Life on the Edge

 

Folegandros Chora  Photo©Nigel Summerley

The island of Folegandros, at the far southern edge of the Cyclades, was in ancient times – and also in not so ancient times – a place of exile. If the powers-that-be didn't want you around, this is where you would be banished to.

Considering it's such a beautiful island, that doesn't sound too harsh. But that could be a skewed way of looking at this. Even paradise might be hellish if all the exits were sealed.

Katergo beach is one of the island's most stunning and remote spots. As I was setting out to walk to it, I was told that it had at times been used as a place to keep prisoners.

The journey there – and particularly the tricky descent down almost sheer cliffs – illustrated why that was. This was a difficult place to get to and an even more difficult one to get out of. The only relatively easy way would be by sea.

Folegandros was revived as a dumping ground for political prisoners in the early 20th century – most notably during the Metaxas dictatorship in the 1930s.

The dramatic setting of Katergo is impossible to capture satisfactorily in a picture – you need to go there.  

But before leaving Folegandros, I did also walk up to Agia Panagia to picture the clifftop Chora and amazing terraces below. None of the high spots of this island is easy to get to... but all of them are worth every step.

Folegandros Chora  Photo©Nigel Summerley