Paradisi
Built around the Panaghia Paradisiotissa convent around 1300 by the daughter of the Byzantine emperor Andronikos Palaeologos, and which only closed in 1821. This village is 4.6 kilometres up from Neapoli in a gorge overhung by huge rocks and sheltered by thick vegetation. Age-old plane trees and walnut trees are fed by springs that provided the villagers with power for a kilometre-long network of watermills. The inhabitants were not only millers but skilled stonemasons who constructed their homes on the steep slope of the gorge so that the water was channeled down through each level.
Now it is an oasis for hikers taking a break, although there is also a parking lot at the entrance to the village for the large crowds that come every year for the festival of the patron saint, the Virgin Mary, on August 15. A beautiful paved footpath winds down past ruined watermills where once the whole of Vatika’s flour was ground. One of the old mills and one of the buildings have been restored.
