The Extraterrestrial Village

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So far so good!

Everything seemed normal till then. We had been on the island for a couple of days and everything was turning out, more or less, as anticipated. When you have seen so many Greek islands as we have, it is hard to be surprised. All of them have some unique characteristics that differentiates them from the others but the similarities are very obvious too.

Until we reached a small plateau near the town of Tinos, that seemed to belong in another world. Countless boulders of various shapes and sizes, were scattered all over the landscape. Some of them reminded me human figures or animal shapes, although most of them look like huge marbles.

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Even in the settlement, which looked like a typical village, you could see the boulders peek out of the walls. At the simple question

When was this village built?

no-one can give a definite answer. Everyone agrees that it is old, most probably the older on the island but other than that, a fog of uncertainty covers its history.

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The village is as lovely as every other little village I have seen in the islands of the Aegean sea but the extremely unusual scenery has triggered many scientific quests as well as numerous myths!

The local tradition has the most "logical" explanation. The boulders are the remains of a big battle between Giants and Titans (supernatural creatures of ancient's Greece mythology with great size and strength).

The scientists on the other hand, have more dull explanations, like volcanic eruption or the fall of a meteorite :)

Whatever the truth of their origin is, the boulders at the village "Volax" have make it known as

The Extraterrestrial Village of Tinos!

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The few people that live there don't care much about the true origin of their village, though. The boulders and the alien scenery are part of their daily lives and they hardly notice them anymore.

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Weaving baskets is a craft very old in this place too and we were lucky enough to find a gentleman who still practices it. It is always a pleasure to see crafts of the old school in real life and not as an exhibit in a folklore museum, like in the pictures below!

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This is my contribution to the #wednesdaywalk challenge, hosted by @tattoodjay!

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I took those pictures on 11/07/2012, when I was working as a photographer for a travel magazine. A job that allowed me to travel all over Greece and see all the places I ever wanted to see and some more that I never imagined I would be interested in (but I enjoyed them anyway).

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All the pictures and the words are mine.

Thank you for reading and if you want to know more about me you can check out my introduction post.

Commenting, upvoting and rebloging are highly appreciated!