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Making the Map & a bit about the Island. Next year, 2013, will be our 28th. year of regular visits to Paxos. It is about 19 years since we started work on mapping the island, having been disappointed by the poor standard of the small maps being sold there. On my 1982 visit I bought a map, as I always do when first visiting a country or locality and on our later explorations from 1985 onwards, we soon became aware of how hopelessly inaccurate were the small maps being sold on the Island, which had the commonality of being wrong, but often in different ways! Guaranteed, we used to say, to get you lost. (Some are still on-sale and only in January 2006 in the brand-new, award-winning, brochure of one of the best villa agencies, does one find a map, quite pretty and attractive to look at but which omits some of the most important main roads. Now if the main roads are incorrect, what of the minor lanes, tracks and footpaths? Hopelessly inaccurate!) On an Island densely covered with olive trees and with an abundance of paths and tracks, an accurate map is more than usually necessary. One olive tree looks much like another! In Greece there is no equivalent of the Ordnance Survey, thus there is no safe, basic survey on which to base anything. (In actual fact there is an official Military Survey, generally referred to as "The Army Map" but this is an Official Secret and no ordinary inhabitant has access to it.- This situation seems likely to change soon, as the EU has issued a Directive requiring every Member State to make publicly available accurate cadastral mapping. A facility which the UK has enjoyed for over 150 years!) So it seems to be left to visitors to do something about it. Between 1985 & 88 Commander John Bird and his wife Joyce, during extended summer visits to Paxos, undertook a detailed survey of the Island using plane-table, compass and paces. From this they produced what, as far as I know, was the first large-scale (1:13,400) map of Paxos. This was printed using the dye-line process in black & white, which is cheap, though relatively few copies were published. Income from sales was donated to Bogdanatika Clinic. Copies
of Bird's Map were always scarce but we eventually achieved one and I
updated my copy as new roads were built and additional paths
discovered. In recent years, more
advanced GPS Receivers have been bought, allowing detail to be plotted on
their own little screens as one goes along and then downloaded to PC back
at the villa. There was a short stretch of the
south-west coast where I lost satellite cover in Dimitrios' boat and the
10th. Edition had to rely on the 9th. This bit of coast has turned out to
contain most interesting detail including Footpath 43a and its branches
and the most interesting Ellinki (or Hellenic) cisterna. This was
fully illustrated on the 10a Edition Map. Some necessary minor adjustment
to FP46e has been shown on Edition 12. Edition 11 was to be a Greek language version and although I have done a lot of work on it, aided by our Wine Merchant, who happens to come from Zante, it has now ground to a halt. At least 3 Paxiots, volunteered 3 years ago, to help with translation and placename location. I am still waiting to hear from them! (despite reminders). The Spanish have Manayna; the Manx Traie-d-looir which translates as To-morrow will do. The Greek version seems to amount to Next Year will do - or even the one after at least on Paxos. So this latest (and, most probably, the last) one becomes Edition 12. You will appreciate that I have no longer the
energy to re-walk all the paths. However I (sometimes we or I + someone
else) have re-walked some of them and, as you will see, we keep finding
new ones. I am always greatly challenged to find out what lies around the
next corner! Similarly, I'm always being amazed by things I do
find. Of course, this version includes all the UPDATE
material which had previously appeared on my website, suitably
interwoven, I hope, into the text. Later info is published in the
appropiate pages here. The Map itself has had a lot of work too, partly
to improve upon the disappointing printed appearance of Edition 10a. and,
of course, to include new development: roads, villas
etc.
It has been almost totally re-drawn (once again) apart from the coastlines. All buildings now represent their actual position on the ground together with some recognition of their shape; at least that was my goal. However to do this it was necessary to resort to GoogleEarth. This has its drawbacks! When enlarged to the size necessary to make tracing possible, the scale becomes somewhat warped - one has only to look at the latitude and longitude lines to appreciate this; they wander around alarmingly! Also colour is a problem. Buildings with traditional red roofs show up fine but those with white or creamy-coloured ones, do not. A white patch can be a white roof, but it can just as easily be a limestone-paved courtyard or a limestone-chipped drive or parking area or even just bare limestone rock! And there's no question of just popping-out to have a look; not from the I.o.M! So I trace
what I can see (plus a bit of what I can imagine!) onto 'tiles' limited in
size by the computer screen, and then have to re-sample these to the
smaller scale of my map drafting - usually 200% of its eventual scale -
and then try to fit the tiles - some 100 of them - to the fixed-points on
my map, usually the roads, tracks and/or coastline. It is not easy, and a
significant amount of juggling, in various directions, is needed. Thus,
though I would like to think the results are accurate, they must be
allowed a certain amount of licence. Additionally, I have tried to
colour-code the building uses: Pink for residential
including letting villas; Red for Civic uses, Black for business uses, shops
etc and, of course, Purple for
eccleastical. Furthermore,
Paxos was flown for GoogleEarth in 2006 and a lot of new villas have been
built since then. So there remains some guesswork in their size and
location! (Parts of Whilst doing
all this, I eventually realized that the terraced walling of the olive
groves could also be copied in those areas where the tree-cover was not
too dense. Working N-S, I was a third of the way down the All the
lettering has been re-done, in a type-face hopefully, clearer and crisper.
At the same time I have added-in feature and placenames taken from
Salvator, where these can be fixed with reasonable accuracy. I have also
identified, in Blue type, places of Historic or Scenic
Interest. The contours
have been re-drawn (once again!) this time at 20m. intervals. It is
surprising how much better the features and folds of the landscape now
stand out. Attention to
the colouring has also been attempted, with mixed results! See what you
think? I have
resorted to a full-sheet Map but I intended the folding of this so that it
can be treated as a double-sided half-sheet if preferred; the printers
have done it differently! So you will need to re-fold it back on itself
along the centre-line before concertina-ing it. I could do it myself but
to attempt 6,000 copies is a bit
daunting! The Booklet,
whilst, perhaps not looking much different, apart from the
picture, on the Front Cover; has been re-formatted
considerably. Again a new type-face has allowed more text on each page and
although the overall number of pages has been reduced, there is definitely
more content. It has been printed on thinner paper to keep the bulk
manageable. A lot more photos have been inserted, all within the text,
rather than on dedicated pages. This has increased the cost,
unfortunately, but I think it worth
it. Much of the Introduction has been re-written, particulary in the 'History' elements, to reflect Salvator's researches. (& mine!). Comprehensive indices have been included, at last. Also a small Map showing just where Paxos sits in relation to the world around it. The Footpath directions have all been updated to incorporate all that was in the UPDATES on the website plus anything else brought to my attention. There are a few new ones.
Beware un-authorized copies of the MAP on sale seperately, particularly in magazine racks. They are ALL out of date and some pirated! Next Page |
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