Platia Ammos
(by Jean Bingen)
People from Karavas believed that Platia Ammos could become the shortest connection for a future ferryboat from Neapolis on the Peloponnese. A first step for a landing stage was taken by local people in 1965. They leveled part of the rocky shore and concrete was poured. This work was inaugurated by the local papás. Several years later large concrete blocks were prefabricated and they also stood there for many years before they were hoisted in place (Mr. Manolli Dapontes wrote, among other historical interesting books about Kythira, a book in Greek concerning the harbour development of Platia Ammos). When I landed at Platia Ammos in 1983 with the ferryboat from Neapolis, blocks were still visible near the landing stage and even in 1986 I still saw not yet lifted in blocks.
During the period that I was supervising the ditch making and laying of plastic pipes at Diakopoulianika I also could spend afternoons at Platia Ammos. See my picture 1962 and note how few houses existed and how bare the area looked. From Koksma’s archive I retrieved the pictures from 1965 when a first landing platform was poured in concrete.
Frank Berghuijs took several pictures how his 2CV was put ashore in summer 1972. Frank had been as student civil engineering 6 months member of the Kythera-Team in 1967. One year later he was asked to come to Kythera to be the technical leader of the summer camp that was going to work for Fratsia’s water supply. Frank already knew Fratsia quite well, he had been surveying the village the previous year for that reason. Already on the first day of the train from Holland to Greece he was sure that he here had met his future wife Riet. That is the reason why they both and later with their children, also became regular visitors of Kythera. Here we met them at Pierros restaurant (of course!) in Livadi, and both families with their children befriended.
The other pictures, 1983, 1986, 1989 and 2000 show the blocks on the landing stage and also show the gradually extension of the village.
