Episkopi Gonias
Hillside village built around an eleventh-century Byzantine church, largely emptied by a devastating nineteen fifty-six earthquake.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Episkopi Gonias on Santorini opens with a question: why an entire hillside village abandoned its ground overnight, leaving its ancient church standing alone. It follows the morning of July 9, 1956, when a massive earthquake and the tsunami it sent across the southern Aegean tore through Mesa Gonia's stone houses, and the exodus that founded the coastal village of Kamari instead of rebuilding here. You'll also hear about the eleventh-century Byzantine church that endured the quake, and the decades-long restoration that followed it.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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