Thus I got the first box of 65 only last Thursday afternoon and even these were minus the pockets inside the back cover intended to hold the Maps. Luckily I have a few of these left over from the previous edition, so have been able to fill them ourselves. We do not, however, intend to hand-fill the other 5935 !

Hopefully, they will be all here in a week or so's time.

SO I AM NOW IN A POSITION TO COMPLY WITH YOUR ORDERS. So please let them roll!

The Agents, shops etc., will not get their stock for a month or two yet, so you are best ordering them from me, by letter enclosing a cheque, as described in the "Where to Buy" page.

This year, 2012, will be our 27^th. year of regular visits to Paxos. It is about 18 years since we started work on mapping the island, having been disappointed by the poor standard of the small maps being sold there.

To be truthful, there was one accurate, large-scale map but it was few in number and difficult to acquire. It was lovingly done by two earlier long-term British visitors, Commander & Joyce Bird from Cumbria who had laboriously triangulated and paced out the Island, making dye-line copies of the result and selling them to raise money for the Bogdanátika Clinic.

More paths remained to be discovered and notes needed to be added, if the purpose of guiding the visiting walker was to be properly served, together with some mass-produced way of printing.

Thus, following liaison with the Birds, my wife Elizabeth and I started to add further detail and eventually colour, to their work and had the results professionally printed.

At first it was a single-sheet Map with typed notes around the margins. Soon the Notes became too copious to fit around the Map and a separate Booklet resulted.

Over the years, improvements in computer equipment and then G.P.S. techniques, led to more comprehensive Editions but the lack of photo-air-cover was a problem. Then Google Earth was born and I was able to check my GPS based survey against their material. Much to my delight I have found a very good compliance.

Air-photos will never be able to satisfactorily map a landscape like Paxos because of the extensive tree-cover (unless radar based perhaps?) Roads will show up and of course the coastline, but the footpaths winding through the vegetation and also the contours, need ground work.

So I own to having Google-tweaked the coastline a bit here and there and also used other air-photos (not theirs!) for the town of Gaios. That apart, the whole thing is “home-made” with the help of Elizabeth and various others from time-to-time, some of whom are named hereafter.

The Greek Island of Paxos            (PAXOS the Peaceful Isle, from the Latin PAX = peace).

Situated, with it larger neighbour Corfu, off the West Coast of Greece, some 75km south-east of the heel of Italy, in the Ionian Sea with it’s off-shoot, Anti-Paxos 1½ km away to the SE.

They, like most of the more southern Ionian Islands, form exposed summits of a range of coastal-shelf limestone hills, once part of an uplifted ancient sea-floor. Forced up by the interaction of plate-tectonics along the Eastern Mediterranean fault-line.

Because they have a different climate, hot and dry in summer but very wet in winter, they are luxuriously vegetated, unlike the better-known islands on the other side of Greece in the Aegean.

On important trade-routes between Western Europe and the Middle East, in history they have been occupied over time by various powers, all of which have had influences but of which the Venetians are probably the most noticeable.

If you have read Gerald Durrell’s book “My Family and Other Animals” you will have an idea what Corfu was like in the late 1930’s. Paxos, being that bit more remote, was still in that degree of idyllic-ness until about 30 years ago!

Tourism on the Island

The tourist industry has flourished since then but, because there is no airport and everyone and everything has to come by ferry, because there are no Hotels (in the traditional sense) and because it is relatively expensive to get there (and nowadays to stay there too!) it has retained a degree of laid-back exclusiveness.

What is the special appeal?

Some 10 kilometres long and averaging 2½ wide, it is almost entirely tree-covered, rising in generally gentle hills to a maximum of 233 metres. There are 3 seaside villages, Gaios (the Capitol), Lákka and Loggös plus quite a lot of inland villages and settlements. A main-road system (now all surfaced) runs along the spine of the island with loops off each side to the villages and a network of tracks serving the smaller settlements. These vehicular routes are all relatively recent as I don’t think wheeled vehicles reached the island until WWII. Thus there remains a complex network of former donkey-paths criss-crossing the countryside in various stages of decay. These form an excellent recreational walking heritage and it was in order to discover and perhaps somehow preserve this system, that my Walking Map was conceived. That the Island Administration is beginning to appreciate this, is reward in itself.

Hidden in the olive groves which these paths and tracks traverse, are all manner of unexpected delights including no less than 65 Greek Orthodox Churches (not all in use).

My Map of Paxos

The Booklet accompanying the Map details each path, with an intimation of what to look out for together with warnings of any problem stretches. The coastline is indented with a multitude of secluded bays on the east coast, and high cliffs and dramatic outlooks on the west. Many of the bays, ideal for quiet bathing, are only accessible by footpath (or boat).

Apart from detailing the paths, the Booklet contains information on where to eat, where to stay, how to get about the Island by ‘bus (you may be tired and needing transport back after your walk!) and places of interest.

As a short-cut on where to stay or where to book your holiday, you could do no better than look at the list of Agents who stock the Map. All are holiday agencies which I can unreservedly recommend. Recently they have been joined by several others but the ones I list are the ones we have used over the years. I cannot recommend others without having used them, but nevertheless they may well be splendid.