On our long walk to Dafnoudi Beach on the island of Keffalonia, we passed by a derelict village. It was a fascinating area. On making enquiries at the Old Stone House restaurant later, we discovered that this part of Antipata village was destroyed by the 1953 earthquake. It measured 6.8 on the magnitude scale, killed 600 people and raised parts of the island by 60 cm. The majority of people emigrated away from Greece. Those who remained rebuilt their homes.
Most of the buildings here are shells with roofs caved in but it is possible to see inside through gaping doors and windows.
It is easy to imagine the lives that were lived here.
On our last day we decided to walk there again and this time we walked amongst the buildings along rubble filled paths trying to surmise what they might have been used for.
Was this a bread oven?
And what could this strange shaped window have been?
But one building stood out ... an ornate frontage with a tiny metal balcony, the doors of which still had glass.
Indeed who else had marched up and down the road we stood on, at that particular time.
There was a poignancy to our visit, imagining the devastation to lives and buildings in the wake of the earthquake and also WW2. The stones themselves, covered in extensive lichens, showing the passing of time.
Absolutely fascinating.
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