Making the Map & a bit about the Island.

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.

All, then known, footpaths were re-plotted and the detail of the inland villages improved and up-dated. Subsequently for the 2008 Edition 10a, all contours were re-plotted and re-drawn, at 25m. intervals to give a better impression of the land-form.

There is a dichotomy between showing the contour too firmly (or darkly) and obscuring the other map detail and a compromise has had to be reached which may not satisfy all, but I have tried my best!

The kind gift of two air photographs of Gaios has been a help; Elizabeth has painstakingly traced them onto the latest edition Map. Similarly helpful has been the better definition of Google satellite-cover over recent years. To my astonishment I found that the coastline as indicated by Google, had most remarkable agreement with my survey and though I have taken the liberty to copy Google in some areas and must acknowledge this, the adjustments have been slight. Inland, of course, with the heavy tree-cover, aerial images are of little help.

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.

Which bring me to placenames in general. All cartographers have the problem of how and where to insert placenames. Basically you can only insert them where there is SPACE among the drawn detail. This may not accurately define the actual location. This is made especially difficult on Paxos where many settlements have no discernible nucleus. Once again I've tried to do my best and have certainly corrected my worst error with Petratika, near Lakka. But there may be others. Noticeably, if one looks at published lists of Tavernas and other businesses on the Island, there seems to be many place-names which I don't show at all. I think different locals have sometimes different names for the same locality! The recent publication of Salvator's History and also the new TOPO map have further complicated things and you will find a considerable re-siting of them on the 12th. 

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.