Temenos 2026

 

Temenos 2026

This marks the sixteenth year of Temenos, our family’s Greek travel journal, which was born in 2009 during our sabbatical in southern Greece. Originally intended as a light-hearted place to share photos and experiences with family and friends on the other side of the world, it has morphed into something more. But that "more" is no literary genius--just observations and fun vignettes.

This year’s residence will be special and different: it marks the first time since 1992 that Ann and I will be alone together in Greece, that is, without the three kids that we adore. With some perseverance, the five of us—along with spouses and partners—will resume the “kids in tow” method in 2027.

Ann will join me in a month’s time. In the interim, I am left to my own devices, a traveler lacking adult supervision.

Athens

 

Five days ago I arrived in Athens (via Dublin), where I was hosted by my dear friends Thanasi and Koula in the Kasariani neighborhood of Athens, on the east side of the great city, located on the foothills of Mount Hymettos.

Thanasi and I met in 1979, during my junior year abroad, when I studied classics, modern Greek, and archaeology at College Year in Athens. It was a mere five years after the fall of the junta, and Greece was a much different place than it is today. Thanasi and I (and another friend, Akis) became fast friends and partners in crime (the good kind). Twelve years later, Thanasi served as the best man at our traditional wedding on the island of Spetses—birth place of my maternal grandmother.

 

Those few days in Athens, earlier in the week, consisted of visiting with my three friends, enjoying meals together, and visiting a few old haunts. And, of course, running—an activity that has helped define more than fifty years of my life on earth.

Then yesterday morning, I picked up my rental “buggy” and headed south through the Peloponnese, traversing a roughly northeast/southwest diagonal to our village in Messenia, not far from where we brought our children in 2009.

 

In 2012 we purchased an old run-down, roofless mortar and brick house in an olive grove in a nearby village called Akritohori. Since then, I’ve returned every year to continue renovations, plant trees, and become a part of the community. The community consists of Greeks, of course, but also a vibrant foreign-resident population: English, German, Dutch, Swiss and others Europeans who treasure this place like we do.

 

A Drive to the Hinterland

This year’s rental, a Peugeot 208, is small but economical. A petrol sipper makes sense in a country where gas now sells for about $11 a gallon. (Stop your whining Americans. You have the cheapest gas in the world!)

 

The car runs well but is yet another abomination of digital technology, with a constant array of warnings and “suggestions” appearing on a large touch screen. Somehow it can read the changing speed limit and tells you, in no uncertain terms, that you are exceeding it. Other helpful messages: “Stay alert,” while you take your eyes off the road to look at the screen; or “Driver Alert: Take a Break”; or “Toll Ahead.”

In short, the car knows when you’ve been good or bad—so be good for goodness sake.

Frankly, being in Greece, I fully expected the screen to say: “Pull over, have a cigarette and a coffee”; or, “Chill out, it’s siesta time.”

 

Just west of Athens, the highway passes Elefsina (ancient Eleusis), famous for it’s Mysteries; and then modern Megara—a beleaguered city-state of antiquity, still recovering from the slings and arrows of the fifth century bce Peloponnesian War. (Yes, a bit of hyperbole.)

Stuck between the warring parties of Athens and Sparta, the Megarans never had a good day, its male population periodically slaughtered while its women and children were sold into slavery. “Can’t we just get along?” they asked to no avail.

 

The Megarans were faced with a familiar dilemma, one known to readers of contemporary American history: “Either you’re with us, or you’re against us.” Sacked, raped, pillaged, and plundered for twenty-plus years, Megara found itself between the proverbial rock and the hard place: lying astride two evil empires—not so different from today’s geopolitical nightmare. The names of those parties are withheld to protect the … guilty.

 

Passing Corinth’s isthmus, the mighty Peugeot careened into the Peloponnese, the main part of southern Greece that is shaped like an inverted hand, with a thumb (the Argolid) and three fingers (peninsulas). Our region, Messenia, is the peninsula closest to Italy, just to the right of the middle finger—geographically speaking.

The road opens after Corinth onto a first-rate highway that was constructed by German engineers for the 2004 Olympics, passing through a spectacular landscape and a series of small towns and settlements, the last of which, before an enormous mountain range, is Nemea, another city-state from antiquity, famous then and today for its vibrant viniculture. 

 

The road tunnels through a five-thousand foot mountain range, an endeavor that only the Germans could accomplish, with their advanced engineering and construction skills. The entire highway system, in fact, is a marvel to behold. And you pay for it, with about twelve tolls over just 250 kilometers.

Emerging from the tunnel, I passed the tightly wound city of Tripoli, then on to Kalamata, queen city of our prefecture, Messenia. From Kalamata, a series of serpentine side roads lead over yet another mountain. In the distance I can see the Ionian Sea and the red tiles of our roof.

 

Home Sweet Home

 

There is a surreal quality that comes with opening the door of a house that I myself closed up just ten months earlier. In the intervening months, a wide range of insects found their way inside, only to perish. I did find one live scorpion, which I bludgeoned with a broom.

Job one: sweep out all the creepy crawly creatures. Then open the windows, turn on the water, and pray that there are no snakes hiding inside. I checked. Twice.

The results of a winter and spring of persistent heavy rains, followed by sunny days and relatively warm nights, has created a lush, verdant paradise.

It took me just forty-eight hours to begin dreaming in Greek, a sort of linguistic triumph. And the mere fact of driving in Greece builds the foundations for robust cursing and a vigorous vocabulary of insults, “naughty” words, and gesticulations, all of it used to good effect on the broad highway.

 

The Supermarket

About a half hour earlier, I stopped at the Belgium supermarket called Lidl—which, like everything in Greece, is just a “little” too much—and marveled at the groups of Gypsy women stuffing whole chickens down their smocks, while being followed by unarmed security guards wearing bullet-proof vests. Nothing has changed in the past year.

In the final kilometers leading down to the house, I am nearly run off the road by Germans driving Porches and Mercedes, wealthy summer residents who are ardent advocates of the offensive driving method.

In the final kilometers I filled the gas tank at a station that advertised a good price (2.10 euro a liter) but thought twice before asking the attendant to “fill it.” Did I say yemise to (“fill it”) or yamise to (“have sex with my car”)? I am just one letter away from a language meltdown. I believe I uttered correctly, despite myself.

 

Run, Swim, Run. Repeat

 

With the house mostly bug free, I set off for my first run/swim, on a gravel track through the olive groves, then a scramble down a cliffside of loose aggregate.

 

Now I know. I have arrived.