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Tales From Tilos

August 30, 2021 /

Last night’s cocktails soon morph into drenching sweat as we haul ourselves up the steep mountain behind Megalo Chorio, the parched plants crackling beneath our feet, some brittle enough to turn to dust, others springing back upright, resilient to our footfall. A late night cocktail bar may not have been the best preparation for a climb like this, but the beautiful island of Tilos is taking us into its arms in every possible way.

View across Tilos
View across Tilos

As ever, the climb is worth the effort. The views across the deep blue Aegean to neighbouring islands are matched by those back across land, the stark white buildings of the village tumbling down the hillside below us, before the fertile lowlands stretch out to the sea on the opposite side of the island. This is beautiful country.

Kastro, Megalo Chorio
  • Kastro, Megalo Chorio
  • Kastro, Megalo Chorio
  • Kastro Megalo Chorio
  • Kastro, Megalo Chorio

Megalo Chorio is one of a handful of village settlements on Tilos, unlike our previous island Chalki with its single port town. Our base on Tilos is Livadia, itself the island ferry point and home to a picture perfect deep horseshoe bay where the stunning blue sea is matched in splendour by the changing hues of the surrounding mountains. The rocks of those mountains change colour as the sun moves through the day, ochre at sunset, pink at first light.

Livadia sunset

Our balcony looks across that bay, across that blue Aegean, to the mountains, a panorama which is stunning and relaxing in equal measure. We could just sit here and stare for hours if it wasn’t for the fact that Tilos has so much more to offer.

Livadia Bay

If not love at first sight, then Livadia is certainly love at first drink. Leafy bars huddle around its modest square; its waterfront, kind of a miniature lungomare, houses fish tavernas, coffee bars, wholly authentic Greek eateries and that oh so romantic cocktail bar where we sip our drinks and watch the moon paint silver patterns across the water.

  • Megalo Chorio
  • Megalo Chorio

And everywhere the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, alive yet civilised. One or two expensive yachts moor offshore, just a couple of ferries call in each day. Beaming smiles come free with your morning coffee, charm comes free with your cocktails. Contentment comes with no strings. This is the best stop on this adventure so far.

Megalo Chorio

In the 1970s, a Tilos shepherd unearthed some unusual bones in Charkadio Cave, alongside human skeletons and relics of earlier settlements. Examination by archeologists found that those unusual bones were the remains of dwarf elephants; not the only place in the Mediterranean where such discoveries have been made, but these animals were particularly small, only about 1.3 meters tall. Like the Minoans, they seem to have been exterminated by the Santorini eruption.

  • Dwarf elephant bones
  • Dwarf elephant bones

The bones, other relics and the story of the excavation are now housed in a wonderful little museum which the islanders have strangely decided to place in the middle of nowhere rather than in one of the villages, but it’s well worth tracking it down. We were fortunate enough to be the only visitors, and were treated to a private and very informative tour by Maria the curator.

  • Excavations
  • Early humans

Like the eyeless sockets of an ancient skull, the empty windows of the deserted houses look mournfully towards the sea, or maybe towards their former occupants. Each roofless house, whether modest or grand, stands silently decaying amongst the rubble strewn alleyways, fig and oak trees reaching up through the empty spaces between stout walls. 

Abandoned Mikro Chorio
Mikro Chorio

Some properties bear a surname scrawled in fading paint on the stonework, names of those who once owned these homes and traded in its bustling streets. Those trees, no doubt planted by those same families, still produce their annual fruit harvest, though there are no mouths left to feed apart from the goats which now rule the town as its only occupants. The goats roam and clamber with freedom; as they eye us suspiciously while we explore, it’s clear that they rule the roost here, and we are the intruders. 

Goats rule Mikro Chorio
  • Mikro Chori street
  • Mikro Chorio

Welcome to Mikro Chorio, midway between Livadia and Megalo Chorio, where as recently as 1941 a population of 1,750 thrived to the extent that three schools educated the children of the town. By the 1960s its last stubborn occupant had passed away, the rest of the population having fled for the other two towns on the island or maybe even further afield, when the wells of Mikro Chorio ran dry. Those painted family names belie the claims of erstwhile owners ever hopeful of resurgence. 

Mikro Chorio
Mikro Chorio

Scrambling among its walls is an eerie experience, the voices of the years echoing in the Meltemi wind as it gently bends the branches of the figs and the oaks. Ghosts whisper from around silent corners. Only the church is spruce, looked after by islanders unwilling to see their place of worship in decay. The rest of the town broods, silent and abandoned.

  • Restored church, Mikro Chorio
  • Mikro Chorio Grave yard
  • 15th Century Church
  • Chapel frescoes
  • Chapel frescoes

This sad, deserted town is an incredibly evocative place, eerie, fascinating and more than a little disturbing. If walls could speak, there are surely stories to tell here among these stones….

Mikro Chorio

“Mikro, Mikro’” shouts the minibus driver, even though those waiting know exactly where he is bound. Clambering into the overcrowded bus with far too many others, we climb the mountain in darkness, the Milky Way clearly visible through the window. It’s gone 11pm, this is the first shuttle of the night, taking us to one of our more unusual drinking venues.

Mikro Chorio at night

For around four hours each night, one small corner of Mikro Chorio’s empty town is turned into a bar with gentle music and, most atmospheric of all, subdued lighting from within a number of its empty houses. Was that a shadow passing through that house, a ghost of its history, or a trick of the light? A shooting star skids across the black sky, the empty roofless houses watch, and wait. Leaves rustle in the gentle night breeze and as we leave around 1am, the goats, and the ghosts, are once again alone.

  • Mikro Chorio at night
  • Mikro Chorio bar

As we wake the next day, Mikro is the first thing we discuss, such is the impression it’s made. So too did the “Greek Cocktail”, its mix of ouzo and curaçao making me feel like I’m drinking a liquid alcoholic version of the blue jelly sweet in a bag of liquorice allsorts. Heaven, in other words.

Our stay on Tilos has been four days plus a few hours, yet we know for sure that part of us is staying here as we leave, such is its pull. Exploring the entire island has been magical, the island is beautiful, but returning “home” to Livadia each night has been very special. Everyone from the breakfast cafe owner to the shopkeeper to the honey seller smiles and says hello as we walk through. 

Livadia Village

We’re unlikely to forget the changing hues of the mountains, the crystal clear seas, the impossible Aegean blue, the calm, friendly island people. We’re unlikely to forget Mikro Chorio.

Six weeks into our Greek odyssey, this has been our best stop so far.

So far…..

Sunrise over Livadia

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