Nearly thirty years ago my husband and I went to Paros and fell in love with all things Greek. It was the days before mobile phones and we didn't book in advance. You just arrived, walked around until you saw a handwritten sign saying: Room for rent, and you knocked at the door. When we were there in '91, we found such a sign in a dilapidated building that looked like it had been bombed during the last war and they hadn't got around to the reparation. A little old lady, all in black, almost toothless, with a beautiful tasselled shawl around her shoulders; showed us a spotless room. All white, a beautiful old handmade, blue cover on the bed; a few crosses on the walls and a shower in one corner with a hole in the ground for a drain and no screens. The toilet was in the corridor with a Madonna painting watching over you. Those were the days.
This time we stayed at what we thought was a glamorous looking hotel on the hill with a pool overlooking the bay. We lunched, swam and then walked into town. I found a place that I photographed with my late husband, the old walls of a medieval castle which had been built almost entirely out of the marble remains of an old temple dedicated to Apollo. Everyone had gone for some alone time and I was by myself, the memories of the time there with my husband were strong, especially the one where he decided that since it was such a small island, it would be good to hire a motorbike and go around it as it would only take a couple of hours. I was up for it, (although I'd never been on a motorbike and I was young, foolish and gullible). It started off as an adventure but began to pall four hours later, and after another hour, we made it back to town. We both walked with a strange gait and had very sore bums.
But that night, someone that the husband had met, (he loved to chat with people everywhere we went; we would be walking together and I'd suddenly find myself walking alone as he had stopped to have a chat with someone who looked interesting), suggested we dine at a restaurant up on the hill. We went there on sunset and had an amazing meal with the Mediterranean sea stretching below us, water coloured with the setting of the sun. They brought us an amazing after dinner sweet, sticky wine the colour of apricots that my husband loved and we stayed until the darkness settled around us, recovering from our bike ride and saying we would return here yearly before heading to the relatives in Italy.
Back in the present, we dined across from the water at Koralli restaurant. Amazing! As the sun sank slowly, colouring the sky with lobster, salmon and shell pink, we feasted on thick, potato garlic dip and peasant bread; our favourite horta bathed in olive oil with a touch of garlic; prawn saganaki in a fragrant tomato broth studded with fetta and squid stuffed with seafood and herbs. Of course they brought us liquor and a dessert - free.
We breakfasted on sesame and nut biscuits, thick greek yoghurt, honey and figs. Then bae went back to her room to shower and when we arrived back at the room, she came out ashen faced and limping, blood on her foot. She had opened the shower door and it had shattered in her hand. The bathroom was littered with shards. I went to get help and they came but they had no first aid kit! And they blamed her for breaking the glass!. We were stunned. A housekeeper came and cleaned her foot up a bit and then she hobbled with us into town and we had to buy band aids. Some things hadn't changed much in thirty years.
She revived with some shopping in Parikia, which is gorgeous. Whitewashed buildings, spotless streets, the blue domed churches, bougainvillea and trumpet creeper framing the houses. We all relax and wander through the beautiful craft and jewellery shops. I buy a necklace that is my all time favourite and we have the weird iced Nescafe frappe coffee that is the drink to have here. The cafes are so quirky! The colours of the houses against the sun blanched white are incredible. My artist's eye is soothed by the cobbled streets, each grey stone framed with whitewash. Ceramics are embedded here and there outside shops.
The daughter has had enough of people and retires to the villa and bae and I lunch by the water, so close that our feet can be lapped by the limpid sea. We have mushrooms stuffed with cheese and an eggplant dish to die for. Then we moved half a metre away from our lunch location, to bean bags and sat listening to the tide washing over the pebbles, me coming to terms about being single and bae, coming to terms with not being in active mother mode, albeit only briefly.
That afternoon we return to the village and explore the beauty of the churches. I find the tamata, tin votive offerings in the shape of body parts that they hang in the churches for miracles and healing. I ask about them and are taken to a beautiful old cabinet with drawers full of them. I choose a few and there's no cost, just an offering to the church. She must wonder why I don't hang them under a painting of a saint, instead, I take them with me on my travels. A leg, an eye, a torso. I'm almost covered.
That night we dine again by the sea with a mussel stew and our favourite greens. Time has slowed and we are totally relaxed on our last night here.
The next morning when we go to check out, I ask for a discount on the room as we have had to live with a broken shower (supposedly they had no other rooms available). The boss is contacted and he waives the cost of a new shower screen! We are furious. When they charge us for the lunch we had on our first day, I refuse to pay and we walk out. But even that can't mar our trip here. Greece is crazy and generous at the same time and we love it.
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