Helidonia (Chelidonia)

The Helidonia (Chelidonia) Trail is a short circular walk of about 1.4 kilometres on the lower northern edge of the Machairas area, between Lythrodontas and Kapedes. It gains and loses roughly 43 metres, staying between about 548 and 572 metres above sea level, so the effort is minimal — this is a half-hour loop rather than a mountain outing, and the interest lies almost entirely in what the route passes rather than in how far or how high it goes.

What it passes is a ghost village. Chelidonia — the name comes from χελιδόνι, the Greek word for "swallow" — was a settlement on the Yialias river, thought to date back to around the thirteenth century, whose people lived from farming and from working copper out of the hill beside them. In 1840 an epidemic emptied it within days; the few families who survived moved on to Ora and Kapedes, and the roofs were carried away by neighbouring villagers. What remains are stone walls built from river rock, and a church whose walls are still standing.

The loop is easy enough for almost anyone and short enough to combine with something longer nearby, but it rewards a slow pace. The permanent water of the Yialias is the reason a village stood here at all, and the ruins read more clearly once you have noticed the stream, the stone, and the closeness of the hill they mined.