Milos

Our trips tend to develop kind of organically.

Over the past months we had been trying to figure out where to spend some relaxing time in Europe before visiting Anthea’s friends and family in Ireland.

We are both used to relaxing on warm tropical beaches in Southeast Asia.  It’s cheaper out there than North America or Europe, the weather is nice, and the water’s nice and warm.

We had kicked around the idea of Greece, but neither of us knew much about it. We knew they have been having economic problems and the Syrian refugee crisis has been especially rough this year. We knew Greeks could use the business, but could we really feel ok having a vacation in the midst of such tragedy?

I consulted with some friends who knew more than I did about the political climate and everyone said, “Go!”. It will be fine, and they really need visitors.

But we still didn’t know how to choose a destination. There are well known islands like Santorini, but we generally don’t enjoy destinations with crowds of tourists.

We heard good reviews of Naxos and Paxos, but it wasn’t clear from looking at the web what the atmosphere was really like there.

It can also be kind of tough to do research online because Greece still uses the Greek alphabet, so there is often no universal way to spell words using the English alphabet. Frequently there are three or more common spellings of the same word or place name.

Fortunately, just when we really needed some guidance, Anthea met a Greek man who seemed to have similar sensibilities to ours. He suggested we go to Milos, a little known quiet island in the Aegean Sea southeast of the mainland.

We started looking for information but, as usual, there wasn’t much. We learned that, although the island has an airport, there are only a couple of very small planes that fly there every day - maybe not even every day. There is ferry service from Athens, but it’s a long slow ride in most cases.

This had all the makings of a nice quiet place.

We did some research and booked a little boutique hotel called Kapetan Tasos in the small fishing town of Pollonia that is known for its tasty seafood restaurants. Then we just smiled and crossed our fingers.

As we took the short thirty minute flight from Athens, we both looked down over the desert-like landscape and wondered if we had made a mistake. We had intentionally chosen this more arid environment, mostly void of green vegetation, over the southern coast of Italy, because we imagined it would be more relaxed. But looking at the beaches from above, it seemed like the sun was bright and hot and there wasn’t much shade to be seen.

We landed at the tiny airstrip and the airplane pulled right up to the door of the single small building. We ambled off into the empty terminal, picked up our bags and approached one of the three taxis waiting outside.

The very laid back and big-boned woman taxi driver knew our hotel and brought us straight there for a flat fee. Along the way, we were mostly alone on the road. There are only a few roads on the island, and most of the time they are empty except for the occasional car or tourist on a rented motorbike.

At the hotel we were met with an empty reception. Apparently they close for the afternoon, but within a few minutes the friendly hostess/manager arrived, apologized for our wait and brought us directly to our room without any check in formalities. She was more concerned that we relax and freshen up. With her limited English, she assured us we could take care of all that later.

Our room was lovely, comfortable, and stylish. We had a view from our patio to the deep blue Aegean Sea about a hundred yards away. There was a quiet beach there. We could have probably stayed in Pollonia the whole time we were there. The town itself is comfortable and charming (here is some arial footage). But we wanted to explore the island a bit.

Over the next few days, we rented a motorbike and followed a tourist map to several suggested beach locations.

Each stop had slightly different feel.

Firiplaka Beach was popular. It had a cool little beach bar playing lounge music and some shady thatch beach umbrellas dotting the long sandy beach with warm shallow water.

Firopotamos Beach was a small pebbly beach shared with about ten one-room fisherman shacks that seemed to have been upgraded to cool little vacation homes. Each was built above a tiny garage door right on the water to store a small boat.

Sarakiniko Beach looked like a different world. It was a system of what seemed like white sand dunes that have petrified into powdery contoured cliffs. There was a camera crew there filming a low-budget reality show called Global Games. Apparently there had been some kind of competition there earlier that day and they were having their award ceremony. It was certainly one of the more picturesque places on the island.

Aghia Kiriaki Beach was on one of the furthest reaches you can reach by paved road. There are other more remote beaches, but you need an easily available all-terrain vehicle to reach those. Because of the longer distance there were hardly any people on this long lonely beach, and so folks seemed to feel a bit more comfortable shedding a few more clothes.

Even though we had been concerned about the shade situation, every beach always had some kind of shade - either from a small shady desert tree or from a local who was willing to rent you a shaded chair for a few Euro and sell you some refreshing drinks to boot.

There are something like seventy beaches on the island. We only made a small dent in the number we could have have visited had we been more ambitious.

There are a few small towns we passed through from place to place. I wasn’t expecting much from the towns, but some of them were quite cool. All of them adhered to the stereotypical greek island architecture with their white stucco and blue window panes.

On the way to visit Klima, the ancient Greek town ruin with an ancient theatre where the Venus de Milo was discovered, we passed through Trypiti, a miniature town hanging off the side of a tall cliffside above the sea. The adorable town was a series of winding cobble stone roads and little cafes with tables overlooking the water. 

Adamantas is the main ferry port for the island. It has lots of tiny shops and restaurants for tourists. It is also home to a hot springs and thermal bath spa once mentioned by Hippocrates in one his medical texts. We had to check it out. I never miss an opportunity to visit local hot springs. The one woman who ran it was a little bit peculiar, but we definitely came out relaxed and refreshed after some steam rooms, a water massage, and the warm mineral baths heated by the volcanic island innards.

We mostly ate meals in Pollonia. Neither of us was too sure what to expect from small town greek restaurants, but we were never disappointed. Judging by the busy fishing boats and the daily specials, the seafood was clearly very fresh. They seemed to specialize in a local flavor of delicious fish soup and we also saw some locally caught squid and octopus specials. But there was also a wealth of other varieties of fish, muscles, and grilled shrimp.

The suggestion with most meals was to start with bread and some kind of spread like tzatziki, hummus, or fava bean mash. Every restaurant also seemed to provide cheap carafes of local wine.

By the end of our trip, it became clear that, at least here on the island (but maybe in all of Greece), it is customary to bring you more than you ordered.

Every time we felt full and satisfied and asked for our bill, they would bring something else to eat or drink first. Sometimes it would be a digestif drink. Sometimes it would be some cold sweet yogurt with fruit. Sometimes it would be a pastry. But there was always something - without fail.

The generosity did not end with food though. The friendliness and hospitality consistently went above and beyond our expectations at every step. It also didn’t seem like obsequious pandering to tourists. It seemed to be cultural. They are just nice.

When I rode my motorbike to the hotel to pick up our backpacks, before I could park the bike, the woman at the desk ran up the stairs smiling and carrying my pack.

The guys who rented us our motorbike offered to give us a ride to the ferry port all the way across the island so we didn’t have to take a taxi. Our driver wouldn’t accept any money or any tip after the ride. He just laughed and said, “No, no! You are good people! But no!”

Milos was just the kind of easy going experience we were hoping for and satisfied all of our needs for the week. It also gave us our first taste of Greek culture which left a very warm impression with us both.

Rome

As a kid in school I never cared that much about history.

It was a subject that, in my mind, mainly just required a lot of rote memorization of facts and dates. Who really cares what happened a long time ago anyway?

Maybe my attitude was partially due to the fact that I grew up in California, a place where the oldest things you'll see are from the late seventeen hundreds at best.

As an adult I've become much more interested in history. Each time I travel to a new country, it sparks an interest in learning more about the place and how it came to be the way it is.

When Anthea and I decided to visit Rome this year, the decision was influenced more by the fact that she used to live there and knew some people, she speaks some Italian, and loves the city - than by any particular aspect of Rome itself.

Until we got here, it was just another interesting stop on our summer trip. I wasn't even really giving much thought to the must-see sights on offer in Rome such as The Vatican and The Colosseum.

At first I was more interested in the people and the food.  The only things I had on my personal to-do list for the four days we had there were some restaurant tips we had gathered from a culinary TV show.

But after our first breakfast, a traditional quick stop for pastry and cappuccino, Anthea suggested we go check out the ancient ruins.

At first I felt uneasy about the throngs of tourists and touts lining the area around the Colosseum and Forum - and I wasn't thrilled about standing in line to get in.  But once inside The Forum, my historic interest began to pique. Reading plaques scattered around the Forum whet my appetite, and eventually led me on a beeline for the Palatine Hill museum.

There it began to sink in just how old this place actually is, and how much of human society began here.  In fact, the very place I was standing was the etymological root of the word palace. In other words, this was the first one.

The museum's history worked backward even from the empire, republic, and monarchy days further into pre-history - before there was even written language to record it - arguably up to 11,000 years before any of the 600 BC ruins we could plainly see.

Ok. This city is far older than I thought.

Now as we walked through the main part of town, one by one, another Rome-originated food item would register with me mentally.  Roma tomatoes, Romano cheese, Romaine lettuce, Romanesco. Right, right.

As you walk around the central part of the city, normal life is happening everywhere. There are apartment buildings and offices, and people going about their day. But around every corner there seems to be something very very old - like an old temple or theatre. Something that, if it were any other place, would be the central historic monument.  But here in Rome, they are scattered all over town.

The one sight that really humbled me the most was The Pantheon.  It would have been your run of the mill nice old building with a giant ornate dome. It had the impressive feel of a much more modern building - only this one was built in 128 AD. Normally buildings this old are ruins so it's tough to get a feel for what they were like originally.

All I could think while looking around the impressive interior was, "They could do this back then?" Clearly my understanding of what was possible was flat wrong.

The whole experience re-sparked my interest in ancient civilization and architecture.

Returning to modern times, we continued our food tour over the next few days.

We ate delicious modern takes on pizza at Bonci and Emma pizzerias. We stumbled upon a charming place called Taverna de Mercanti while wandering the medieval alleyways near the Tibor river. There we tried the cacio e pepe, a deliciously simple Roman pasta dish.  We ventured out to the Pigneto neighborhood so I could get my hands on some quality porchetta, which is basically a lovely warm pile of sliced roasted pork.

But the most authentic evening of our stay was a dinner we had with four of Anthea's Roman friends she knew from the year she lived in Rome back in the 90's.

Sometimes when I travel to a new place, I go there with preconceived notions in my mind of how it will be - sometimes placed there from images from movies and television. Normally, those stereotypes give way to the reality of a place and I end up with new understanding and brand new stereotypes.

But not this evening. There was one moment while eating with Anthea's friends at an outdoor table where I felt like I was sitting on the set of a Hollywood movie about Italy.

Four of us sat at an outdoor table at Maccheroni, a small restaurant in a narrow cobble stone alley and waited for a few others to join. Apparently it's normal to be somewhat late for social occasions, and while we waited, one of the locals took the lead and ordered wine and antipasti - an abundance of cured meats, a variety of cheese, and warm bread.

Italian nightlife meandered by our table - little motorbikes and tiny cars squeezed by; a Roman priest in a grey suit and white collar; then an actual accordion player walked up playing music from The Godfather as the full moon peeked over one of the neighboring ivy covered buildings.  Then all four of the local Romans ordered cacio e pepe as their entrée.

I had a moment where I had to stop and blink hard and make sure I was really sitting there and this was really happening. I laughed to myself, pointed it all out to Anthea, and enjoyed the moment.