Even Parikía is serene, its arcaded pathways winding through the white houses and Venetian villas. Lefkes, the loveliest of the villages, is here to its east, Prodromos and Marpissa are labyrinthine and very pretty. The mountainous centre would seem the least trodden – you can still see the Paros of a century or more ago. View west from the monastery of St Anthony in Marpissa Alistair Taylor-YoungĮach of its quadrants has a different feel: the west bustling, dominated by Parikía the north, encompassing Naoussa, more elegant the east laidback and beachy the south more rugged. ‘Then you know nothing of Paros!’ he declared. And our Ekatontapiliani, the Church of 100 Doors, in Parikía – have you been?’ I hadn’t. The story of the marble from Marathi is inseparable from the story of Paros and even of classical Greece.
They say it was Rodin’s favourite marble, better for him than Carrara. ‘See how much smaller the crystals are in the lychnite?’ he said.
He showed me a piece he’d made from Naxos marble and then another from the flawless white Parian version known as lychnite. Parian marble, no longer quarried, is the best, he said. He sensed beautiful and dramatic forms in the massive chunks that came his way when he made deliveries to sculptors he stayed to watch them work and when he felt ready he began to do it himself.
He had been in the family building-supply business but became dissatisfied – the marble of Paros saved him. His monumental creations stood on plinths among bathroom sinks and tabletops. Earlier that afternoon I had by chance met Christoforos’s cousin Manolis Fokianos, dealer in marble, sculptor and karate expert, at his works near Parikía, the island’s capital.
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