Greek Sketches 2024: Southbound

 

...we meander Thessaloniki, past ruins lying in open lots between the streets, in search of Byzantine churches, in search of lunch, in search of coffee.  The amazing Archeological Museum, Arch of Galerius, Rotunda.  Mount Olympus steadfast across the water, ships moving toward the Aegean.  Posters and stills in cafes for films I've never seen.  Dinner in a woody, nautical themed place that looked more at home in New England, or Central California, but for the bouzouki strumming in a back room.  We meet Adam in the morning, to wander the markets to sample Turkish delights, then up to the castle ruins to pose and photograph. Long lunch on a veranda with great views over the city, plus pizza and wine, as LYL tells our respective futures from Turkish coffee residue... 

...the road south.  A fire in a tunnel brings traffic to a crawl, but we escape before we get caught in it, and the rest of the afternoon is a long counter-clockwise loop around Olympus. Lingering snow on her upper flanks halts any discussion about a springtime climb.  The valleys beneath are broad and high, bringing to mind Colorado yet again...

...long pause in Volos, sipping cloudy ouzo on a patio beneath a spreading tree, talking Jason and the Argonauts who sailed from here.  It today has a somewhat run-down look, graffiti laden, with some threatening backstreets.  We wander one, peering through a workshop piled high with antique saddles.  The waterfront is tidier, with a massive model of Jason's Argo, and a sign warning Turkey to get their hands of Cyprus...

 

..the road climbs high along the Pelion peninsula, though little clinging villages that Adam narrates, creating bridges to legend and antiquity.   A brief stop for honey, then into Kissos as dark falls full.  This is our base for the night, in a beautiful old inn that is as charming as it is dark and cold.  The morning rain is heavy, so we linger long in our room before fleeing to a small and dark cafe in the village square, once again transported to the middle ages.  We read beside the fire until Adam shows up, then we grab our bags to descend through the fog to Agios Ioannis for lunch.  All is windy and stormy, the waves bashing against the concrete breakwater mere meters from the terrace where we dine...

 

...two nights at Damouchari.  I'd wanted the room at Ghermaniko Guesthouse where Romy Schneider stayed, but a German family has it.  Our room above the water is bright and spacious and has a massive terrace, where I read away much of our time here.  Little else to do but stroll the cliffside paths out to ruined cave temples, and to hidden beaches fed by towering waterfalls.   We share the paths with no one but olive trees and goats.  The quiet almost haunts us, here in the domain of the Centaurs.   We take a few meals on the stone terrace of Miramare, beneath photos of the cast of Mamma Mia, shot in this little bay.  (I hadn't seen the film, and upon watching it later, wish I still hadn't.) A fox joins us for lunch one afternoon, which I could practically hand-feed.  The Aegean beckons, but the wind-swept waves remain high and too dangerous to swim...

...driving the winding roads of the peninsula, visiting friends of Adam, both expat and local. Lunch at Itamos, then meander the stone paths up and down the hilly villages in order to work off the wine.  Tsagkarada is a regular fixture, particularly its great tree.  A final dinner with Adam at the magical Lost Unicorn, with the wine and conversation, cats and fireplace...

 

...and northbound again, albeit briefly.  Lunch at Dion, busy with Sunday families, then wander its remarkably expansive ruins, an overlap of Roman and Hellenic, where Alexander paid tribute before sojourning onward to Persia.  Olympus majestic above all.  I drive as far up its flanks as I can, then wander a trail briefly before retreating from the increasing rain, popping into a lively cafe here where hikes have been abandoned in favor of booze.  All is sunny and bright down in Litochoro. It is a charming little town, with an outdoorsy basecamp vibe that I always love.  We have a slow dinner at Gastrodromio, LYL looking toward the sea; me up the gaping yaw of valleys toward an Olympus fading in the light, whose full snowy form I won't see until the clear light of morning...        

...the incredibly varying scenery along the back roads, highlighting the vast extent of Greece's gastronomic agriculture.  We bisect a number of mountain ranges laterally, making us earn the journey back to Hellenic Greece.  The Monastery of Agathon is a courtyard oasis that is almost Himalayan, perched high above a broad river valley.  We dine on this view further over a terrace lunch nearby, before wending down past a downed fighter plane on a hillside, a tank in a village square.  And modern day tanks, caravans with license plates from all across Europe, clutter the landscape around Thermopylae.  I knew of the battle here, but not the springs.  I appreciate those more, and walk along the fast running stream of pleasant heat, trouser legs rolled high...

 

...we are surprised by the amount of snow on Parnassus, and surprised even more by a group of wild horses running up the road, thankfully cleared.  We keep pace with them awhile, before speeding onward to Arachova.  This too is a pleasant town, and our room sits on the valley edge, the perfect perch for late afternoon reading.  We wander the town as the light falls, up to the church atop all, though sadly our target taverna across the square is inexplicably closed.  We find another in the town center, Bonjour Cafe, with a cool wine cellar built into an ancient basement. Around the corner is a small Judo school.  I pop in and talk awhile with the teacher, a friendly young guy whose full beard and physique are outright heroic. Walking the dark lanes to our room, we pass an old women who enters a modest house on the corner.  Looking back, we note that the home she seemed to enter is boarded up, abandoned.  For two weeks we've been in pursuit of the ghosts of history, but here in this small town we've seen the real thing, one who probably never appeared in the pages of a Penguin paperback... 

..Arachova is on the doorstep of Delphi, so after grabbing take-away coffee and bread, we rush over to beat the tourist coaches.  We've done well, but more and more people arrive as we stroll the stones crawling uphill, and the fallen columns that are simply everywhere.  There are too many people are the museum, but we have the Tholos to ourselves, sitting quietly above the view...

 

...the drive back to Athens is through civilization gradually making its presence felt. Brief stops at Elefsina and Marathon, thankfully devoid of anyone but us.  The final descent through the hills is through a blackened landscape of last year's fires.  We wander aimlessly in search of lunch, which we take in Exarcheia, with its "edgy alternative vibe, its streets decorated with politically charged murals and lined with anarchist bookshops and stores selling rare vinyl and vintage guitars. Bars and clubs host live music, including rembetika (Greek blues), jazz and punk acts."  (Thank you G**gle.)  I love parts of cities like this, a mix of student and boho community with a dangerous feel that reminds me somehow of Seattle of the grunge years.  The archeological museum nearby impresses, then we continue our wander to get to the Acropolis for our reserved entry around sunset.  The alleys below are a riot of people, Americans mainly.  We retreat into smaller lanes, finding a quiet cafe beside Hadrian's Library.  Our server is a poet, and not being busy, he has time to chat Japanese poetry, and of course Lafcadio Hearn.  The Acropolis is as I remember, but sunset is far more pleasant than the heat of full morning.  I'm still put off by the never ending construction, and by the crowds, which are admittedly smaller at this hour.  I am far more taken this time with the views of the city.  We descend past a West African playing kora, and on into the tourist labyrinth of the Plaka.  We'd read about a classic old restaurant, with a mid-twentieth century vibe of old tables and celebrity photographs everywhere.  But this last meal in Greece was the worst of the trip, and the tourist circus outside was grating.  Two weeks in the countryside had given us so much, had taught me a great deal.  So it was a shame to end the trip this way, surrounded by the trappings of a century that thus far, has failed to impress...

 

On the turntable: Phish,  '1998-04-04, Providence Civic Center"

 

Greek Sketches 2024: Northbound

...Octavian found victory at Actium more easily than we found the old battlefield itself.  The handful of homes scattered along the marshy shoreline blocks any access to the water, and there is no signage of any kind.  Surrendering, we drive north to Nicopolis, whose old walls parallel the quiet country road.  The crumbling stone edifaces and archways were put here by Octavian in 29 BC, after his victory, hence the name.  We walk awhile, gazing into the amphitheater, followed by a dog who briefly adopts us, before returning to the car to visit other Roman ruins that lay scattered along this narrow isthmus. The Necromanteion of Acheron is just to the north of here, above a small village.  I found conflicting information about whether the site would be open on this Holy Friday, but it is the locked gate rather than the old Oracle that tells the tale.  The dead would begin their journey to the underworld from here, floating down the River Hades.  Today it is kayakers who make the journey, drifting through a broad and beautiful valley.  The friendly dog who trails me as I enjoy the views I naturally call Cerberus, who chases the car awhile as we drove off...

...Dodoni lies nestled in yet another beautiful valley, whose surrounding hills reminds me of Boulder.  The ruins form a berm of sorts, hinting at an elaborate palace befitting the Oracle of Zeus.  Spring wildflowers bring color to the grassy spaces between the stones, watered by a quick and sudden storm that is a brief interlude to otherwise perfect blue skies...

 

...Greater Ioannina is a city of traffic and graffiti. Our target taverna is bustling for lunch, so we choose an outdoor seat just up the road.  Away from the sea, we settle on moussaka and a local white, a stronger tipple as befitting hearty country people.  As we eat, I watch suspicious looking figures pop in and out of an adjacent pharmacy. Once inside the inner walls of the old citadel, we immediately regret our choice of accommodation in the grotty modern city, as here all is tidy and clean.  The atmospheric upper ramparts of the castle give great views over the lake, and music wafts out from the church.  Byron had been here too, a guest of Ali Pasha, with whom he was not terribly impressed.  The Pasha is still here, his tomb covered by an iron cage.  Back in town, we have ice cream with Voula, an old university classmate of LYL.  She and her husband Vassilis are based here in Ioannina, working with the university.  We walk along the water's edge, then pass up and over the citadel to the other side.  A number of times, Vassilis is approached by apparent strangers who take him up in brief conversation.  I knew that he has a number of books and has a newspaper column, but it is becoming clear that he has some significant fame as well.  We wind up at a lakefront restaurant, quiet for the holiday, and with only about 10 percent of its menu available. But there is wine.  We make due, watching the ducks bounce in the waves of an evening gone windy...

 

...The winds have brought unstable weather overnight, which is what we don't want for our walk along Vikos Gorge.  But the mist at play beneath the towering stone walls is hypnotizing, a good distraction from the sheer drops a mere step off the narrow path.  The weather clears as we climb off trail to unmarked viewpoints, and allows us good photos of the meadow crowded with stone towers and small cairns that we stumble upon on the way back to Monodendri. We walk the cobblestone trails through the village, until the rain determines that it is lunchtime, which we take in an old inn that is familiar from any film set in the Middle Ages. Being a hotel, it would make for a great overnight.  But we are daytripping, so continue our walk, around town, down to the Monastery of Saint Paraskevi, an almost Indian name, as is Vikos itself, magnificent now in the full light of the sun... 

 

...We drive in and out of the clouds, over high mountain roads that abate at Papigko, tucked deep into the Zagori. Our digs for the night are in a sort of B&B, an old house horseshoed around a stone courtyard.  Our proprietress is a funky artist type, almost witch-like, with an apparent penchant for knitting. She takes us to the upper garden, but it is too misty to sit, and there are no views anyway.  LYL and I walk the small village, then settle in for dinner.  Our first choice is an atmospheric old taverna, but the menu was limited and the vibe a tad unfriendly.  Next door is bright and cheerful, and beneath the table my foot keeps time with the 70s rock coming through the speakers overhead.  The stone walls of our bedroom make for a chilly night, but we go out anyway, to enjoy Easter services in the village church.  We've arrived too early as not much is happening, but over the next hour more and more people fill the narrow recesses as the priests drone on and on.  Being from a small town myself, I begin to recognize archetypes, and my mind creates stories about them as I wait for something to happen.  Finally at midnight it does, as the bells begin to toll, and we all step outside to enjoy the fireworks, and those candle-lit balloons that drift ever heavenward like the souls of Jesus, though their eventual return will bring not salvation but polluted forests...

...I awake early to read in the courtyard, but the cold chases me in again.  I have coffee and little Easter chocolates until it is time for breakfast proper.  We walk the village again, this time under perfect blue skies.  In the full light it becomes clear that this mountain village is the preferred choice of holiday homes of the wealthy Greek city-dweller.   And why not, set beneath the towering stone spires above, still dusted with snow.  We find too that we missed a better hotel by a dozen meters or so.  Booking our hotels for this trip was tricky, as the trip was quite last minute due to scrambling after a cancelled cruise, and some prolonged coordination with friends we'd meet along the way.  While our accommodation was perfectly fine, the better spots had all been snatched up, which now makes sense with the awareness of the Easter holiday weekend... 

 

 ...We point the car deeper into the mountains, winding down some steep switchbacks that we'd come up the day before, which bottom out at a quaint little water crossing, before climbing steeply back up again. Here again is classic southern European mountain scenery, moving through forests from which a village will suddenly appear, clinging impossibly to the steep hillsides. (We can thank centuries of foreign invaders for catalyzing such charm.)   We stop the car at the Konista stone bridge, whose steep arch we climb for the obligatory photos, before sitting to coffee at a taverna on the far side.  We are meant to meet Voula here, or so we thought, for we find later that the bridge that served as our meeting point was not this (obvious) one, but was the one at the quaint little water crossing of an hour or so before.  But all is well as we walk the forestry road built high along the river, as beneath us kayakers drift toward Albania, drawing my eyes downward and past them to the older stone trail that plays peek-a-boo on the river's rougher side. We'll take lunch out on a terrace that overlooks a very smokey smokehouse across the car park.  The restaurant is busy this Easter Sunday, but the streets of town are silent, but for some wandering Romani musicians, who we pay to play a folk song for us.  Voula's house is at the top of the hill, with great views over toward Albania.  Though still geographically Greece, this is historically Macedonia, and Vassilis is one of the top scholars on the Vlachs, a medieval Balkan people from this region.  (Culturally, this segment of the trip has very little Hellenic Greek feel, having crossed a cultural border of sorts once we hit Ioannina.)  I read on the patio until the change of light brings out wine, then leafy dolmas.  Neighbors pop by to offer holiday greetings, all members of Vasilis's family, who all have adjoining properties.  I imagine there had once been a large family estate here, now divided up post-war.  When the light finally goes, we head off to a bed, and a very cold night.  Up here, spring is synonymous with winter...

 

...We take the faster lowland route back to Ioannina, then trace the lake's north shore before climbing again.  Aside for a quick coffee, we only stop again at Meteora, the trip's highlight for me.  I was memorized the first time I saw the cliff monasteries in a 45 year old Bond film.  We pass the rest of the morning visiting a few, up and down the steep stone steps to the eyrie churches taking up every inch of space atop the rocks.   But between, the crowds and traffic are too much.  (Easter Monday too is a thing here.)  So we retreat to the lowlands for a late lunch, then rest through the afternoon on the lawn of our small hotel, as a team of climber rappels from the impossible chimneys high above.  An early start brings respite from the hordes, and I've saved the three most intriguing sites to have nearly to ourselves.  Traffic begins to build as we move out of town. We follow small rivers, alongside which villages come and go. We climb again, though the roads run straight as they cut across high plateau, punctuated with small reddish shrubs like every other highland in the world.  We had to forfeit a visit to a site related to Alexander the Great due to Holy Tuesday (enough already!) but pulled into Thessaloniki by lunch time. It felt like we'd left Greece, and arrived in Turkey.  Which, culturally, we had...

 

On the turntable: David Johansen, "Live it Up"

 

Greek Sketches 2024: Westbound

 

...That 2018 cruise around the Greek isles instilled in me a love for the country.  From ancient ruins to the animated kindness of most of those we met.  I find that my frat boy days paid off in an ability to still read the language, even without knowing the meaning of the words created by combining those familiar sounds.  And the biggest takeaway was that there are few afternoons better spent than one spent sitting outside a waterfront taverna, washing down calamari with local wine, and watching the cats frolic...

...no islands this time, being early May.  We'll drive the mainland instead.  Arriving late, we grab a hotel, and it is there that I find that we've arrived during Orthodox Easter week, something I'd never even considered.  The holiday is spread out over 5 days, and along with Mayday, mean a great number of frustrating closures.  Our hotels are set in stone, but I am able to reconfigure how the days will be spent, and though that means more time spent in the car, in the end we only miss two intended sites...

...the rental car process adds further frustration.  (Moral of the story: take great care if booking with a local company.). We pull out of town late, but finally free ourselves of the Mayday traffic and head north at first, though a rural landscape of dry jagged hills.  I'm intrigued by the vast number of shuttered petrol stations, no doubt hangovers of the financial crisis of a decade ago...

...up a narrow windy mountain road common to southern Europe.  The valley opens up to reveal a charred landscape, black stick figured trees abound.  The flames got as far as an old tree of great height standing on the edge of the terrace of Holy Monastery of Hosios Loukas, perhaps then turned back by the power of prayer.  Luckily for us this 1000 year old monastery lives on to dazzle us, stone courtyards framed by the Byzantine architecture I love so much.  We grab a sandwich in a small shop here and eat quietly with the silence and the views...

...the road to the sea winds downward as switchbacks cut into a steep mountain face, then traces the village-punctuated bays. People here drive like New Mexicans, well under the speed limit. When you live in the middle of nowhere, what's the hurry?...

 ...Galaxidi is our base for the night, a terraced room atop a hill.  The door opens onto views of the village proper, set around a square that fronts the water. We'll follow the waterline along to the marina, settling into a taverna just across from a flotilla of small fishing boats that are props in 1950s films.  The rest of the night is seafood and a bottle of white and pondering a life here, as cats nuzzle our calves...

 

...as we breakfast, a large tortoise traces the white chalk lines dividing the flagstones of the terrace.  We'll move significantly faster along the coast, west toward Nafpaktos.  Classic Mediterranean beach town, quaint shops and eateries bisected by traffic moving at a crawl.  We flee the latter for the heights of the old castle, the jagged ramparts overlooking the Gulf of Cornith, formerly known as the Gulf of Lepanto.  Cervantes lost a hand in an eponymous battle here, and his statue still stands beside the now tranquil waters.  Thank the gods of literature that he kept his writing hand...  

...not far away, another foreigner lost more than his hand.  Missolonghi honors Lord Byron with both a grave and a tall statue at one end of town.  We wander its narrow streets, first in search of lunch, and later the house where the famous poet drew his last breath.  The way to the latter is unclear, and we find ourselves moving into an unattractive area of empty lots (though we are puzzled by a house whose lavish third story is supported by two unfinished floors below. Very Indian.)  Giving up, we decide to circle back, and find ourselves passing a stone plaque telling us that this is where Byron died of fever in 1824 during the Greek War of Independence...

 

...a heavy rainfall accompanies us along the road to Lefkada.  I had wanted to have a quick dip in the sea here, my first immersion in the Ionian Sea.  But the day has grown cold, and our hotel provides no parking, forcing me to park way across the city, everything else full on this Holy Thursday(!).  The town is the birthplace (and namesake) of Lafcadio Hearn, a hero of mine, whose first residence in Japan was 30km up the coast from where I myself landed a century later, and whose Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan proved a valuable guidebook to the area. Today I find his museum closed, the first of the holiday sacrifices.  I do find his birth house, tucked down a small lane that leads to the main strolling street, overhung with bunting.  We divert to the waterfront to watch the sunset from the famed wooden bridge.  Apparently at one time the entire town was built of wood, after being leveled in an 1825 earthquake. But the taverna we settled into is now stone, as is the hotel balcony, where I watch the sun rise the next morning, over the pontoon bridge that now connects this once-island to places further afar...

 

On the turntable:  No Doubt, "The Singles 1992–2003" 

 

One More than Zero

 

 

 On the train, reading Slaves of New York for the first time in close to 40 years.   And I immediately think of you, and how as budding creative writing majors we used to rib this book, as well as Less than Zero and Bright Lights Big City, and all those other books by young authors belonging to that genre dubbed, "...and then they fucked," generally brought out on Gary Fisketjon's Vintage Contemporaries series.  (Although by now, both nostalgia and academia have come on board, and the genre is referred to as "Dirty Realism.")

And just as I'm thinking this, you get on the train.  But it's not you, but your Japanese doppelganger, looking as you did back in school, with your bobbed hair and pouty lips and slim build.  And I so much want to sneak this woman's photo and send it to you, so that we can both laugh about the coincidence.  But sadly, you passed away last summer...

And with you gone, and with Zielke gone near 20 years, our little gang of aspiring writers lives on only in me.  Does that bring us back to Less than Zero, with Blair and Julian gone, and only I left to tell the tale?

 

On the turntable:  Ramones, "Too Tough to Die" 

Sunday Papers: Brendan Behan

 

"I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer."

 

On the turntable:  Jefferson Starship, "Dragon Fly" 

Jazz & The Spoken Word, set two

 

 

 With the Joshua Breakstone group, Bonds Rosary, January 10, 2025

On the turntable:  Archie Shepp, "Four for Trane"

 

Jazz & The Spoken Word, set one

 

 

With the Joshua Breakstone group, Bonds Rosary, January 10, 2025

On the turntable:  Dry Cleaning, "Stumpwork"