Koufonisia
Overview
Koufonisia is two islands, and one of them is empty. Pano Koufonisi, barely 4 square kilometres, is the smallest inhabited island in the Cyclades, and for its size keeps one of the largest fishing fleets in Greece. Kato Koufonisi lies a few hundred metres across the channel, with a chapel, a beach and nobody on it.
The island is explored on foot. From the Chora the coast runs east as a low limestone shelf that the sea has eaten hollow: a chain of caves, arches and rock pools that people swim between. The walk ends after an hour or so at the long sand of Pori. The best known of the pools, a collapsed cave open to the sky, is reached by climbing down into it. It is the closest thing the Cyclades have to a swimming pool cut by accident.
The fishing is a working trade. The fleet goes out at night and the catch is on the waterfront before noon, which is why the kitchens on so small an island are better than they have any right to be.
Beyond Kato Koufonisi lies Keros, uninhabited and closed. On Keros the marble figurines of the Cycladic Bronze Age were found in their hundreds, deliberately broken and buried. The find is still the least explained in Aegean archaeology. There is no airport. The ferry comes from Naxos, and the small Skopelitis works the Small Cyclades between Naxos and Amorgos in most weather. Stay two or three nights. The island is small, and it means to be.
House Notes
The karnagio
The karnagio, the traditional boatyard at Loutro, 800 metres from the port, was founded in 1965 and bought in 1987 by the brothers Michalis and Giannis Prasinos, who still work it while yards elsewhere in Greece have been closing. Caiques, the wooden boats of the islands, are hauled onto wooden stilts by hand, without trailer or trolley, in front of a windmill and the small church of Agios Nikolaos.
Aeris, above Pori
Aeris Suites has six villas on seven acres above Pori, 1.5 kilometres from the centre of the Chora, the main village. Four are 85 square metres, each with a semi-private infinity pool on a terrace of about 120; one is 160 square metres on two levels, with its own pool and jacuzzi; the sixth is a semi-basement villa facing the sea. The view runs over the sand to the Xylompatis caves and the open Aegean.
Kapetan Nikolas and Melissa
Kapetan Nikolas is named for the captain who stocked it with fish from his own caique; his son Panagiotis walks guests through the day’s catch, and Panagiotis’s daughter Rinio cooks the pots. Melissa, in the Chora, began as the island’s grocery and only bakery under Antonis Mavros, and his son Stamatis still makes his mother’s cheese, spinach, potato and pumpkin pies, and the braised goat.
The sea taxis
Four sea taxis work from the port, Marigo, Chrysopygi, Prasinos Roussetos and Taxiarchis, carrying between 50 and 150 passengers. Besides the hourly beach shuttle, they cross to Kato Koufonisi five times a day, the first at 10am, and they run day cruises to Keros and the islet of Glaronissi as well as private charters. Schinoussa is an hour away, Iraklia an hour and a half and Amorgos 2 to 3 hours.
Kato Koufonisi
The chapel by the jetty is the Panagia, built in secret in 1651 under Ottoman rule beside the ruins of a Byzantine church. Venetsanos, 200 metres on, was built in 1992 by the brothers Giannis and George Venetsanis with their wives Sophia and Chryssa; it grills the fish that comes over by boat each morning and cooks the goat from Keros, in old ruined houses and courtyards roofed with beams and reeds.
Kalofeggo
On the sand at Pori, at the far end of the island and looking across to Keros, Kalofeggo has been run by Alexandros Miaoulis since 2006, on ground that came to his father, the civil engineer Nikolaos Miaoulis, in the 1960s as payment for building work. The kitchen serves smoked aubergine with tahini, feta fried in a cereal crust, and minced lamb with grilled briam (mixed summer vegetables) and yoghurt.
The coves
Three beaches lie on the east shore, in the order the coastal track meets them coming out of the Chora. First is Charakopou, which everyone calls Finikas, wide with fine sand and the one families choose, then Fanos, sandy, with the beach bar. Last is Platia Pounta, known as Italida after the Italian lady who owned the house behind it: golden sand, five minutes on foot from Fanos, with the small cove of Italidaki at one end.
The Devil’s Eye
Mati tou Diavolou, the Devil’s Eye, is a hole inside a sea cave through which the waves rush in, on the coast between Platia Pounta and Pori. You reach it on foot or by bicycle along the coastal trail, or by small boat from the port. It is a separate formation from the roofless pool further along the same shore.
Mikres Cyclades
Mikres Cyclades stands on a whitewashed alley in the Chora of Ano Koufonisi, the considered dinner on an island otherwise given over to fish tavernas. George Pantopoulos heads the kitchen, with Greek and Mediterranean cooking from island ingredients and meat, seafood and vegetable plates in equal measure. The door opens at 5pm and the kitchen runs to 1am.
The Roman baths
The Chora’s proper name is Agios Georgios, and it sits on a Roman settlement: in and around the houses on the south-western coast, the ruins of Roman baths are still visible. The village holds about 90 per cent of the island’s rooms and tables, with the church of Agios Georgios, its patron saint, at the centre and a helipad on its edge.
Anchorage Notes
The harbour
Koufonisia’s harbour lies at the foot of the Chora, the main village, and it is administered from Naxos. The Municipal Port Fund of Naxos, the public body that also keeps Naxos town, Donousa, Iraklia and Schinoussa, holds the land and sea zone of Koufonisi among its port zones. A yacht lies here among the ferries, the sea taxis and the fishing boats.
Parianos
Parianos is the island’s second port zone, which the Port Fund of Naxos names in its own right alongside the harbour at the Chora. Above its small harbour on the southwestern side, a hamlet of a few old houses, some newer holiday homes, rooms to let and a single taverna rises in tiers. The fishing boats lying off the sandy beach below are most of what happens there.
Kato Koufonisi
Kato Koufonisi lies across the strait, and the passenger caique (a traditional wooden boat) from Pano Koufonisi stops at two points on it: the small port, and Nero, the largest beach, on the eastern coast. Detis is the nearest beach to the port and a walk from it. Lakki and Pezoulia are on the southern shore and Fykio on the northern, each reached on foot from whichever landing the boat has made.
Pori
Pori is the island’s farthest beach and, from the water, its simplest: a long stretch of white sand at the top of the coast with two café bars that serve food. It can be reached by the main road, by the coastal trail or by boat, and the boat is the shortest of the three. A yacht anchors here for the afternoon and leaves at dusk.