Aradena
This morning (Monday), I walked from Anopoli to the deserted village of Aradena, site of the ancient city of Aradin. It was a settlement in the Roman, Byzantine and Venetian periods until it was destroyed by the Ottoman Turks. It sits at the top of a gorge of the same name that leads down to Marmara on the coast.
From Anopolis, until 1986, the only way to visit the deserted village was to walk down into the gorge and up the other side via ancient, cobbled mule tracks called kalderimia (there’s a picture further down the page). But then in 86, thanks to the largesse of the Vardinogiannis family, who could well afford it, a so-called Bailey bridge was constructed that connected the two sides and other villages.
In 2010 the online Business Insider included Vardis Vardinogiannis as one of twelve wealthy Greeks who could have lent a hand when the 2007-8 crash plunged many of his fellow countrymen and women into abject poverty. Now a billionaire, although the son of poor Rethymno farmers, you’d think he may have done and was certainly able. He was included in Lloyd’s List as one of the Most Influential People in Shipping. Forbes estimated his fortune to be 1.6 billion dollars.
I’ve been to the bottom of the gorge but not through it because the logistics are tricky, requiring buses and boats whose timetables don’t work, such that I’d need to spend the night somewhere, and I’m done lugging my rucksack far.
But the walk to Aradena was beautiful enough, passing West across Anopoli’s fertile plain, beside olive groves and pine forests, always with the White Mountains to the north. The pictures below, bar the first three of the road and the view from it, are of the deserted village, the gorge and its bridge.
