Karpathos Tours

Karpathos tours are host-led trips on Karpathos, an island of the Dodecanese south-west of Rhodes. The sections look at Othos, the highest town, and the Dodecanese campaign of 1943. They also cover ancient writers, the scholar Richard Dawkins, early bishops, east-coast beaches and remote Tristomo. Related pages cover the Dodecanese islands and Greece island hopping tours. Trips elsewhere in the country are listed on Greece tours.

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What are Karpathos tours?

Karpathos tours are host-led days out on a Dodecanese island. The ancient writer Diodorus called the island a colony of the Dorians. A colony means a new home founded overseas by migrants. The Dorians were one branch of the ancient Greek people.

Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder and Strabo, three more ancient authors, also mention the island behind Karpathos tours. An author is a person who writes books. An ancient Greek city named Karpathos stood where the village of Aperi lies today. Its harbour was Poseidium, a sheltered place where ships tied up.

Economic problems after the Second World War sent Karpathians abroad in the late 1940s and 1950s. They made new homes in American cities on the eastern seaboard. A seaboard is the strip of land along a coast. Each village on the island behind Karpathos tours keeps its own athletic association, or sports club.

Every summer, all the local clubs play in the Pan-Karpathian Football Championship. Pan-Karpathian means open to the whole of Karpathos. The island behind Karpathos tours has its national airport in the Afiartis area, on the southern side. That airport first opened in 1970, with one small building of only 500 square metres.

• Terminal: A new terminal, the hall where air passengers check in, opened on 25 July 2009.
• Runway: The airport of Karpathos has a relatively large runway, a long strip for take-off and landing.
• Youth: Youth football tournaments are also organised on the island for young players.

Karpathos tours take place in a municipal unit of 219.924 square kilometres. Such a unit forms one district inside a larger municipality. Ferries and aeroplanes link the island with its neighbours and with the mainland. The mainland is the Greek landmass beyond the islands.

What does the mountain village of Othos add to Karpathos tours?

Karpathos tours share an island with Othos, the highest town of Karpathos, at an elevation of 508 metres. Elevation tells how far a place rises above the sea. Othos lies 12 kilometres outside Pigadia, a town on the same island.

Othos rises on the south-facing side of Mount Meloura, on the island behind Karpathos tours. The houses of Othos keep a traditional style of island building. They face the eastern shore of Karpathos and the open Aegean Sea. Traditional here means built in the old local way, passed down through generations.

Of all the villages on the island behind Karpathos tours, none is more mountainous than Othos. Mountainous means full of mountains and high, steep ground. The Othos community takes in the village and two nearby settlements, Stes and Kallenes. In 2021 a census, an official count of residents, found 264 people there.

Greece lists Othos among its traditional settlements. These are places that keep their old look and their local character. Around 830 settlements across Greece hold this status. A status is an official rank or standing. On the island of Karpathos tours, the villages of Olympos and Mesochori share that listing too.

• Lastos: Mount Meloura, the mountain above Othos, stands in southern Lastos.
• Prefecture: Othos also ranks among the hilliest villages of the Dodecanese prefecture, a regional district.
• Shell beach: Villagers of Othos call the beach of Mihaliou o Kipos by the name Shell beach.

Othos also keeps a small folklore museum. Folklore means the customs, crafts and stories of ordinary people. A museum displays objects that tell the story of earlier times. The island behind Karpathos tours has ten towns, and Othos is one of them.

Which wartime story does the Dodecanese campaign of 1943 give Karpathos tours?

Karpathos tours concern an island taken by German troops during the Dodecanese campaign. In it, Germany seized and held the islands of the Dodecanese. The campaign lasted from 8 September until 22 November 1943. A campaign is a chain of linked military actions.

Under the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, Karpathos joined the other Dodecanese islands as an Italian possession. Treaties are agreements signed by governments. A possession is a land ruled from abroad. The Italians held the island behind Karpathos tours until September 1943. That month Italy surrendered, which means it stopped fighting and yielded.

Allied planners named Rhodes as their main target, along with Scarpanto, now called Karpathos. The Allies were the countries that fought Germany in the Second World War. Like Kos, the island of Karpathos tours offered one airfield plus space for further ones. An airfield is flat ground where military aircraft take off and land.

A German force of 1,500 troops stood on Scarpanto, west of Rhodes. Troops are soldiers in an organised force. By 19 September, Karpathos and Kasos were in German hands. The German occupation of the island behind Karpathos tours ended on 4 October 1944. An occupation means foreign troops hold and rule a territory.

• Air force: The Luftwaffe, the German air force, had airfields on Scarpanto, 72 kilometres from Rhodes.
• Allied aim: Allied commanders planned to strike German targets in the Balkans from bases on these islands.
• End of the war: German rule over the Dodecanese lasted until 1945, when the Germans yielded to British forces.

The campaign gave Germany one of its last victories of the war. Later, the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947 moved the island of Karpathos tours from Italy to Greece. A peace treaty is the agreement that formally ends a war.

What do travellers ask about Karpathos tours, and what are the answers?

Karpathos tours are set on an island studied by Richard Dawkins, a British archaeologist. Dawkins was also a scholar of modern Greek dialects and folklore. Dialect means local speech. His published papers on the island carry the title Notes from Karpathos.

Before Karpathos tours, how did Dawkins study the island’s dialect?

Dawkins first meant to dig in Greece, but he turned to research on modern Greek dialects. He spent time in the Dodecanese, above all on Karpathos, studying local speech. On Karpathos he set out to compare the local speech with that of eastern Crete. He had learned that Cretan speech while digging at Roussolakkos.

For Karpathos tours, which early bishops does the island’s church record name?

Known bishops of Karpathos include Olympius and Zoticus, the latter in 518. In the 14th century, the island became a see, or bishop’s district, of the Latin Church. Four of those Latin bishops carried the name Nicolaus. Today the Catholic Church lists Carpathus as a titular see, kept only as a title.

Near Karpathos tours, which beaches line the east and west coasts?

On the east coast, the named beaches include Amoopi, Achata, Kyra Panagia and Apella. Walkers alone can reach Kato Latos, another east-coast beach. Across the island, the west coast holds Lefkos beach, Mesohori, Finiki and Arkasa Leucadius. The coast is the shoreline of the island. A beach is a shore of sand or pebbles.

Before Karpathos tours, how remote is the northern village of Tristomo?

Avlona is the northernmost village of Karpathos that a car can reach. Tristomo, the next village to the north, is open only to walkers and boats. In March 2019, builders were laying a paved road to link Avlona with Tristomo. Once finished, it will link every village on the island.

Featured photo: Rosa-Maria Rinkl, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (File:Blick auf Pigadia 4.JPG).