The bridge near Kinidaros
North of Kinídaros, runs the largest river in Naxos in a deeply incised valley. From Kinídaros, an adventurous, steep road leads down into the valley and to the church of Ágios Artémios, which is located on the other side of the river. The road crosses the river over a picturesque bridge. A beautiful paved footpath leads from Kinídaros to the bridge, which exists now only in parts.
The bridge passes the river in two flat arches.
The bridge has two large arches. The rounded outer sides of the pillars are made of beautiful hand-crafted marble cornerstones. These were made by craftsmen from the village of Moní; similar stones were used to build many other bridges on the island.
The stones of the bridge pillars are carefully worked; they are roughly hewn in the centre with a hammer and chisel and very carefully smoothed at the edges.
It is likely that the bridge was built at the same time as the nearby church of Agios Artemios, around 1780. The unusual and seemingly unnecessarily large church was built here, so far away from any villages, in order to serve as a “secret school” to provide Orthodox education for the Greek children of the island, as a first step towards the liberation of Greece from the Turks. This seems to be the only possible reason that such a large bridge was built in this remote and insignificant location.
NNext to the bridge lies an old watermill. It consists of a well-preserved, high building onto which the river water was led via an open channel. In the building the water fell several metres downwards and rushed in a strong jet into the lower storey of the mill, driving thus the horizontally positioned mill wheel. This room in this mill has collapsed; nothing remains of the mechanism of the mill itself.
There are many watermills along the rivers of Naxos; one lies right next to the bridge.
In the past, the water from the river was led to the water mills via open water channels of this type; they were (and are) also used to irrigate the fields.
The open water pipe is led through a tunnel under the bridge.
A beautiful alluvial forest of plane trees, oleander and alders grows around the bridge.
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