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"