For years of guiding with Grand Angle, I have photographed walls beside the paths. Some protected an island or a village, others held back the earth, guided herds or linked two shores. From Sark to the Cyclades, these modest structures tell as much about daily work as about the history of places. Here are the ones that stopped me along the way.
Walls to protect
Four walls and a roof… There is a prison that has always charmed me with its dimensions, that of Sark, in the Channel Islands.
Sark prison © François Ribard
The current prison dates from 1856 and has only two cells. On Jersey, the ruins of Grosnez tell another function of the wall: the construction of this castle began around 1330, in a context of raids and tensions with France.
Grosnez Castle on Jersey island © François Ribard
On Corfu, the ruins of the Angelokastro fortress occupy a rocky spur above the olive trees and the Ionian Sea. On site, the defensive role of the location can still be read in its position.
Aggelokastro fortress on Corfu island © François Ribard
On the island of Paxos, Agios Nikolaos Castle began to be built in 1423 to protect residents from pirate raids. Other walls, more modest, still accompany the paths of the island.
Path bordered by walls on Paxos © François Ribard
At Paleochora, former fortified city of Cythera, the ruined walls also remind us that a fortification is not always enough to protect those who live behind it. They blend today with the grey of the cliffs.
Paleochora Kastro destroyed by Barbarossa on Cythera island © François Ribard
For if walls are supposed to protect those they shelter, they can also prove to be a trap from which it is difficult to escape. Animals can be confined there as on Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands, battered by winds, off the west of Ireland.
Donkey on Inishmore, the main Aran island in Ireland © François Ribard
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Dry stone shapes the landscape
In the Burren, dry stone walls are built without mortar. Their interstices give them this lace-like appearance, while also shaping the plots where sheep and horses graze.
Dry stone wall in the Burren in Ireland © François Ribard
Just like the gates guarding the necessary passages for people and animals and that time, allied with sea air, inexorably wears away.
Gate in a wall on Inishmore the main Aran island © François Ribard
A few stones, the work of time, the eye of people: walls can also become works of art. This beauty born from use is found on the island of Andros, the most northern of the Cyclades.
Low wall bordering the path on Andros island © François Ribard
On Andros, certain stones placed on edge give the wall a particular rhythm. The people who built them first responded to the needs of the terrain; the result nonetheless catches the eye. Intrinsic beauty of walls but also support for colours, for crafted works such as those of a ceramist in Ravello on the Amalfi coast.
Ravello on the Amalfi Coast © François Ribard
In our mountains or islands, few tags have been painted on walls. Tagging is an urban gesture. But other types of paintings can appear on ruined walls, such as the half-faded frescoes of the Taxiarchis chapel on the slopes of Mount Pantokrator, the highest peak of the island of Corfu.
Fresco of the Taxiarchis chapel on the island of Corfu © François Ribard
When walls blend with the garden, they change role again: walls of flowers, fruits or snow, as in Linderhof Castle park in Bavaria.
Linderhof Castle in the Snow © François Ribard
Natural walls and terraces
When the wall merges with nature, it sometimes takes on monumental dimensions. Between stone and cliff, there is sometimes only a difference of degree. But what a difference! Thus during the crossing of the Puez-Odle dolomitic massif during the journey connecting Munich to Venice: ‘I can see the wall but… not the path!’ you hear whispered in the ranks. And yet, it is there, ingenious, playing with the fissures and secret passages that cut through the great wall.
Puez-Odle Park in the Dolomites © François Ribard
More modestly, walls know how to come together, blend between plantations of vegetables, sugar canes or vines, and, miraculously, create landscape. One only needs to contemplate the alignments of terraces on the island of Madeira or the small walls of the Vermillion Coast that retain the earth and direct the circulation of rainwater, to taste the charm of these terraces whose use dates back centuries, if not millennia.
Madeira, levada of the mimosas © François Ribard
Vermillion Coast © François Ribard
So of course, if generally we walk between walls, we can also cross them or even progress along their crest.
Kythira, Milopotamos © François Ribard
This is also what the ancient stone forts of the Aran Islands allow. Dún Aonghasa, the largest, bears traces of occupation older than 3 000 years.
Dun Duchatair on Inishmore in Ireland © François Ribard
When the wall connects two territories
In certain cases, the wall becomes a bridge. After the liberation of Sark, German prisoners of war rebuilt the Coupée, the narrow isthmus between Sark and Little Sark, and installed the concrete supports and railings still visible today.
Sark, the Coupée © François Ribard
These works made the passage safer between the two territories. Other walls preserve the memory of a catastrophe, such as the ruins of Pompeii, buried during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79.
Pompeii © François Ribard
Since then, I look differently at these structures encountered on hikes: each one tells something about the terrain, the work and the memory of a place.
Text and photo credit © François Ribard, Grand Angle guide
