The clouds are lazy the next morning. Not building with any significant force, just slowly laying themselves over the beach. The sun doesn’t show itself much. Ashley wakes up with a head full of boulders and a cough as wet as the weather that might be on the way. We have priorities. Groceries and the pharmacy.
We get what we need, or what we think we need, and head back to the apartment. Two kinds of medicine. One is over the counter and the other is home away from homemade. The first is decongestant, and the second is chicken noodle soup fixings. A little of “Grandma’s Penicillin” will help. One bonus of staying at an apartment opposed to a hotel is it has some form of cookware. You may have to be creative, but you can make it happen. Necessity is the mother of invention, or since we are in Greece, we will stick with the original.
“Our need will be the real creator.” -Plato
A day in bed. I read, write and watch it rain from the balcony. The chicken soup I make for Ashley does the trick. Okay, sure, you’re right. The other stuff may have helped too.
We rent a car, it’s tiny and fits the roads on the island. Walking up to the entrance of the Palace of Knossos, we find out it’s International Free Day. A Minoan, Bronze Age site has been called Europe’s oldest city. Abandoned (1300-1100 BCE) before most civilizations modern people are aware of existed for unknown reasons. The palace we walk through is circa 1900 BCE. The earliest they can find evidence of a settlement is 7000 BCE. The ruins, now rebuilt, have been through earthquakes, floods, storms and all other manner of natural disaster just as the city had before it fell to ruin.
Knossos also, is the home of the mythical Minos, father of the Minotaur. The monster and only resident at the center of the labyrinth beneath the city. Yes, that labyrinth. Designed by Daedalus at the command of King Minos. Where the monster fed on the snacks that found their way in or put there as a sacrifice. Until the Athenian hero Theseus put an end to the monster and his snacking, with his handy string, to find his way back out. If you haven’t read about how the Minotaur came about, it’s quite a story. Love, jealousy and feats of fetish engineering. I highly recommend it. There’re some strange stories out there. People have changed over the millennia but, there’s never been a lack of imagination.
Our little car fights its way up and over steep rocky climbs and deep gorges that make up the island. It’s a beautiful sharp-edged curving landscape covered in olive groves and farms on every surface possible, no matter how steep the slope or narrow the canyon. The southern shore is the opposite of the north. Uncrowded, calm, quiet. It’s every picturesque place you’ve seen in Greece. Aqua-blue water and white-walled buildings climbing from the shore. There are no throngs of tourist selfie-takers here. We wander, have lunch at a local’s fish spot and I eat what I find out is barracuda. That’s part of travel that works out sometimes. Get something. You may not understand what it is but, give it a shot. Remember the emphasis on the word sometimes, though.
The ride back is a different road that takes us by hidden beaches. We stop and walk and through little towns. A burn scar from a forest fire scorches one whole canyon. The burned remained of olive trees bigger than oak barrels still stand in the ash. How old were some of these, I wonder? What a shame. It seems like the fire seasons I used to help fight before I retired are getting worse, no matter where you are. The little church still stands in the devastated area. Soot streaks its white walls, but it looks like houses close by didn’t fare as well.
Packed again, we’re back on another boat. My swaying feeling had just stopped too. Sea legs are an actual thing for me and I’m no pirate. It takes days for it to stop. I’ll have to resist swaying at the dinner table or the shower or any other place I need my balance. Off again to Athens. Our cabin is small but suits us fine, and the waves thank goodness, cooperate.
The view of the Acropolis from our terraza is amazing. We walk, and walk, and walk some more. Priority one, stock the fridge. The first place we note is a sandal maker’s shop. Apparently, it’s The Poet Sandal Maker. Pictures of stars with their new sandals are everywhere. John Lennon, Lily Tomlin and others I don’t recognize from other countries as well. Groceries first though, I’ll think about sandals later.
We take it all in. Ancient theaters, columns, the museum, gardens, ancient markets, both Roman and Greek, statues, fountains. I see the birthplace of the Stoics, according to the sign. It’s swampy but still has the stone benches and crumbling walls where some of the best thinking began.
Amid the carved stone, only some shattered and others broken. Turtles. Doing what the animal kingdom has done since it existed. Maybe not the way these three are but, some version of it. A little manage’a turtle. It fits with one other thing we notice. Erotic shops. Not just one or two, that wouldn’t be notable but, they are as plentiful as the stone columns are in Athens. When we walk from our apartment, it’s hard not to miss the blue elephant g-string one randy mannequin is sporting along with his partners in leather and lace.
I wind up with a pair of sandals. Why not? Greeks should be one of the best to make them after wearing them for thousands of years. I didn’t know this place was famous. Tiktok and YouTube brought others to the store while we’re there. We had a good chat sitting in our random chairs, the smell of leather thick in the store. Poi-poi the dog wandered around for pets or playing tug’o’war, his ragged chew toy clenched in his teeth or slung comically across his back. It appears to be easy to share information when you all have naked feet. And the sandals, even though I’m not used to wearing anything like them, really are amazing.
Our segue ends not on a boat, but on a train. We head north. Time to pick up the trail of the character in my book again. Bulgaria, then Romania. We catch a train to Thessaloniki and we find out we can’t cross the border by train. We get bus tickets and find an amazing hole in the wall, pardon the pun. If you find yourself in northern Greece, Beyond the Walls has the best food I had during our travel there. It really is beyond the wall as well. The restaurant sits near the court buildings just beyond the ancient walls of the city.
On the bus with a full belly, we head towards autumn and the mountains. I watch the land rise and grow hills, as well as more trees and greenery. I have a strange feeling. While I look out the window, I have a hard time figuring it out. What it boils down to is feeling like I’m back where I should be, on the right path, on the trail of my book.
P.S.
I am not trying to advertise to anyone in this blog. It’s something I avoid but, I do mention places and things of note to me as I travel.
