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Modern Description: The road continues to climb to Messariá, a settlement of a few stone houses: from the bend below the village, a track leads downhill towards the site of Vathý Limenári, an important Geometric fortified settlement which flourished in the 9th and 8th centuries BC. The variety of pottery found here shows that this was a trading station within a network of routes connecting the other Cycladic islands, Euboea and Attica with the Dodecanese; the settlement does not seem to have survived into Classical times.
The site is difficult to locate: a promontory crowned by a defunct windmill is clearly visible; the next shoulder to the east has a half-deserted house on its saddle, and the site extends to the east of this building. The ditches excavated by the archaeologists to reveal the fortification walls can be seen, with the settlement's water-source just below. In spring the hillsides are covered with colonies of squills and wild orchids (mostly Anacamptis pyramidalis).

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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