On a sunny Sunday morning, we got the chance to visit Volissos, the largest village in northwestern Chios. After a dizzy drive, we arrived at Volissos. It was a very warm day so we prepared our caps and enough water. The village is built on a hill and its surroundings, and on top of the hill is the Castle of Volissos.
We started walking into the city from the main road and one of the first things we encountered was a marble plate at the entrance of the village. It caught our eye but it was written in ancient Greek, but we could read the words Homer and Herodotus, so we did some quick online investigating and discovered that according to the Greek historian Herodotus, Homer lived and wrote the majority of his poems in Volissos. After this interesting fact, we continued our walk through the village.
The streets were pretty empty because it was a Sunday and it was a bit hot, but we still managed to have a great experience. We didn’t have a route in mind, so we started walking up the hills and finding multiple churches. It was amazing to think that those little narrow streets that we were walking in had not been changed much and we could really see how life was many years ago. We also pay special attention to the old houses and how they were constructed and took advantage of some very much appreciated spring water near another church. We continued our walk up the hill and we already started getting some amazing views of the sea. It was very impressive for us because we live on the other side of the island, where whenever we look at the sea we see Turkey at the end, but here it was just a vast sea, which was beautiful and very calm, almost like a big pool. We learned a saying that the Greeks used to describe this type of calm sea, calling it oily: Η θάλασσα είναι λάδι!.
We ended up arriving at the top of the hill, where the Castle of Volissos is located. We were in a bit of a hurry to go back but we still got a bit of time to admire the view and learn a little bit about the history of the Castle. The castle was built in the 11th century, but tradition says that the castle was built by a general of the Emperor Justinian, Velisarius, in the 6th century. In the 15th century, it was rebuilt by the Genoese and took its final shape. Being at the top of the hill, we could really see the strategic importance of the castle overseeing the coast and could imagine the people living there defending themselves against pirate attacks. We also learned that there was a tunnel connecting the castle to the coast and that the main activity of the village in the past was silkworm breeding.
We went down hill admiring the view and the beautiful houses full of flowers and went back home. It was a great experience as we had another opportunity to see a new part of the island that we had never seen before and learn a little bit more about the history of Chios, this time especially of Volissos.
