Karpathos
— the sea the wind never quite finishes.
Not only on a wall.
“A long, narrow island in the southern Aegean, less travelled than its Dodecanese neighbours. The mountains run almost the length of it, dropping to coves the road only sometimes reaches. In the north, the village of Olympos still keeps its own dialect and a Sunday dress sewn by hand. Bread comes out of stone ovens before the boats leave the harbour.
Karpathos, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Karpathos is the second-largest island of the Dodecanese, about 301 km² and home to roughly 6,000 year-round residents. It lies in the southern Aegean Sea, between Crete and Rhodes, and its spine reaches above 1,200 m at Mount Lastos. Pigadia is the main harbour on the southeast coast; the airport sits a short drive south. The northern village of Olympos, founded in the medieval period, is reached by a single mountain road or by boat from Diafani.
Karpathos is one of the quieter Greek islands, kept that way by geography. Ferries from Piraeus take more than fifteen hours, and the local airport handles modest seasonal traffic. Many of the small beaches on the west coast, Lefkos, Achata, and Apella, are reached only by goat track or steep switchbacks down through pine. In Olympos, the elderly women still wear traditional dress as everyday clothing, and the Karpathian dialect preserves elements of ancient Greek long lost elsewhere on the mainland.
The high season runs late June through early September, when northerly meltemi winds make Karpathos one of the most reliable windsurfing spots in Europe; the bay at Afiartis is the centre of that scene. Outside summer, much of the island slows, some tavernas close, and the bus to Olympos runs only a few times a week. A car helps. The walk down from Olympos to Diafani takes about three hours through old stone-walled terraces and silver olive groves.