Kalo Taxidi - Andros Chora - General Impressions

An extract from my book "Kalo Taxidi"



Andros Chora - General Impressions

My first daylight view of Andros Chora. I was impressed. Old fashioned shops, some smart, some small village like. Impressive large nineteenth century type buildings, yet not out of scale. I said nineteenth century type as if they had been in England the buildings would have been 19th century. Later I saw that the library which I had taken to be in a nineteenth century building had a "1919" date plaque. Andros was behind mainland west European styles in architecture. I was reminded of what I had read about fashions in previous centuries in England; ladies in the provinces dressed in what had been fashionable years earlier in London.

A marbled main street, in theory pedestrianised, but in practice not always, but then this is Greece. To be fair most of the few vehicles using the street were commercial vehicles making deliveries; many of the deliveries were made by a chap pushing a large wooden barrow.

The town is built along a finger of a peninsula. When I first arrived last night and saw Chora at night I did not realise how narrow the peninsula was. In the dark I went for a stroll down towards the end of the peninsula but did not quite reach the end. I was almost at the square of the Unknown Sailor, but had not realised it. With hindsight I should have guessed from the swirling wind how narrow the peninsula was.

That first morning in Andros Chora I was thinking about an imaginary computer programme into which I could feed all the bits I liked about Greece to produce my perfect Greek place. Something like Andros Chora would emerge (and then I had not even started to discover the delights of the Andros countryside). Sorry my old friends Amorgos and Naxos, but sometimes I feel that you are getting a little too spoilt [2011 update. I wrote this fifteen years ago, have not been back to Andros, and visit Naxos and Amorgos three or four times a year!] All the time I am aware that in the Greek islands so much of what one sees and one's impressions depend upon the specific conditions at the time of one's visit. If I saw Andros in mid August I might revert to favouring my old favourites, but in mid August they too would be under siege from tourists both Greek and foreign.


Some general impressions of Andros Chora. Sea, lashing against rocks; cliffs; houses overhanging cliffs; a Venetian castle; pedestrianised main street; old fashioned; few tourists and not tourist dominated; handsome buildings; a lighthouse perched precariously on a rock; a church on a rock; friendly cats; a good wine shop; great cheese pies; smart hotel with marble staircase and decorative hand-rail overlooking main pedestrianised street; the fishmonger below my room with plump attentive cats - what more could I want? A large Goulandris endowed museum - it would be too greedy to ask in my computer programme for three museums / galleries! And you have Andros Chora. Not to mention the Nautical Museum, and the library. If I plugged all this into a computer programme I would feel greedy and that no real place could possibly offer so much.

Going back to my imaginary computer programme, admittedly, I would like a nice taverna serving good food with a sea view, and good walks without the need for a bus. I later decided that my complaint about not being able to start a walk from Chora was unjustified. I can expect that from a village, but not from a town. In fact you can start a walk from Chora, but I do not like walking uphill! The bracing seaside walks from Chora are marvellous.

With its museums and art galleries I may have given the impression that Andros Chora is a sophisticated place. Not entirely true, unless the presence of donkeys and the absence of cars is taken as a sign of sophistication. I saw a donkey (doey eyed, as usual) being saddled. First on went a pink flannelette sheet, carefully positioned and then I think a blanket - no saddle sores on that donkey. I was reminded of a monk from Hozoviotissa monastery on Amorgos whom I saw on a ferry clutching a new donkey saddle frame in that traditional Greek saddle shape. I wonder how old some of the donkey frames still in use are? The design seems to be timeless.

The people here look prosperous, but not showy. Comfortable, not peasant types. I don't want to be rude about other inhabitants on some of the smaller islands, in situ they are lovely people and totally in harmony with and at peace with their surroundings, but transplant one to Andros and he or she might look a little out of place.

One of the delights of Chora was the abundance of small old-fashioned shops. I found myself wishing that nothing would ever change, but of course Chora is a living small town and is always changing; it is just that all these changes sum up to a marvellously homogenised whole.


An extract from my book "Kalo Taxidi"