Amorgos is a magical place, with a severe landscape, pretty villages, a unique Hora, or capital, pristine waters, a serene atmosphere, and inhabitants who are friendly, hard-working, and outgoing. Here, tradition keeps alive customs from the Byzantine era and antiquity: the animals used as meat in the patatato, and the seven-times kneaded bread offered by faithful are published in full and formal detail in local media just as the “Panigyris of Athena Itonia” was described on stone tablets in antiquity. The Monastery of Panayia Hozoviotissa, patron-saint of the island, is the most impressive monastery in the Aegean—imposing and unassailable, it rises against a sheer cliff over the sea. On Easter Sunday, icons from the monastery are taken, in procession, from the monastery to Hora and returned on Thomas Sunday (the Sunday after Easter)—one of the oldest customs observed on the island. In a celebratory yet somber mood, the feast of the Unmercenary Saints, Cosmas and Damian, is commemorated in a colorful panigyri at Aegiali on July 1. Amorgos’s largest religious folk festival is held on July 25-26 to observe the feast of Saint Paraskevi. Every year, several days before the panigyri, congregation members slay the animals for meat donated by local stockbreeders, clean, cook, and, on the day, serve it at the communal feast. Loaves of bread are baked in the wood-burning oven and kitchen stoves bubble with pots of patatato, xidato, and kofto—the latter a mix of myzithra and wheat that has been crushed with stone mortar and pestle. If the feast falls on a Wednesday or a Friday, when many of the faithful fast according to tradition, tasty dishes permitted during the fast, like chickpea stew or rice with octopus, are also prepared for them As the food is being served, the musicians tune their instruments as they prepare for the dancing, which, by an old custom, is opened by the committee. Years ago, people would take their food and scatter around the fields and musicians played in make-shift huts. The merrymaking continuous unabated through the night and the music only stops when the church bells ring the morning services. By late afternoon, when the last reveler departs filed with memories to last until the next feast, the grounds around Ayia Paraskevi have been cleaned. A couple of weeks later, on August 15, the panigyri of Panayia Apanohoriani is held at Aegiali in observance of the Feast of the Dormition of the Virgin Mother, with dancing, singing, and food—patatato and xidato washed down with Amorgos’s famed rakomelo. On the feast of the cross, the main celebration takes place at the Church of Stavros with the vaulted ceiling. Following church services, the priest visits the nearby kitchens where the feast is being prepared and blesses the dish of goat with potatoes and rice that has been prepared. The communal feasting can then begin as guests savor the meat dish, rifaki, and honey-dipped biscuits (melomakarona) with orange and walnuts. After the meal, the panigyri organizers clean up the area while the revelry continues in the coffee houses of Lagadas and Tholaria. On November 21, the feast of the Entry of the Virgin Mother is observed with a large folk festival at the Monastery of Panayia Hozoviotissa. For the evening services, guests calm their hunger with a plate of tasty fava, or yellow split peas, and the next day, after services, they dine on cod patatato and cod with garlic puree or skordalia.