Archangelos

This guide to Archangelos, a farming village on Rhodes, traces its name back to the Archangel Michael, guardian against the serpent, and to the everyday danger that made the dedication feel earned: snakes hidden among the fields. It follows the local bootmakers who answer that danger their own way, hand-stitching tall goatskin boots with a reversible design that needs no left or right foot. Along the way it visits the Koumellos cave in the hills above the village, where locals insist a hidden channel carries sound down to the sea. Listen for the church bell that has rung over the village since 1845.