Monday, August 18, 2008

Ioulida

This is the main city on the island of Kea. It's just what you think. All of the houses are climbing on top of each other. The entire island is terraced for farming. It once was lush and green and originally was called Hydrosa. There are hundreds of miles of stone walls to support the terraces. In order to support the agriculture here there must have been thousands of people living here. As near as I can tell though that was all over more than a thousand years ago. In the 5th century BC there were four cities here and they had joined the Athenian leauge. By the 1400's the population had declined to 200 people.

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