The Medicane

For nearly a week the weather news has focused on an approaching cyclone, referred to alternatively as a Mediterranean hurricane or a “Medicane.” Over these days the winds and surf have built up, punctuated by periods of calm and large swaths of blue. We have continued to swim, three times a day. The sea temperature is over 80 degrees—so why not?

Peter and I dashed to Kalamata yesterday afternoon, arriving just as the rains began again. We used our time well touring the brilliant archaeological museum in Messenia’s capital city— a highly sophisticated collection of finds from the Neolithic period  

(pre-10,000 bce); a vast trove of Bronze Age finds (3000 bce to 1200 bce); and everything since: the classical, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian, and early Christian eras.

We walked the warren of streets and narrow alleyways of the old city, poking our heads into shops, engaging merchants, and navigating our way (remarkably) back to our parked car.

We returned in the darkness and amid the deteriorating weather, over narrow mountain roads, arriving at our house in a building gale. Dinner at Dionysos in Finikounda and home by midnight.

The intermitent summer was cast aside—rudely and decisively—late last night. Our little house on the mountainside withstood 100 mph winds and torrential rains throughout the night. We ventured out at 9 am and drove to the beach, where twelve-foot surf thundered to shore, utterly obliterating everything in its path. It was beautifully terrifying in every respect. With great care we drove to Methoni, only to find a region-wide power outage and the weather becoming more severe by the minute.

Unable to buy gas, we entered the town on Messenia’s southernmost tip to find carnage on the beach—along with a collection of assorted lunatics (like ourselves) viewing the many boats broken on the beach, whole cafeneions drifting out to sea, and a huge surf driven by class 4 hurricane force winds.

Back in Finikounda, with great care and some trepidation, we observed a wide range of yacht and fishing boat devastation, including a half-million-dollar trimaran (which we had admired only days before) broken into pieces on the rocks.

With the power out and most storefronts boarded up, we made our way to the heights at Elena Restaurant, which was powered by generators, meeting our English friends R and A for coffee and refuge. The incoming surge and breakers were annihilating storefronts, sailboats, and anything on the waterfront—a truly terrifying storm, as bad as either of us had ever witnessed.

While there a camera crew from EPT 1, Greece’s national television, interviewed me in Greek about the severity of the storm. Tonight I will be on the Greek national evening broadcasts, sputtering in sixth-grade Greek. Fifteen seconds of fame.

Today is Peter’s thirtieth anniversary of his twenty-ninth birthday and our plans included a night in the powerless town. If the town is still standing.

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Hurry Up and Wait

Editor’s note—this new device will not allow me to post our wonderful photos, which is an enormous disappointment...courtesy of Apple.

Luddites everywhere unite!

Hurry Up and Wait

Earlier today we experienced a seismic evident—an earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale. We were swimming in an isolated cove and didn’t even notice the shaking, which lasted 15 seconds.

Greece’s third world qualities diminish with passing years—toilets flush, oil lanterns are replaced by electricity, the dowry for girls is a thing of the past—but it is alive and well in the banking system.

As Peter explored Homer’s “sandy Pylos,” with special attraction to the yacht harbor, Jonathan endured the agony of the bank lobby, where thirty or so folks waited for their turn with the one bank teller. Greece may be the sole EU nation where withdrawing one’s own .money becomes an ordeal of epic proportions.

Here is the routine. Enter the bank through the double foyer, which is separated by a bullet-proof/blast-proof chamber, then take a ticket as one might at the delicatessen counter. Mine was number 124; the screen read a disheartening 84. The enlightened bank patron then leaves the bank itself and orders a coffee at one of the many cafes that line the town’s oceanfront. From this  handy vantage, one can glance through the blast glass to ascertain the progress—or lack of progress. Many of the other cafe patrons are also bank patrons. An ambitious soul (I count myself among this  group) also gets a ticket from the line of the phone office, the water company, and anywhere else with a similar system.

Two hours and ten minutes later, I emerged with my 400 euros, the maximum amount allowed under austerity’s capital controls, the EU’s attempt to avoid capital flight from this beleaguered nation.

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Peter was pleased with his mini adventure in Pylos (me less so) and stood ready for the primary object of our sojourn to Pylos: a visit to the “new” castle (Neokastro), which was built by the Ottoman Turks in the 1500s. We had visited the “old” castle—the Paleokastro—which was constructed in the 1200s, a few days earlier.

Peter and I spent most of the afternoon hiking within the castle’s inner and outer walls. We also viewed the incredible collection  of archaeological finds from the Early Bronze Age settlements that litter this region, including fabulous underwater finds, and the artifacts from tholos and shaft graves. 

We headed back to the big beach in Finikounda, setting up beach camp in the relative shelter of Mavrovouni, at the west end of the beach. The early effects of a massive Mediterranean cyclone were being felt, with rolling waves and gusty winds. The storm is due to hit us tomorrow and it looks massive, bringing the first significant rains since winter.

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Welcome to My Village

Welcome to Our Village

Peter and I arrived in Athens via Munich, no worse for the wear. We picked up a rental car near the airport and navigated our way through light traffic to the neighborhood called Kessariani. This is the neighborhood where my old friends Thanasi and Koula live. We met in 1979 when I was a young archaeology student in Athens and have been close friends ever since. The four of us were joined by another old friend, Akis, at a local taverna off a quiet lane. It was chance to catch up on last year’s happenings and plan our three-week journey.

We set off for the southern Peloponnese just after rush hour the following morning, circumnavigating the massive sprawl that is Athens. In short order we crossed the Corinth Canal, a 2700-year-old engineering concept that was begun under the Roman emperor Nero (by 5000 Jewish slaves) and only completed in 1893. This marvel of antiquity behind us, the new highway brought us to our final destination—the province of Messenia, on the southwestern tip of the Peloponnese’s western promontory.

It was an unmitigated joy to drive through the olive groves, alongside the ribbon of cobalt that is the Mediterranean, and then into my driveway. 

We unpacked and headed straight to the beach for a swim, laughing at our good fortune: arriving in a remarkably beautiful place, with great people, delicious food, and 332 days of sunshine each year. The sunniest place in sunny Hellas.

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Walking into Finikounda after a twelve-month absence involves walking into a gauntlet of extreme hospitality, kindness, and generosity—just as I promised, greeting old friends at every corner.

Peter experienced his first taste of Greek taverna life (minus the copious quantities of wine). It was early night, we were home by midnight, lulled to sleep by a chorus of cicadas and the howls of jackals.

The next morning the two of us ran to the beach, down the mountain and into the sea, and then headed to nearby Methoni to get supplies and tour the massive medieval castle; constructed by the Venetian in the 1400s as a way station for pilgrims traveling east the Holy Lands. We imagined the final siege, the great citadel’s fall to the Ottoman Turks, the mayhem and the pillaging.

Then we had a coffee and went for another swim.

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Temenos 2018

Temenos 2018

Our family blog now careens toward its tenth birthday. Ten years ago, in the fall of 2008, we were preparing for a family adventure—a half-year sabbatical in rural southern Greece. Ann had arranged for a teaching sabbatical, while Jonathan found a long-term, freelance editorial project.

Our kids (then ages nine, eleven, and thirteen) packed their bags, said goodbye to their local friends, and slowly wrapped their minds around the notion of attending a one-room school in a seaside village that was even smaller than their own Maine community.

Limni, Evia, 2012

Crusader castle in Methoni

Hydra island, looking toward the Argolid

Hydra harbor

Monemvasia, SE Peloponnese

Flying the colors

Parthenon, February 2009

This blog was created in order to share the course of that 2009 journey with family and friends.

We arrived in Finikounda, a sleepy fishing village in the rural southwestern corner of the Peloponnese, in late February 2009. And so, our adventure began.

Looking west toward Finikounda from our liter-sized house

If you like, you can scroll back to that earlier time in this blog.

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A necessary aside––

Why “temenos”? This old Greek word embodies several meanings. For our family and friends, the word temenos means “sanctuary” or "sacred space"—rather than its other meanings of “temple” or “shrine.”

In a broader sense, “temenos” refers to the sanctuary that one finds in the embrace of close friends and family. Temenos is as much a state of mind as it is a state of being.

Akropolis, 2012

Perimeter wall, ancient Messene, 2009

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The enduring connection––

In 2012 our family of five returned to Greece to complete a journey that was cut short by the illness of Jonathan’s mother in the spring of 2009.

Western Crete

Southern Crete

Living the good life--part 1

Continuing the good life--part 2

So, by way of content, this blog includes our family’s 2012 trip back to Greece as well as all the subsequent trips since, including:

Jonathan’s 2013 purchase and slow renovation of a dilapidated farm building in a stunningly bucolic setting—tucked alongside an olive grove on the mountain above Finikounda, looking west across the Mediterranean.

This old house, 2013

The renovations continued along with an extended stay with daughter Lucia (then age 15) in the summer of 2014.

Lucia and Jonathan on Spetses, 2014

Northern Evia

Spetses island coastline

And then Jonathan’s solo travels in 2015 and 2016.
 

Extreme makeover, 2013-2015

And finally, the celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary on the island of Spetses—with our daughter Nia as our “chaperone.” Jonathan’s sister Dyan, along with Stuart and the twins, met us in Finikounda.

Jonathan and his favorite sister, Dyan, 2014

And then we all met up on Spetses for our celebration in the birthplace of our grandmother, Eustathia, who was born on the island in 1899 and left for America in 1912. This was a special trip that we will always remember—spent together with family we love in our family’s patrida (mother/fatherland).

And best of all, Ann and Nia stayed in our little Peloponnesian house for the first time.

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Jonathan is the “I” of this blog in 2018. By my calculation, this is my 17th trip to Greece—an ongoing love affair that began back in 1973 as a summer student camper in the western Peloponnese.

I returned to Ionian Village, the summer camp, the following summer, despite the percolating political unrest that beset Greece and the region. Revolution was in the air, led by increasingly strident student protests in Athens. It was a time of great tumult in Greece—democracy, which in 1967 had fallen prey to a CIA-encouraged military coup d’état and subsequent junta led by a group of feckless army colonels on a neo-fascist model, was now reasserting itself.

A failed coup in Cyprus in 1974 was followed by a Turkish invasion of that island-nation (and its ultimate occupation, which continues in part today) and a tragicomic military mobilization in Greece. Fighter jets buzzed urban areas and tanks were on the streets of the major cities along with military conveys and special army units seeking fighting-age men—or boys. This was my first of three successful attempts at avoiding the military draft in Greece.

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I returned to Greece, five years after the restoration of democracy, in 1979 as a student of the classics at College Year in Athens. An American living abroad in a pulsating European capital, I learned to speak credible (but imperfect) Greek in short order, met Greek contemporaries and forged lifelong friendships.

Following college graduation, I was back in Athens in 1981, having obtained employment with an English-language publisher specializing in post-Byzantine studies. I began my career as a book editor in Greece and continued to work in publishing in the United States. I also cultivated a love of Greek literature (ancient and modern), food, dance, music, and all manner of folkways. Hellas was clearly getting under my skin.

After several years of working in book publishing in New York City, I moved to a homestead in rural coastal Maine—itself a decision borne directly of my Greek experience—but managed a trip to Greece at least every other year…in what became a predictable routine that began way back in 1973.

25 years of marital (chocolate) bliss

Evyenia (Nia) and Jonathan--card-carrying Greek citizens as of 2017

Over time a place can seep into your thinking, dreaming, and life aspirations. That a place and its culture, language, and folkways can gradually consume an individual is probably its own study.

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This year’s journey––

For all the times I’ve traveled to Greece—alone and with family—I have never brought a friend along for the ride.

In this way, 2018 will be different.

My friend Peter and I met in Pembroke in the late 1980s. In 1991 we were both fire fighter recruits at the Maine Fire Academy. We have both served on the Pembroke Fire Department for nearly 30 years (he as Assistant Chief, me as Captain). Together we've fought a lot of fires, responded to multiple accidents and incidents, and all along honed our firefighting skills.

Jonathan and Peter--rookie firefighters in 1991

We have also watched our kids grow up and leave home, seen our parents age and pass. We have gotten to know each other better over the years, having spent more time together—hiking, sailing, camping, as well as fighting fires. My friend is expert boat builder and a highlyskilled carpenter, a knowledgeable outdoorsman, and a soft-spoken fellow traveler who shares my curiosity about things—and especially a passion for the ocean.

Now we’re traveling together to Greece! I have the unique and singular opportunity to share a beautiful and endearing place with an old friend.

So, here’s our story in words and pictures.

Emmanuel the sun god