View of Panagia, The inland villages, Kasos

Kasos · The inland villages · Παναγία

Panagia, the village of the captains

Panagia is a small village just above Fry, once the home of the island's sea captains and shipwrights. Only a few dozen people live here now, among the big old houses of the seafaring families. It has the island's great church of the Virgin, the Six Churches, a cluster of vaulted chapels with red domes built together, and the biggest festival of Kasos on 15 August.

Where to stay

The village of the captains and shipwrights, with the Six Churches and the biggest feast of the island

The story of Panagia

The Six Churches, the Exi Ekklisies, are one of the strangest sights of the Dodecanese: little vaulted chapels set side by side and painted white, their domes a deep red, in the heart of the village. Panagia also had an early Christian basilica, and the main church keeps an old stone sarcophagus.

On 15 August the whole island and its diaspora come home for the feast of the Virgin. As at every Kasiot panigyri, there is lyra and laouto, mantinades, rhyming couplets made up on the spot, and Kasiot pilaf cooked in great cauldrons and shared out free with wine in the churchyard, until morning.

Where to stay

Where you'll wake up in Panagia

Good to know

Before you go to Panagia

Getting there

A short walk up from Fry.

When to go

The night of 14–15 August for the feast, or a late afternoon for the light on the red domes.

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