Pyrgi

The largest of the mastic villages, and one of the strangest and loveliest in Greece. Almost every house is covered in xysta, geometric patterns of triangles, circles and flowers scratched into grey plaster over whitewash, so the lanes look like they have been embroidered. In the middle stands the little Byzantine church of the Holy Apostles, painted inside with frescoes, and around the square the tomatoes and strings of peppers hang from the balconies in late summer.