, but our boat is hidden.

The sunset was beautiful! Then it was time to walk back to the boat.

Here is the trail:

A video from our evening hike:

Next morning we had a wake up call at 05.45. When it is hot it is perfect to wake up early to do a hike.

It was also full moon, so it was a perfect morning! (I tried to take a photo in the evening from the boat, but you know, in a it is not possible to hold the camera still)

We came up in the hill before sunrice. How stunning!!

Almost on the top of the hill we could see some other ruins we had to check out.

What view the inhabitants had here!

It was two houses, this is a little bit higher up than the other. (maybe the other one was a barn.)

This one was quite newer than the other houses on the island, we think.

It looks like they left everything in a hurry. It was food here, expired in 1997..

And a toilet!

The day before we were on the top of this hill where you can see the ruins, so instead of walking back to the road the same way we tried to walk directly up the hill.

That worked well. I am sure we could walk further on in the hill, but we had another plan for this day.

The ruins in the morning sun.

Long shadows this early in the morning.

The way down the hill on the east side.

This building we don`t know what it is, because here is no information. But it looks like a church. (more photos later in this post)

We guess this was the prison.

Inside the building.

It should have been so interesting to know more about all this.

2nd monument of Political Prisoners of Makronissos.

The building next to the prison.

We don`t know what this is, but we know what it looks like…

I guess, because the other monument is the “2nd”, this has to be the first.

When we sailed from Lavrion to Makronissos, we saw a lot of ruins on the southwest side and we had to explore that. Google Maps said it would be approximately 7 km each way so we knew it would be a long walk. It was gravel road the whole way.

And many ruins everywhere.

This looks like it has been a huge farm…

This has been some huge buildings.

It was ruins everywhere.

It is so sad that everything is destroid, it would be an amazing place to visit if they kept it like it was.

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We had to have a stop for breakfast and found this small beach we could walk back to. We thought we were alone on the island, but there were a couple of guys around. It looked like they were feeding the animals.

In the hill there was a church.

Must have been a nice little church many years ago.

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I am sure why the writer Patricia Wilson came here to get some insperation for her writing. She has written many books about Greece, and I have been reading them all.

Almost on the southernmost end.

A lot of goats waiting for us, not scared.

This must have been a monumental building once, looked amazing!

The same building seen from the other side.

At the southern part. A church in the middle of the photo. We didn`t walked there, our walk was long enough as it was.

A nice beach, we didn`t check it out.

We turned around and walked back to the small beach we saw earlier to have breakfast. The goats was waiting for us, curious about theese people walking around here…

And also some sheeps.

This stair was from the road, down to the beach. We were thinking if it has been more here, like a terrace or something. We had a short swim and breakfast here before walking back.

About half way back on the west side, we took another road, because we wanted to check out the building we saw earlier.

Here is the front of the building. It is just this, nothing more. Looks like it has been an open church, I haven`t seen something like this before…

The view from this building.

When we came back to the boat there were other boats. We had line ashore so we occupied the whole beach. Sorry…

We were anchored almost on the midle of the island, and walked to the southern part:

I wish I could have told you more about this amazing island, but it is very little information to be found.

Here is a video from this hike:

After this hike we had to stay two days in this bay because of the weather. The wind changed from north/northeast to northwest so we turned the boat around so were against the wind. We were safe!

In Athen I bought this walkingpad. I really like walking outside and in mountains, but it will be days like this were we can`t get ashore, or it is rainy and we don`t want to go ashore… (I am allergic to rain… ) So for theese two days I used my walkingpad, 6-7 km each time, while watching something interesting on my computer 🙂

As we have said earlier, we can have a plan, but as a sailor it is sometimes hard to stick to the plan. It can be weather, or someone you meet, or something you have to do like boatjobs… So it is nice to have a plan B. Next week we needed to change our plans…