Kýthera

The World is the World and Kýthera is another World old Venetian saying

The Venetians who spent several centuries here found it quirky, and it certainly is unique in many respects. Tucked under the great dangling paw of the Peloponnese, in between the Ionian, Aegean and Cretan seas, Kýthera (sometimes spelled Kýthira) the isle of the goddess of love, is nowadays mostly on the way to nowhere—and owes a good part of its charm to that fact.

The opening of the Corinth Canal in 1893 doomed even the minor commercial importance Kýthera once had by virtue of its geography. Today, unless you take a domestic flight from Athens, getting there is so time-consuming that most tourists don’t bother, so big hotel chains and all inclusive resorts don’t either, leaving Kýthera is a wonderful slice of Old Greece, one rich in biodiversity, with somee 820 different species, crisscrossed by gorges and striking landscapes.