Photos from the island of Kassos

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Kasos , although small in size, has several beaches, villages and especially people that are worth getting to know in person to get a first taste of a vibrant island of the barren line that is now not so far away as it has its own airport.

If you want to travel by boat you will need about 45 euros and 18 hours to get to the picturesque port of Frye. (July 2022 data)

The picturesque seaside town of Fri, which is also the port of the island and the airport of Kasos

Kasos is located between the coast of northwestern Crete and the beautiful island of Karpathos.

Photos from Kassos
Map of Kasos

Although the weather during the days I was in Kassos did not help at all in order to photograph the special colour of the sea and the beaches of the island (in fact, an hour before we left by boat to go to the amazing beach located on the island of Armathia, the wind spoiled our plans), my very good friend Evi Founti, who lives permanently in Kasos, arranged the program so that I could get to know the unique tradition that surrounds the island and of course the extraordinary people who keep alive their customs and traditions in one way or another.

In beautiful Bouka, the small harbour for the fishing boats in Fry Kasos

What can I do and see in Kassos?

Nevertheless, I visited many interesting things that you should try to see in person. Some examples are the following:

a traditional Kasion house like the one I saw in 1860 (see some photos in the gallery below),
visit people who make excellent cheese, such as the small cheese dairies of Kasos like Bonaparte where we saw a part of the very interesting process of producing the local “variety” of Sitaka cheese!

The church of St George in Chadies, on the island of Kasos

go to the famous Mitata (organised shepherd’s stables that also function as a house) to see for yourself how they make oak (pure kaimaki) and butter
and of course try some of the delicious Kassos foods such as the macaroons with shitaka (what a cheese we mentioned above), the tiny dolmades with minced meat and the local greens called Roikio.
for swimming, apart from the unique beach on the islet of Armathia, if the weather permits, you should definitely go to the remote beach with the strange name of Hellatros, in the southern part of Kasos.

Sitaka, the traditional cheese of Kasos

The traditional cassia cheese is the sitaka that is slowly becoming known to a wider and wider audience. If you try macaroons with sitaka, you will understand why. The spread of sitaka will certainly help the spread of sitaka and the recognition that the Quality Award of Gastronomo for 2023 brings to the cheese dairy that we were lucky enough to visit and see the part of the sitaka production process up close the one and only time I visited the island.

Specifically, the Gastronomist’s Award “Evi Voutsinas” was awarded to “Cheese Factory Kasos – Ioannis Bonaparte” where Ioannis Bonaparte and Mary Diakaki (photo) maintain with appetite and taste a tradition that is lost in the depth of centuries. The traditional cheese of Kasos, Sitaka lopon, is made from goat’s milk, local goats grazing on the steep slopes of Kasos.

The process up to the final product is relatively tedious. After the milk has been left to soften, it is placed in a large cauldron in which the producer stirs it continuously for 8-10 hours, until the liquid evaporates and the result is a granular and creamy cheese with a special taste and flavour.

The ratio of milk to finished product is 5 to 1, so for ten kilos of wheat you need 50 kilos of milk. The wheat flour that can be made only with sour milk is the sour wheat flour, used in macaroons and elsewhere, while if fresh milk is added then we have the sweet wheat flour that can be eaten on its own or on bread or on a bun for breakfast.

text/photos: Yannis Tsouratzis