Loch Ness Blog

From Truly

Only a short time ago, I was wrapped up in ocean, taking blissful respite in Neptune’s playground after hiking, biking and exploring under Apollo’s unrelenting yellow eye. The Grecian sun is like no other; it thawed the Scottish chill that had settled in my bones, it bleached white stripes into my hair and made me press cold, sweating cans of Mythos beer to my tanned forehead and flushed cheeks. It was the first true warmth that I’d felt in a year and I nearly cried to feel it again; Scotland is grand, but don’t come here for the weather – when it’s not chilly, it’s damp and usually, it’s both. There is a reason why Brits flock to Greece for their holidays and for 15 days this August, Shaun and I joined them to fuel up on the glorious heat of the Mediterranean.

We spent five days on the isle of Crete before boarding the ferry to take us to Milos, an island in the Cyclades. After five days in Milos, we were on the ferry yet again to end our trip in Athens.

Our first full day on Crete found us hiring bikes for the day. We rode from village to village, experiencing the island’s mountains in a way that pushed our muscles to the limit, but that revealed more than a bus ride ever could. My memories of that ride are ground-level.

I remember a fat little boy in Spiderman underwear meandering out of his farm’s driveway on a rusty red bike, “Hello!” he shouted in English, his chubby arm waving. “Herete!” I shouted back in Greek. I remember a wiry, fedora-wearing old man at rest; he sat in a straight-backed chair beside his whitewashed home, sighing beneath trellises dripping with purple grapes. I remember stray cats and abandoned things. I remember the otherworldly feeling of Minoan ruins beneath my palms. I remember sun and heat and salt and thirst and the exact incline of the mountains. I remember red earth becoming pink dust.

These photos are from our day on bikes:

I saw this car and loved how it looked: the hulking, ruinous rust trimming the car’s prissy baby blue; the tragic, dour-faced grill.

Boat at Malia, a town that played host to the depressingly misguided Miss Wet T-Shirt Europa event earlier in 2007. There are people in this world who travel to this beautiful, history-rich island just to parade their boobs around in damp cotton. Could they not all leave a smaller carbon footprint and just put out a sprinkler at home? Sigh.

These snails are feelin’ the heat and seek comfort in the cool, moist hollows of the island’s spiky plants.

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This is the Malia Palace. It was the first ruin that we visited and everything - every little thing - was fresh to our eyes; it was incredible. The bronze age ruins at times look like incomprehensible rubble, only to transform into something so specific once you turn the next corner: a pillar, a massive urn, a fireplace, a bath. Standing in the palace court and facing the kingdom inspires a true feeling; you can feel the place pushing up before you, you become a queen commanding her army, the priestess conducting sacrifice. Echoes of history are underfoot, an unimaginable past becomes tangible.

A sacrifice alter. Bring in the bull!

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The beautiful village, Sissi.

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The sleepy village of Milatos.

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We rode on and on the whole day through, until our bikes were due back at 8pm. And then we were ready to shower up and go out for a slurp. Like any proper tourist to a warm, balmy island, we got drinks that looked like this:

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Shaun with drinks monkeys.

The only umbrella you’ll ever need in Crete.

The next day found us exploring an great, photo-inspiring family-run traditional Cretan museum by the sea called the Lychnostatis Heimat Museum.

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Day three, we rented a car and cruised the crazy roads of Crete. I got to drive on the right again and I remembered to stay on my side 99% of the time.

Over the course of the day, we drove around the Lassithi Plateau. Watching Crete unfold was incredible; on the winding mountain road, we passed impossibly ancient men and women, shrouded in black and astride sleepy eyed donkeys saddled with brittle bundles of hay. We bought honey, plums, and homemade wine from a hunkered bundle of grandma who’d set up shop along the side of the road. Everything was delicious and left us drenched in gratitude.

Our first true stop of the day was the village of Neapoli, where we were given a private tour of the town’s folk museum by an incredible 19-year old lassie named Helen, who was eager to practice her English and excited to meet Americans.

Helen’s excitement (as well as that of many other Greeks that we had the pleasure of meeting during our stay) over our nationality is a rarity in world travel and is caused by unfair stereotyping that just so happened to work in our favor. You see, it is typically young English people that visit Crete, and like many young misguided holiday makers to warm places, no matter what their nationality, loads of these Brits are only there to get warm, get wasted, and get laid. Thusly, instead of Greeks viewing us as citizens of the world are usually inclined to (just another pair of gun-toting American ignoramuses), our Midwestern accents simply meant, “thank God - they’re not British!” Sad, but true: it was the first time in a year that I didn’t cringe at the hard ‘a’ and brassy nasality of my own accent.

Anyhow, Helen’s hospitality was great and between all three of us fishing for the right word in English, the tour was magnificent. This is a photo of a Greek Orthodox relic in her museum. Greek Orthodox religious art is simply dripping with drama: I loved it! The rest of the relic photographed below depicted a crucified Christ, surrounded by beckoning, reaching angels from above and villainous fire, raging dragons, and wicked skulls below. Now that is drama!

Rar!

Our next stop was the Diktaean Cave, the cool hollow where Zeus was born and nursed to boyhood by a goat. We were excited to ride donkeys up the the steep trail leading the the cave’s mouth, but once we found out that a trip on the four-legged lovelies would cost us 15 euros, we decided just to pet the beasts and use our own muscle power to get to the cave. And I’m glad we did. The scrabble up the mountain was fun and not at all hard, save for the slippery bits; the trail is so well-traveled that the rocks have smoothed dangerously over the years. Plus, after working up a bit of sweat, the cool emanating from the mouth of the cave at hike’s end felt all the better.

The cave itself felt really sacred, like it was just wrong to take pictures of the earth’s insides. The damp, moss slicked walls exhaled calm, quiet thoughts. The earth’s moisture plipped and plopped from gnarled stalactites, scoring the underworld ballroom with contemplative song. In a shallow pool towards the back, Shaun and I left Zeus a two pence coin and asked for our transitions in life to be blessed. We also thanked the goat for all that time she spent nursing the god when he was a wean.

“Thank you goat!”

View from the cave.

After the cave, late afternoon found us in Karfi, where we pulled over to revel in the very campy Homo Sapiens Museum before taking a vigorous 1-hour hike straight up a mountain to see some more Minoan settlement ruins.

With a sign like this, how could we resist?

Man’s first dog. Ha!

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Where once Bronze Age Minoans took their last refuge from Mycenaeans, a rubble labyrinth now lays at Karfi. Goats and stray tourists like us trot through their old basements, trying to make sense of the baffling fact that someday our basements will be rummaged through in the same way probably. Well, the tourists try to make sense of that anyhow - I think the goats are just there for the grass.

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After our hike, on our drive back to our hotel that evening, we stumbled across this mammoth tree in a no-name town just outside of Karfi. If you ever find yourself in that area of the world, try to seek it out. The tree canopied a tiny loving restaurant, which sat opposite of a still-operating aqueduct.

My beautiful husband.

Day four found us relaxing in the quiet fishing village of Mochlos after exploring Gournia, a famed archaeological site.

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Behind this chica in the cute swim suit (purchased on sale from www.figleaves.com - the bathing costume, not the chica), is the island of Mochlos. In Minoan times, this island was a part of an isthmus, but the water level was two meters lower then. Now, only the strongest swimmer could reach it through the ocean’s vicious waves, but you can plainly see the ruins from the fishing village, along with caves and sea salt crusted crags that shape the beautiful island.

We spent a good chunk of the day throwing ourselves into the waves at Mochlos, laughing and spitting out seawater, until Shaun sunk his hand into a sea urchin. Twice. Freaked by the realization that we were swimming with many spiky things (no wonder this beach was so empty!), we squealed our way back to shore to sprawl on the rocks like beached mer-folk. The shore was not sandy, but rather a landscape of smooth stones punctuated by large, jutting boulders. The ocean’s pulling and pushing of the stones, the clicking clanking lullaby, soothed us into what was the gentlest nap of my life.

Soon it was time to leave Crete and hop aboard a ferry to the isle of Milos. We were drawn to this island after reading that it was riddled with crazy rock formations, sculpted by volcanic activity on the island. I also liked the fact that the island is the birthplace of the famed sculpture Venus de Milo, before a sneaky Frenchmen stole it to gift to King Lois XVII (this is why I met the lovely Venus at the Louvre when we were in Paris earlier this year).

We spent our days in Milos hiking from crazy beach to crazy beach. The one below is called Papafrangos. Situated next to some rambling Dorian ruins, the beach is a deep ravine cut into the cliffs and filled with ocean; careful trying to scale the sandy, slippy path down!

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Our swim at Papafrangos was unforgettable. Venturing into the deep - and it got really deep really quick - we swam into a dark and haunted cave, where the tentacles of a 50 foot octopus awaited our nervous swimming ankles. We swam through rocky passageways, we floated on our backs, buoyant and salty and laughing at the killer octopus and other invented tales of the deep.

Aside from haunted sea caves, Milos is home to Roman theater ruins in the town of Tripiti. Standing in the theater center, a feeling washed over me, slicing through the heat of the day and sending a shock of goosebumps down my spine. The feeling was one of power, of ovation, of absolute dignity; the feeling was the soul of the theater, articulated here as best as language will allow. The most haunted of all the ruins we visited, the theater at Tripiti was both Shaun and my favorite ruin in Greece.

Tripiti is also home to some of the oldest Christian catacombs in the world. The hollows look nearly natural on this sulfuric island full of funky shapes and formations; the insides are cool and butter colored. The catacombs seem less a place of bodies and bones and more a place of cheerful sanctuary. I was happy to kick back in their shade after our sweaty day of hiking, letting my eyes and hands explore the rough smooth stones.

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Another incredible beach that we explored was at Sarakiniko. Here, the wind has whipped the sulfuric stone into petrified cliffs and valleys; if it weren’t for the scrubby green bushes admirably growing here and there, you might mistake Sarakiniko for the surface of the moon.

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Milos’ neighboring island, Kimolos, is just a cheap, 45 minute ferry ride away from the town we were staying at, Pollonia. We spent a day exploring the castle ruins and archaeological museum at Kimolos.

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Strangely, the modern buildings of Kimolos were built right on the site of the castle ruins, giving the place the depressing air of a war zone.

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The food at Milos was the best we were served in Greece. The local cheese was absolutely delectable (did you know feta could be so creamy?! To hell with those crap supermarket crumbles!) and the seafood was heaven. While we usually cooked our own meals in our self-catering lodgings to save money, we lived it up one evening and I devoured a fleshy crab smothered in local cheese with a side of briny spinach, washed down with a pint of icy cold lager. Savored outdoors, beneath glowing lanterns, accompanied by the ocean’s rhythmic swish and my husband’s loving gaze, it was easily the best meal I’ve ever had in my life.

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While all of my dining experiences in Milos were heaven, Shaun had a rather strange one when faced with eating this plate full of fish with eyes. Fish with EYES! We had a good laugh over it, but I’m not sure how hard Shaun was laughing when he had to deal with having a stomach full of fish with eyes on the ferry ride to Athens; he ate this watchful dish only an hour or two before boarding.

For those of you who were tuned into world events in August, you might have heard about the devastating fires that rip roared across Greece, devouring more than half the mainland and requiring fire fighters from all across the EU to fight it. We were in the middle of the ocean, aboard a ferry headed towards Athens, when the fires broke out on Friday, August 24. We watched them blazing from the ferry bar television; we choked on the quarter-sized chunks of ash when we docked at the capital city.

It is such a strange feeling to be in someone else’s country in the midst of their national emergency. You just feel so in the way and useless: I mean, how appropriate is it to check in about bus schedules to Delphi when the city is surrounded by flames? Not very. Armed guards marched through the city in riot gear, as many of the fires spreading across the country were a result of arson and the city was on high alert. By 4pm on Saturday, the sky was a mythical shade of purple, the sun an angry red squint. Despite the toxicity and sadness, we explored the city’s ruins which stood majestic and unphased by this blip in time, this puny human present.

We had an incredible time in Athens, nonetheless, soaking up as much of the place as our lungs could handle.

These are not the aforementioned armed guards tasked with protecting the streets of Athens from freakish arsonists. No - these dudes are all dressed up and guarding a tomb at Parliament. I dig their shoes.

Zeus’ temple.

Can’t you just imagine this as Shaun’s first book jacket photo?

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Neptune! We meet at last at the Acropolis!

Athena’s temple. Did you know that in addition to being strong and wise, Athena can turn into an owl? Fabulous!

More pillars should be ladies.

Saturday, we spent nearly the entire day wandering through the halls of Athens’ National Archaeological Museum, meeting massive statues of famed (and forgotten) gods and goddesses, pouring over gold death masks, beads, and tools. It was incredible.

And who is this sexy, pouting young man? Why it’s Antinoüs, of course! The Roman Emporer Hadrien (you know - the dude who’s got the wall between England and Scotland and various monuments all over the Europe) fell in head over heels in love with him; the two were best friends and lovers until poor Antinoüs met his fate in the river Nilus. Grief struck, Hadrien had sculptures of his lover erected throughout Athens. True love never dies. Especially not when you’ve got the world’s sculptors at your command to commemorate it.

Zeus rockin’ the toga, getting ready to toss someone a lightening bolt.

The clear, beautiful face of Athena.

Ever wondered what the hand of God actually looks like? Well, here’s Zeus’. Big and…manicured! Cleanliness is Godliness!

Out of all the amazing things in the National Archaeological Museum, this little bronze deer statue was my favorite. I like the ferocity with which such a stout little animal is depicted; the deer’s brows are furrowed and its nostrils are flared. I just don’t think I’ve ever seen an angry deer in art before. Were deers possibly bigger and badder back in Mycenean times? Did they just stand around and scowl? I wonder how our depictions of life on earth will look to our planet’s inhabitants 3,600 years into the future; what scary things to us will have tamed over time for them?

During our stay in Athens, we also took in an incredible exhibition of contemporary photography and video art, Her(his)tory, at the Museum of Cycladic Art. The exhibition was curated with such thought and precision, integrating modern mediums seamlessly into the neoclassical space of the museum. Work by contemporary video art regulars such as Bruce Nauman, Doug Aitken and Aernout Mik were featured, but it was the work of an artist who was new to me that I found truly arresting. Isaac Julien’s 2006 video True North left me breathless.

The film was a stunning short narrative about the first man who made it to the north pole, an African American named Matthew Henson, but who never got the accolades he was due on account of his race. The brutality of the landscape made the Arctic a character onto itself and the casting of Matthew Henson’s character as a woman threw all sorts of subversive questions about inequality into the mix, as well as comments about the parallels between gender politics and racial discrimination.

I only throw this little mini-review in here, not just because experiencing this exhibition was how we spent one of my favorite mornings in Greece, but because Her(his)tory is touring, so if you are lucky enough to have it come to a contemporary art museum near you: go see it. Even if you think, “oh, contemporary art is weird,” or more probably, “what the hell is contemporary art, anyhow?”, just go see it. You will leave feeling alive with thought, you will leave it asking questions, sparking conversations. You will like it - promise.

As amazing as Greece was, at the end of our journey, we were as ready as we’d ever be to come home. Real home this time. We say our goodbyes to Scotland this week, and by Sunday, September 23 we’ll be stateside once again. Adio, Greece; See yis later, Scotland. It’s been real.