The Castle at Dusk
Climbing the lanes of Chora to the Byzantine castle as the light turns gold, and the small daily miracle of a Skyrian sunset.
There is an hour, most evenings on Skyros, when the whole of Chora seems to hold its breath. The heat has gone out of the day. The white walls, fierce and flat at noon, soften and begin to glow. And the lane that climbs to the castle fills with people walking up, unhurried, for no reason except that this is what you do here at dusk.
We join them. The climb is steep and cobbled, past family churches no bigger than a room, past cats arranged like ornaments on the warm steps, past doorways framing a glimpse of someone’s evening. Nobody is in a rush. The town is full of the small sounds of the day winding down.
At the top
The castle, the Kastro, crowns a rock a hundred and seventy-nine metres above the sea, where legend puts the citadel of King Lykomedes. On its first level stands the Monastery of Agios Georgios, the island’s patron, founded more than a thousand years ago. But it is the view that empties your head. The whole sweep of Magazia opens below, the long sand pale in the failing light, and beyond it the Aegean going from blue to bronze to a deep, even grey.
We sit on the warm stone and say very little. The sun lowers itself into the sea without ceremony. Someone’s bell rings, far off. And then, almost shyly, the first lights come on in the houses below, and the town that was gold turns to a scatter of small yellow squares in the dark.
A miracle you can repeat
The wonderful thing is that none of it is rare. There is no booking, no entry, no crowd jostling for the photograph. It happens every clear evening, free, and you can have it as many times as you have evenings on the island. That is the kind of luxury Skyros deals in.
The full walk, the lanes, Brooke Square, the castle and the monastery, is laid out in our walking guide to Chora.
More from the Journal soon. To put a few of these evenings in your week, start here.