Visiting Sigouros Pottery on Zakynthos in Greece – video

If you’re visiting the Greek island of Zakynthos and love hand-painted ceramics as I do, then you should visit the Sigouros Pottery Shop in Zante Town and also the workshop at Machairado to see the pottery being made. You can see a video about our visit to the Sigouros Pottery below.

In the 20 years I’ve been visiting Zakynthos (also known as Zante) where my sister lives, I’ve been adding to my ceramics collection on each visit to the Sigouros Pottery shop in Zante town. I was aware that they also had a workshop where you can see the pottery being made and painted, although I’d never had the chance to visit it until last summer. This time we drove our hire car out to Machairado, which is a 15 minute drive inland from Zante town, combining the visit with a stop for some wine tasting at Oenolpi Winery which is close by. Read my article and watch my video about the Oenolpi Winery here.

I have quite a collection of ceramics and other beautiful objects from my travels – you can read about My Travels on a plate here. What I love about the Sigouros designs are the soft colours and shapes and the slightly abstract motifs inspired by the natural beauty of Zakynthos. You’ll see the blue fish, the olives that grow everywhere and the lemons and pommegranates, that most self-respecting Zakynthians have growing in their back garden.

Sigouros Pottery shop in Zante town,Zakynthos

Sigouros Pottery from Zakynthos Greece

If you want to visit the workshop at Machairado, they’re open most mornings, but you may want to call into the shop in Zante Town if you’re passing to double check. When we wandered in to the workshop, we found the downstairs shop with all the ceramics on sale and the owner Sigouros Golemis came down to invite us upstairs to the workshop. He must have spotted us arriving as he has a bird’s eye view from the front window where his pottery wheel is set up.

Upstairs all the pottery is laid out to dry and awaiting painting before it’s fired in the kiln in the garden. We watched Sigouros in awe as he deftly threw pot after pot, it was slightly hypnotic watching him perfectly create the same shape over and over. Then we watched as the equally skilled lady etched the designs onto the bowls ready for painting and firing and then Sigouros let us peep inside the kiln where all the ceramics were being fired.

Sigouros told us that he was starting to think about retirement – he said that he could feel his fingers and hands getting tired after 25 years of throwing pots. Do take look at the video below which I hope will inspire you to drive out the the Machairado workshop if you’re visiting Zakynthos.

Click here to see the embedded video above

Download the Sigouros Pottery ,Zakynthos Video here [MP4]

For directions and more details you can visit the Sigouros Pottery web-page.

More things to do on Zakynthos

Saving the Caretta Caretta turtle on Zakynthos,Greece
A wine tasting at Oenolpi Winery on Zakynthos, Greece
A tour of Romas Mansion on Zakynthos

www.flickr.com heatheronhertravels’ Zakynthos – Sigouros pottery photoset

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