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Modern Description: Five hundred metres further to the west is the open square of the village of Plátanos, with a café, plane trees and an old water-fountain at the eastern exit of the square. A short distance to its northwest is the valley's richest site—the ancient fortress of Empóla and its early churches—which comes into view on top of a low ridge, accessible by a track to the right of the road. The rise is crowned by a long stretch of 4th century BC walls in isodomic masonry composed of rectangular blocks of a kind of ‘pudding-stone', or conglomerate, similar to that used at Phylakés. The southern stretch, which is encountered first, may have been added in a later enlargement to the principal area to the north, which includes the sizeable Hellenistic tower standing a little to the west of the Early Christian church. Tracing the lines of the walls in the surrounding fields gives a sense of the imposing size of the original 4th century BC structure. The 6th century AD basilica within it, which incorporates both the ancient walls at its east end and the ancient tower in its narthex to the west, is commensurately grand, and once again endowed with clearly patterned mosaic floors. The ancient spolia here are of particular interest and suggest that, in Antiquity, there may have been more here (a temple, and/or a cemetery) than just a fortified building: in the curve of the apse, lies (on its side) the carved marble doorway of a Hellenistic monumental tomb which, perhaps because of the incidental central cross-design created by its doors, has suggested itself for later Christian use; below where the templon screen would have stood is a long, half buried, section of the entablature of a sacred building, with both the triglyphs on the front, and the precise recesses for the metal clips that linked one block to another on the top, still clearly visible. Against the exterior of the whole length of the north wall of the basilica has been added a long narrow vaulted chamber, whose purpose— if not for storage—is obscure. The south aisle of the basilica is today occupied by the 14th century church of the Taxiarchis Michaïl, whose simple interior conserves beautiful wall-paintings—some of which (the Pantocrator and Evangelists of the apse) are contemporary with the foundation, and others (the fine Entry into Jerusalem, Nativity, and Saints) date probably from 200 years later.
Two hundred metres to the east of this area, still on the plateau, can be traced the floor-plan of another 6th century church (dedicated to ?Aghios Demetrios) amongst a quantity of fragments of Antique limestone blocks and Byzantine capitals. The tiny 12th century chapel of Aghios Antonios to the south of the modern church has wall-paintings in poor condition in its simple, vaulted chamber.
From the western end of Plátanos, the road leads to Metóchi; from here, a new track to the north leads up the mountain-side to the fortified, 18th century monastery of Panaghia Kyrá Psilí. (When the track reaches the watershed at the chapel of Stavrós, a signed foot-path to the right leads on up to the church.) The dramatically-sited monastery is a votive gift made by a native of the island, who converted to Islam and served as a high official in the Ottoman administration; when a fleet of ships under his management was miraculously rescued from a storm by the intervention of the Virgin, he dedicated and built this monastery on what was probably the site of an earlier hermitage (and of even earlier pagan cult) inside the grottoes where the chapels within the walls now stand. Its hidden and fortified location served as a refuge for the inhabitants of the valley in times of danger. From Stavrós the pathway to the northeast leads (45 mins each way) down to the island's north shore at the wild and solitary inlet of Pezónda. Along the ridge, to the west of Stavrós, at a point where it projects south over the valley in a natural ‘acropolis', is a site known as Kastéllas: the settlement here, marked by large blocks of collapsed masonry, seems to have been continuously used through the Geometric, Archaic and Classical periods. Jewellery, bronze arrow-heads, coins, and glass vessels have recently been found here.
DARE: 34324

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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