Fresh wind
Santorini,
Greece
Monday, May 19, 2008
Breakfast on the terrace of Mill Houses is served by the Albanian bartender/bell hop/waiter. It is the same each day. One hardboiled egg, a glass of orange juice, a bowl of thick Greek yogurt that's even better with a little honey, a basket of rolls and cheese and spinach stuffed pastries and a small pot of coffee. There are only 6 or 7 rooms here and am now the tenant of longest standing and the only single occupant. Couples here from Britain, Japan and Italy. A British girl was reading a book called "God on Hold" one afternoon by the pool. "What's 'God on Hold' about?" "It's a Christian novel. It's about unanswered prayers." "Aren't they all?" She shrugged and went back to reading, ending our little literary salon.
A fresh southerly wind is blowing hard enough to snatch napkins off the tables on the terrace. They flutter down toward the see like moths. The wind whistles through the power lines. Walking into Fira, the sun feels warm against my skin but the wind keeps the day's heat at bay. I head down to the bus station again, with the idea of going to Kamari on the flat eastern shore. From there you can hike up to what's left of the ancient city of Thira atop a volcanic headland.
But, there are no buses to be had today. Drivers are on strike. No idea when service will resume. I'll try again tomorrow.
I spend a couple of hours in an exhibit of Minoan wall paintings from the ruins of the city of Akrotiri. Rent by earthquakes and buried in volcanic ash, it had been abandoned 3500 years ago. The complete lack of any human remains suggests it was evacuated when things got hairy.
It was a city of two and three-story homes. It even had a sewer system of clay pipes. The Minoans decorated the interior walls of their homes and public buildings with colorful frescoes of astonishing complexity and beauty. The life-size reproductions on view here are high-resolution photos printed on stone.
One of the fashions of the time had young men and women shaving their heads, leaving one or two long locks, and painting their scalps blue. Women painted their lips and ears red. The wealthy wore saffron-colored robes and jewelry. Some of the frescoes are detailed paintings of their ships and represent various voyages around the southern Aegean. Others show antelopes, monkeys, calves, swallows, palm trees and other island flora. It's thought they were painted by teams of itinerant artists who traveled throughout the kingdom. The figures of people are lithe and graceful with over-sized eyes. It's all a bit like something out of a fairy tale or myth. Such sophistication in the Bronze Age. What happened? Santorini blew up 1500 years or so ago and that pretty well ended the Minoan era. A sudden presence of weapons in the excavations after that time suggest that Crete and the Minoan kingdoms were conquered by the Greeks.
Back in the present, I finally take the cable car down to the harbor. The wind makes the cars tremble and swing as they glide straight down the cliff toward the narrow shore and wharf below. Not much to see when you get to the bottom -- sea taxis dropping off more cruise passengers, tour boats, and a few yachts anchored off shore. The single street along the wharf is lined with more souvenir shops and small cafes. From here a cobblestone path zig zags up the cliff. It's 580 steps to the top. I think about walking it back to Fira, but not for very long. You can pay 5 euros for a donkey ride up the steps, but that doesn't appeal to me any more than it does to the donkey, I image. So the cable car it is.
I eat a plate of mushrooms sauteed in garlic and olive oil and wash it down with a mug of cold beer. Then I find a bench overlooking the crater and spend a breezy hour or two with my book and to watch the wind kick up the chop across the water below.
