Home Sweet Home Messenia

 

Back in Messenia

 

A few days ago I bid my family goodbye on Spetses and took the puddle-jumper across the narrowest section of the Saronic Gulf to the village of Kosta, where my rental car (a Citroen C3) had rested in the shade of a secure parking lot.

This area is crawling with Roma (or, if you prefer, Gypsies) who regularly pilfer from the parked cars of unsuspecting tourists. So it was well worth the 6 euro-per-day fee for security’s sake. I don’t need a smashed window on day three of my stay here.

For some reason, the ascent toward Mount Didyma, leaving the coasta village of Kosta, is always easier than the descent—and safer, too. It is so much easier to pass a cement truck while going uphill around hairpin turns than downhill, because gravity favors the cement truck in that direction.

I motored west to Nauplion, Greece’s first but short-lived capital in 1832, then through the maze of streets in Argos, a dusty market city surrounded by orange and lemon groves, and onto the “new” national highway.

In a country with 3,500 years of recorded history, “new” is relative. The highway was built in the years leading up the 2004 Olympics. It is a work of engineering genius. Every time I drive south through the Peloponnese, I am astounded by the quality of the road and, in particular, the series of tunnels that pass through 6,000-foot peaks.

 

When we first came for our family's sabbatical year in 2009, the road was only half finished. The journey to Messenia on the old road was just a wee bit terrifying, with plenty of hairpin turns on unguarded corners with 300-meter vertical drops. Falling asleep at the wheel, even at 5 mph, could easily prove fatal. Driving at night on the old road, even by local standards, which are decidedly fatalistic, was consisered risky. The burned out wrecks of cars, trucks, and buses in the steep valleys below are testament to an unpleasant fact: Greece has more highway deaths, per capita, than almost any country in Europe.

Gradually, glimpses of the Gulf of Messinia appeared and soon enough I had reached Kalamata, the capital city of this region and the home to about fifty thousand people... and 3 million olive trees—an actual number, not an exaggeration.

Everyone in this region has some stake in the olive industry and one’s “wealth,” as it were, is measure by the number of trees one can call their own. My dear friend Niko once had more than 3,000 trees. By comparison, we have six—along with a dozen or so citrus, pomegranate, avocado, and apricot. Still these olive trees are our babies and produce sufficient oil and table olives for the year. 

I stopped at the Lidl supermarket, part of a Belgian chain, and navigated my way past the Roma who circle the store, inside and out, stealing what they can and begging for loose change. It is an extraordinary act of cat and mouse inside the store itself, with beleaguered security guards following the women and girls around the aisles. Whenever the guards fall off, a chicken or two goes down a dress, a cheese or two up the sleeve. After shopping, I returned the rented cart to the arcade and my 1 euro coin popped out. I placed it in the shaking can of an old Gypsy woman who lay seemingly broken on the ground.

 

Leaving Kalamata behind, the excitement and anticipation grew while traveling along the narrow, twisting coastal road on the eastern side of the peninsula that forms the province. Of the three peninsulas that form the southern Peloponnese, this is the one nearest to Italy. The view across to Laconia, the next peninsula to the east, where Sparta is located, provides yet another visual feast. For one, snow-capped Mount Taygetos, rising up from the sea to 9,000 feet elevation, contrasts so beautifully with the ocean.

The is the mountain from which the ancient Spartans tossed their weakling children in the good old days.

 

Home Sweet Home

It is utterly surreal to place a key in the lock of a house that was last occupied eleven months earlier. I opened the door warily, expecting a den of vipers, scorpions, and other assorted creatures—but was instead relieved to see the house just as I had left it. My house-checker, Dimitri, did a splendid job of keeping the place creature free, the fruit trees watered and pruned.

The law now calls for certifying that your land is clear of brush, prunings, etc., by 30 April or your liable to be fined heavily. Dimitri completed this work--cutting the lot four times since last September--so I was able to submit my data to the state, avoid a $10,000 fine and--in the event of a wild fire--time in the Kalamata lockup. The fire season in Greece promises to be severe, with no appreciable rain in this southern region since late February. Hence all the precautions.

The χαλιδόνια/halidonia (swallows) are attempting to build a nest on the side of the house. Since antiquity, having swallows nest on your house has been a sign of good fortune. So I’ll accept all that racket and dive-bombing for a bit of luck.

The same cannot be said of the garden, which is teeming with life. An hour later I heard some squaking and saw two large seagulls fighting over a two-meter-long snake. These are the “good” snakes, not the vipers. These large sea birds took turns grabbing the snake in their talons, flying above the road and dropping the wriggling creature several times until it was very dead. I feared that it might land it on the rental car.

After settling in, I laced up my running shoes and ran down the mountain to the big beach in Finikounda, called Anemomilos on one end and Mavrovouni (“black mountain”) on the other. For me running is a mental exercise with a physical component.

Victory or de...feet?

Camp Yianni on a deserted beach

The big beach is a 3000-meter ribbon of pristine sand, part of a European Union nature preserve—protecting the endangered loggerhead turtles, who will begin laying there eggs in a few weeks, and a variety of birds migrating from North Africa. It is one of my go-to swimming holes. A four-mile run, 1/2 mile swim, then the run back up the mountain. I was ready for another swim by the time I got home.

Last month the beach hosted Matt Daimon and the cast of Odysseus, which was filmed on site in nearby Pylos. There was (and still is) a call for extras. I am well-suited to be a slave oarsmen on an ancient trireme--the girls say I have the hair for it--so I might have to visit the casting agent. Or maybe not.

 

Village people

I snuck into the village after sunset, entering through the “back door,” a warren of alleyways, in order to avoid…everyone on the first day. The common refrain is: Τι να σου κεράσω (te na sou keraso), or “what can I treat you to?” The generosity, hospitality, and overall kindness is overwhelming. Had I entered through the main street, I would never have reached my destination: To Steki, a small, traditional taverna tucked into a quiet alleyway.

The proprietor, Niko, who like many others in the village (including me) has Cretan heritage dating the time of their refuge here in the 1850s, kissed me on both cheeks and brought a half liter of local red wine without any prompting. “This one is on me, Yianni. Welcome home.”

The next night, my determination to spend no money was undermined by a desire to eat! So after enjoying a Greek coffee at our village cafeneion, I drove down to Finikounda for dinner at Ploes. I try to patronize all but one (name withheld) of the local tavernas or restaurants, spreading about whatever little wealth I have. Ilias and Maria had several prepared items—lamb cooked in lemon sauce, papoudakia (“little shoes"), that is, baked eggplant stuffed with beef and cream sauce, and several other meat offerings—but I decided on simpler fare: a village salad and green beans cooked with carrots and potatoes, some bread, and a carafe of wine. Still, it wasn’t cheap. Nothing is “cheap” in Greece anymore, it is so unlike the “Greece on $10 a day” of  the 1970s and 1980s. I suppose this change is not particular to Greece alone. But a dozen eggs are cheaper here than in Maine. And the price of bread is regulated by the government--a large loaf coast about 1.50 euros (or $1.75).

The Greek government, now led by a former hedge fund manager and IMF official, is focusing on the Northern European chi-chi crowd, a relatively new type of tourist. I used to pitch a tent on the beach and thought about doing so at the Kardamyli International Jazz Festival, but my English friends tell me I could end up in handcuffs for doing so. Whle the law protects scenic places, it also ensures revenue for hotel and bungalow owners.

Before heading back up the mountain, I met up with a few foreign resident friends, a young couple from the Czech Republic who, like me, can work remotely. Over the years we’ve met so many nice people here, in addition to locals: English, German, Dutch, French, and Italian.

Niko calls this "the United Nations of Finikounda." And he's right.

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