Admittedly, we landed at one in the afternoon, but still, I had just spent several days cycling from morning to dusk in Crete, so even though I was accustomed to a mid-day sun, Gavdos was of another order. 

The island is only ten kilometers long and five kilometers wide which makes it bikeable in its entirety in less than a day.   The heat and hills probably account for why I didn’t see a single biker during my brief three-day sojourn.   Many people walk where they need to go on the well maintained network of paths.   

As of September 2014, Gavdos has no hotels, no banks, no ATMs, no post office, no nightclubs, no full time resident doctors.  There is a heliport.  There is one policeman for the 100 or so residents.  I heard his car siren blare when he picked up his daughter from school.   In the 1930s Communist political prisoners were exiled to Gavdos.

I stayed at Sarakinika, the beautiful beach settlement (it can’t possibly qualify as a village) where visitors can rent a smattering of rooms and eat in about a half dozen tavernas, some with wi-fi.  Most folks like myself camped in tents in the coastal dunes amidst the pines trees and Juniperus shrubs less than a minute’s walk to the sea.  I bathed in a rigged up shower on the beach with no curtains but no matter because nudity doesn’t raise eyebrows.   My second shot at bathing was a bust because there was no water in Sarakinika which I’m told happens regularly. 

As you may have guessed, many of the residents are hippies in retreat.  I met Vasilis whose tall frame and long narrow beard evoked what I imagine Pythagoras to have looked like.  Vasilis has lived on Gavdos in a tent for fifteen months.  I guess he has had a full social calendar because he hasn’t even made it to Trypiti yet, which was the highlight of my visit.  I met Antonio from Portugal who epitomized the permanent nomad with his tattoo sleeve and plugs in both ears the size of a one euro coin.   His purpose in life seemed to be moving from one outdoor summer music festival to the next. 

I wanted to sit on The Throne in Trypiti.  This beach is the most southern point on Gavdos island.   Where the gravel road stops is a path that takes thirty minutes walk downhill to reach Trypiti.  At the beach’s most southern tip is a giant chair that faces north towards Europe.  The local Russians built the chair and made the path.  Their small community began with a nuclear physicist fleeing Chernobyl.  They are scientifically attuned to ecological ways to live and they trade their skills for food and other needs.   The locals appreciate them and their presence adds to the mystique and allure of Gavdos. 

You’ve really got to have a low footprint to visit Gavdos.   This is not a place for those expecting mints on their pillow, a pile of ice cubes for your ouzo or to buy a new pair of sunglasses.  Gavdos is raw.    It is a place where the nymph Kalypso is said to have imprisoned the shipwrecked Odysseus holding him as her lover.   I suspect Gavdos has had its share of modern-day Kalypso and Odysseus wannabes. 

By Colleen McGuire
Managing Director of cyclegreece.gr

It is the structure’s Cycladic-inspired architecture, combined with Punta Ballena’s amazing sunset view that makes it look like a small village on the island of Santorini in Greece.

The structure that is a short 15-minute drive from Punta del Este, was built by the famous Uruguayan artist Carlos Páez Vilaró. Today, it is a museum, art gallery, and hotel that welcomes thousands of visitors every year.

This complex looks like nothing else in South America. As you explore the winding cave-like corridors containing artifacts and unusual lighting, it gives you a mysterious feeling — and getting lost here is an entertaining experience. There are no room numbers on doors, since the hand-painted tiles on your key match your door tiles — each room is different.

To read more, please visit greekreporter.com

By Anastasios Papapostolou

Greek cuisine is humble and simple, with a focus on fresh, healthy, and tasty ingredients, including vegetables and herbs, and that applies both to light and heartier dishes.

Since it is rather cold outside, here is a small list of traditional Greek winter staple dishes you should definitely try!



Fasolada


@toxwrioudaki

Fasolada is a traditional Greek bean soup – a very easy-to-make vegetarian recipe. This thick soup is traditionally made with white beans cooked with olive oil, onions, carrots, tomatoes, and celery. An all-time classic Greek winter staple, perfect for warming the body!

Meatball Soup - Giouvarlakia


@aikaterineapostolake

Another Greek comfort food, giouvarlakia is the ideal dish to keep you warm. It's a tasty meatball soup finished off with the infamous egg-lemon sauce (avgolemono) and complemented with vegetables of your liking. If you want to experiment a little bit, you can also try out the alternative version with tomato sauce. 

Spetsofai 


@agnomarket_meat

Yet another wintertime favorite, Spetsofai is a traditional dish originating from Pelion, the scenic mountain village of Thessaly. Made with country sausages and peppers cooked in a thick tomato sauce, this delicious dish is perfectly paired with feta cheese and a slice of bread to dip in the sauce. Eggplants are used in the original recipe, and in some areas, hot paprika and red hot chili peppers are used instead of ordinary peppers. It's a must-try, regardless of which version you make.

Chicken Soup - Kotosoupa


@olivemagazine_gr

Kotosoupa avgolemono (chicken soup with egg-lemon sauce), another Greek winter classic, is commonly served on cold days. It's very easy to cook; it's just chicken soup with rice and a lot of egg-lemon sauce. Not to mention that it is also used as a remedy to treat the common cold!

Nonetheless, fun energy being as contagious as it is, all thoughts of boycott leave my mind the moment we step out.

We headed for Psirri around 9:30pm to find a place for dinner. The streets seemed to be deserted, and I thought, "Crisis has kept people at home."  Not true! It seems we were about 30mins too early.  Each restaurant we checked was either already full, or booked up solid for the evening - even with ?45-55 price tags for dinner. We eventually found a table at a nice-ish place, with live music and a ?45 price tag.

After midnight struck, and we made our wishes for 2014, we paid our bill and left to our next destination.

For those who have not done New Years Eve in Athens, all the action happens well after midnight. Many places don't even open until 12:30. By this time, the city was positively hopping with people!

We had frantically bought last-minute tickets to a live music show at Gazarte in Gazi. The line-up was Penny & The Swingin Cats with The Great Big Band. The place quickly filled up around 1:00am, and the show was great - big band standards, rock'n'roll, and even some of their original stuff. I really enjoyed them - great vocals, great energy, lots of fun.  Look out for their upcoming gigs!

I decided not to make any new year resolutions this year. Since I'm still working on last year's resolutions (not to mention 2012 and some of 2011), I figured I'd give it a rest for 2014. I'm just happy seeing oranges growing on the trees in January! The rest will be a bonus ;)

I hope this year brings smiles and laughter and lots of sunny days to everyone out there! Καλή χρονιά σε όλους!

Until next week,

Jack

In this weekly space, keep up with ‘Jack’ as he navigates daily life in Athens… Anecdotes, stories, hits & misses, the good, the bad and, well, the rest…

Strategic since antiquity, in 1579 the Venetians erected a gargantuan fortress befitting of their superpower status, and indeed, its protectors defied Turkish conquest for several decades longer than any other Cretan garrison.  The fort finally fell to Ottoman rule in 1715. 

On a warm October day our cozy group of four Americans and four Greeks planned to kayak over to Spinalonga Island.  From there, we would head down its bay, a short portage, then down Poros Bay to Agio Nikolaos.  At most, the trip was fifteen kilometers.

From Plaka, a local fisherman can probably make the voyage to Spinalonga Island in about twenty minutes.  It took my best friend Pia and me about two hours.

Pia and I had never kayaked.  Our initial hour was spent on land just trying to get a grasp of this sport and its paraphernalia.  We donned life jackets, colorful wetsuits and learned how to put on a “kayak skirt.”  This is a sturdy cloth worn around your waist: when seated in your kayak, you attach the skirt’s hem to the open perimeter of your seat so that water doesn’t enter the boat.  Next were some rudimentary rowing lessons.  We sat on the beach, pretending we were at sea, and went through the motions of manipulating the paddles. 

Pia and I reasoned that, being first-time kayakers, we should operate the two-seater.  Wrong. We didn’t know when to paddle, how to coordinate our rowing or even which direction to face when a strong wind blew.  Not but fifteen minutes after setting out to sea, one moment we were dry, the next moment we were wet.   The boat capsized so suddenly we didn’t even have a chance to shout the proverbial “Man Overboard!”   Sobered by the incident, we took our friends’ advice and got our own kayaks, and discovered that individual navigation was superior to teamwork, at least when the team was clueless in the art of kayaking. 

When we arrived to Spinalonga Island some of us were quite wet and all of us looked a little goofy in our loudly colored kayak mini-skirts. The tourists stared, mostly at Miltos.  While our skirts laid flat, his undulated with a flamboyant pink hem akin to an Argentine tango costume that got shrunk at the cleaners.  For some reason, he kept it on during our entire visit to Spinalonga which prompted endless guffawing. 

After Crete formally united with Greece in 1913, Spinalonga became a leper colony and remained so until 1957.  The island is larger than expected when you peer at it from the Crete mainland. One can easily spend several hours strolling its pathways and perimeters. The elegant Venetian architecture—curved arched portals, for example—contributes to Spinalonga’s beauty, yet a haunting feeling pervades,perhaps attributable to the cemetery whose open graves bear the assumingly impaired bones of the prior inhabitants. 

My afternoon kayaking was far more successful once I got the hang of it. And the disappearance of the winds helped appreciably.  Our group soared along pretty much all together instead of scattered leagues apart as we had been during the morning. The scenery in Spinalonga Bay is breathtakingly spectacular -- mountains in the distance on a blinding shiny blue sea devoid of any other seafarers except the eight of us.  The rock cliffs on the coast mesmerized me: they were wavy, in layers, like slabs of thick uncooked bacon stacked on top of one another, truly of postcard caliber.  One area we paddled to was peculiar as it felt sheltered like inside a cave but actually we were in an open area on the sea. 

If you are inclined towards a little physical activity while vacationing, I heartily recommend sea kayaking in Spinalonga Bay.  Beginners can complete the journey from Plaka to Agio Nikalao, with a pit stop on the island, easily in one day.  By the end of your adventure, you will feel exhilarated by the aquatic workout and gain yet another reason to place Crete high on your list of magnificent Mediterranean islands. 

By Colleen McGuire

Managing Director of cyclegreece.gr