Andros lies at the northern edge of the Cyclades, close enough to Attica to have kept a permanent link with the mainland and green enough to surprise anyone who expects the dry Aegean. Springs and streams run here through valleys terraced with dry-stone walls, and an old network of paved footpaths connects villages, watermills and chapels across the interior. The island's other identity is maritime. Andriot families built large shipping fleets, and their fortunes returned home as neoclassical mansions, endowed schools and museums, giving the Chora an urbanity unusual for an island of this size. Dovecotes, stone-slab fences and fortified towers punctuate the countryside. The film moves between the two Andros: the walking landscape of water, terraces and stone, filmed across the seasons, and the built inheritance of the shipowners along the spine of the Chora, with its promontory, its ruined castle and its sea on three sides.
