The picturesque Marathi village is found in the hinterland of the Paros island, about five kilometers from the capital Parikia.
The classic cicaldico village with white houses, traditional chapels and cobbled streets where time passes at its natural rhythm. Nowadays the Marathi village has few inhabitants and has no particular attractions other than the fact of being the area where the best marble quarries were found.
The precious material was very present in the area and its extraction continued for five hundred years in ancient times, giving life to masterpieces still visible today throughout Greece.
According to archaeologists, the Paros quarries in the most prosperous period of the Roman Empire had about 150,000 slaves who worked as miners to unearth the marble. Its exploitation begins in the proto-Cycladic period and stops in the 7th century and then starts again in the 19th century thanks to two renowned mining companies.
It has been used to give life to many excellent works such as the Venus de Milo, Hermes of Praxiteles, the Victory of Samotria, many temples such as that of Apollo on the Delos island, the Acropolis of Athens, the Temple of Poseidon in Sounion, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus and Venetian palaces are just a few examples of the wonders shaped by the precious Paros marble. According to evidence from the French state, the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte was also carved with Marathi marble (also called Parian marble).
The particularity of the material coming from Paros is its transparency which is up to 7 cm high, almost four and a half times compared to other marbles such as Pentili which is only 1.5 cm. This peculiarity means that it remains brighter as it is able to penetrate more light giving it that straight look that seems almost animated.
From an internal road from Lekfes to Marpissa , along the side of the mountain, you arrive at the Marathi quarries. The path leading to the quarries is completely paved with marble and you can see the once abandoned buildings of the French mining company that operated on the island. Continuing about one hundred and fifty meters on the left the quarries. One of them dates back to the third century BC and is embellished with reliefs depicting Greek gods right at the entrance.
It is the dream of every sculptor to be able to create a work with Paros marble but very difficult given the high cost it has reached for its unique characteristics.
Parian marble is also called Lychnites which means lamp as to be able to find it you had to go deep with the help of oil lamps to make light. The tunnel is about one hundred and ninety meters long and goes down deep. There are two entrances, one through the cave of Pan and one through the cave of the water lilies.
By car or scooter just follow the road signs for Marathi and Marpissa, by bus instead from the station to the port of Parikia there are daily trips. Always check the timetable and notify the driver where you want to get off because sometimes it happens that the stops are not really respected.
For an unusual parenthesis during your holidays in Greece, a valid alternative to combine perhaps with the characteristic Marpissa village and to be noted among the things to do in Naxos.