Our rental is locked and dark when we arrive in the village at 1am in the morning, and a brother and sister named Lambros and Athina eventually come to retrieve us and give us a room for the night. This view is from their patio.
There are trees throughout Magganitis that are pruned in this fashion. They have a sparse growing habit, and pruning them like this forces them to grow back more densely in the spring and provide better shade in the hot summer months.
We are renting a downstairs room in this building. Because there are almost no tourists here during the winter, we have the patio to ourselves. Even many of the Greeks who live here now go to Athens or elsewhere to work or spend winter with their families. Ikaria is undergoing a transition from a place people permanently live to a place people use for summer vacation.
Fishing is important here in Magganitis, and a large portion of the village’s men have sailing and fishing experience. Up until 1985, Magganitis was only connected to other towns by sea.
