Three thousand years ago, someone carried water from these springs to wake the stone. The stone is still here. So is the water. Before the map. Before the road. Before the name there was a path, and someone who knew where it led. Walk where the ancients walked. Not as a tourist. As a witness.

You begin in Melanes, a valley so fertile the ancients called it "the shadowed one", named for the dense canopy that still filters the light today. The sound of running water follows you from the first step. It never stops. At Flerio, you enter sacred ground. The sanctuary here was active from the 8th century BC. People came to honour the earth goddess, the goddess of water, the giant heroes who protected the quarrymen. In the 7th century BC, a marble threshold was carved here that would become the blueprint for every temple entrance in the ancient Greek world. You'll walk past it. Nearby, two colossal kouros statues lie exactly where they fell during transport 2,600 years ago. Each stands 5.5 metres tall, unfinished, unhurried. Nobody moved them. They've been waiting ever since. The path then follows the ancient water channel south through Potamia four villages strung along the same river, their watermills, stone bridges and tower houses intact as if time forgot to pass through. A source of fresh drinking water awaits you in Ano Potamia. You finish at the Byzantine church of Theoskepasti in Episkopi once the first Catholic cathedral of the Cyclades and descend to Tripodes as the valley opens toward the sea. The walk ends at our house. A wood-burning oven built in 1909 will be waiting, and so will my grandmother's spanakopita.