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Modern Description: The modern Koufonisia: The former character of Pano Koufonisi—a remote but busy fishing community—has been transformed by intensive tourist and building development which is felt all the more pressingly since the island is small and has no notable geographical features. It is remarkable that a flat, waterless and shadeless island should be the object of such a boom, but the several beaches which lie mostly to the east of the port and town perhaps explain why. The setting of the island is also beautiful, in the calm waters between the mountains of Naxos to the north and of Keros to the south.
Something of the original nature of the village, built over the remains of a Hellenistic and Roman settlement, can still be felt in its winding, paved, main street. Its focus is the church of Aghios Giorgios, which has in its courtyard a few fragments of early Christian carving and one ancient capital used as a fence post. The former port of the island was at Loutra, just to the west of the Chora, which still retains an active boatyard and has a quieter atmosphere. An Early Cycladic cemetery, being rapidly eroded by the sea, was excavated on the western side of the inlet; another was explored to the east of the Chora.
Above the bay of Loutra stands a restored windmill and beyond it the church of Aghios Nikolaos in whose gateway and immediate surroundings several more carved marble elements, largely from an Early Christian structure, have been gathered together.
Wikidata ID: Q1247000
Trismegistos Geo: 33242

Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands

(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)

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