Of all the Greek islands, Patmos is easily the most serene to me. Although a little smaller in area than, say, Cambridge (at about 13 square miles), it’s richly sprinkled with monasteries, and is known as the “Jerusalem of the Aegean”. The main town, Chora, has more than 40 chapels, and not a single cornershop or grocery. Meanwhile, down on Petra Bay, there’s a rock for hermits, rising up like a five-storey Swiss cheese, complete with cells and cisterns and 11th-century plumbing.
Patmians are still happily self-contained. During our week, we met some who’d never left the island. Others would save up all their medical problems for an annual, eight-hour voyage to Athens. But most were happy just being Patmian: fishing, thinking, building little hotels or teasing vegetables out of the rock.
Despite wars, droughts, Romans and a Russian occupation (1770-74), there are still more than 3,000 permanent islanders. An unofficial telephone directory lists an occulist, two dentists, the National Guard and the Cave of the Apocalypse.
There are only 12 taxis across the island, so we got to know the drivers. They all said the same thing: “Why would we want to leave? We live in the most beautiful place in the world.”
It’s true, Patmos is compellingly magnificent. It was once listed – by Forbes magazine – as one of Europe’s most idyllic places. It’s an unruly beauty. To a passing eagle, the island must look like a splatter of mountains dropped from a great height. Most of the coves are unoccupied: too steep, too rocky, too wild. But the blues are proper cobalt blues, and across this miniature, upended desert, there’s always a lingering scent of oleander and herbs.
Every morning, before it got too hot, I’d scramble over some hill, or along a stretch of shore. It was funny the things I’d find: shrines, of course, but also the basket-maker. Every day, his van would come trundling through the hills, like some strange mechanical hedgehog, bristling with baskets.
To the Romans, the awesome loveliness of Patmos suggested punishment, and it became a place of exile. According to the Christian tradition, this is where Saint John was sent in 95 AD, and where he heard the voice of God. His shallow granite cave is clustered with chapels. It would have been a nice…
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