Plan B (for Beautiful)

We arrived in Kotor to find that all our Montenegrin plans had been ruined.  We'd dreamed of laying out on the beach all day and going home to our rental apartment with a watermelon tucked under our arm and bags of fresh veggies in our hands.   In five days, we've made a total of one salad and not spent a minute lying out on the small pebble beach.  We've been too busy hiking around, doused in sun block and eating excellent restaurant meals, doused in olive oil.   Kotor isn't your normal Adriatic resort town.  It has neither sand nor swarms of sunbathers.  Its water is just one element of its magnificent setting and dropping yourselves into it like coins in a fountain is far from the only activity available. We feel lucky to have landed here.

As if the castle walls and ancient caravan trail zig-zagging up the mountainside weren't picturesque enough, the seaside fortifications enclose one the best preserved medieval old towns on the Adriatic.  Kotor's Stari Grad ('Old Town') is a maze of marble paved lanes and Venetian architecture. You walk down the narrow streets, which run around and into each other, feeling air conditioner breezes from boutiques and being shot in the stomach by the cupid's arrow that is 'pizza smell.'  Then, out of nowhere, your lane opens up into a piazza.  There, cafes tables are set out.  Fans twirl, fine mist wafts down from cooling systems, you sit for an ice cream or coffee with some beautiful old church or mansion looming above. And never want to leave.

A year ago today, we were in Zadar, reveling in our position outside the real 'hotspots' of the Croatian coast, ouching our way into the water along a pebble beach on the edge of romantically picturesque university city.  We've come a long way since then, but are remarkably close to that very spot now.  It feels a little like returning to old stomping grounds, something we don't get to experience very often.  A big plate of grilled squid surrounding a mound of blitva (garlicky chard and potato) greeted us like a friend last night.  Well, you haven't changed one bit!  Kotor is a lot like Zadar - an incredible spot that has the lucky misfortune of less-than-ideal swimming options.  This keeps the droves of tourists at bay.  Or, I guess in this case, out of the Bay. 

For mid-July, Kotor is remarkably not crowded.  The Old Town is deceptively large, there are enough cafe tables for everybody.  It's something you don't really notice until looking down at the labyrinth from above (from the castle).  The lanes are all swirled around like a big plate of spaghetti with red-sauce roofs.  You simply can't imagine the number of noodles under there until you feel the fullness.  Dumpster after dumpster of garbage and dozens of young women shopping around laminated photos of guest rooms for rent show just how many people can fit into Kotor, all still given the chance to feel like they have it all to themselves.

Outside the Old Town's main entrance, a daily market sells fresh produce and fish, local cheese, olives and cured ham (along with some imports from Croatia and afar). There are more apartments for rent here in Kotor than there are traditional hotel rooms, more of a chance to buy some sheep cheese (and then some cow cheese.... and then some cow/sheep mix if you're anything like us) in larger portions than just one afternoon picnic's worth.  It's one of those rare tourist destinations that invites you to feel what it's like to actual live here.  Though, the locals always have a smile at the edge of their lips that say, "I actually do get to live here.  Jealous?"  Yes, yes I am.

In some ways, we feel a little smug about our place here, too.  Most visitors to Kotor come on a day trip from Budva or for an afternoon off the cruise ship.  As I type this, Celebrity Cruise Line's "Silhouette" is blasting a horn to call all its passengers back on board.  We get to relax, shower and head back out into town with the rest of the over-nighters.  It's a different crowd, mostly families with young children and backpackers staying at some supremely well-located hostels.  We all meet up inside the walls - some of us have never left.  Sure, the clean, turquoise water one associates with 'Mediterranean' isn't really here, but everything else that word connotes sure is.  The emerald shrubs and cypress tree, the sights and sense of history, the food and wine, the casual intimacy and the way time moves.  You may have your first gelato at breakfast and go for your first dip of the day at 7pm.   Toddlers are changed out of swimmies and brought out to dinner at 10pm.  Truly Mediterranean. 

As Merlin said in his previous post, Kotor really is a part of the water, with just a sliver of usable 'inland' space before the mountains.  From every arched entrance, the sea seeps - in blue views, pink tan lines, bikini shaped wet spots on t-shirts and barefoot children.  Many of the people funneling in themselves have been out to sea on yachts and cruise-ships, delivered ashore just like the trading goods and supplies of yore.  Precious cargo, currency, foreign imports.   The tourism industry as it once existed here never really bounced back after the Yugoslav Wars.  Most development attention has been focused elsewhere, which accounts for its status as more of a day trip destination.  They say that the greatest cultural and economic decline in the town's 2,000 year old history has been taking place since the 1990s.  By the looks of it, there may be some resurgence happening.   Financially and artistically.

The Kotor Art festival is going on right now, which includes an International Children's Theatre Festival and Dan Branko's Music Days, amongst other events.  So, in the evening, the high, white buildings with their green shutters and terracotta shingles act as sound barriers, separating one performance from another.  As you wander around, lost as usual, you are left to just happen upon the next surprise.  A cartoonishly over-sized line of laundry is strong across a piazza here,  a classical youth orchestra performs for video-camera wielding parents there.  When the sun sets, never before at least 8:30pm, it all feels too magical to be true.  You turn down a lane that has a line-up of hip bars and hear the thump of a DJ.  Then, out of nowhere, a live saxophonist breaks in and begins to accompany the beat.  The two men stand side by side, woodwind and Mac, creating a breezily unique, amazingly congruous style of music.  

Everything Except The Trout at Ohrid

Macedonia’s Lake Ohrid is famous for its trout.  In the chilly, mountain depths of these waters, the ohridska pastrmka (pastrmka means trout) has swum since time immemorial, and has been fished here since Neolithic times. It’s one of the only European fish to have existed since before the last ice age, and the species is probably some million years old.  Reportedly, it’s delicious.  The problem is, it’s almost extinct.  That doesn’t stop restaurants here from serving it.  Neither do the police, though it’s officially illegal to fish for it or sell it.
This is the “Macedonian Riviera,” and the eating here in Ohrid town has been almost uniformly excellent, with lots of cheap, pleasant restaurants dotting the waterfront and the side streets. We’ve been avoiding ohridska, but eating just about every other watery fauna we can get our forks into.  Here’s a look at what’s on offer in Ohrid that’s not endangered.

The first meal we had in Ohrid, we ate squid and shrimp – neither, of course, are native to the lake.  At MoMir restaurant, which juts out over the water, the squid came lightly spiced and perfectly grilled.  As tender as can be, with a bit of char and a smoky scent, they were better than any we’ve had since Croatia.  The shrimp were poppy red and full of ocean brine.
(At a later meal - we won’t mention the place - we were actually served fake shrimp, which were somewhat disgusting – they were like frozen fishcakes molded into the shape of a prawn, breaded and deep-fried.  We’ll spare you a picture.)

Ohrid also has European eels, which are quite plentiful both below the surface and on the town’s menus.  Sadly, the lake's stock is now mostly artificially kept up, as the lake's outlets have been dammed, and the eels aren't able to return to the Sargasso Sea where they spawn (this process is really interesting, actually - the Sargasso Sea is in the middle of the Atlantic ocean).
Arriving piping hot, baked with peppers, onions and tomato in a clay dish, the eel was like molten fish fat.  The taste had none of the muddiness that other eel can have, the meat was falling apart and lusciously, intensely flavorful – a heady mix of bay, basil and (we think) paprika.

At Letna Bavča Kaneo, a restaurant on a tiny, pebbled beach, we ate plasica while kids threw stones in the water and a swan swam haughtily by.  The sardine-like fish arrived in a jumbled pile, breaded and fried crisp - just how the locals love them.  Plasica are also native to the lake, and are the fish's scales are used to make Ohrid "pearls," which are essentially glass beads covered with a fishy paste (you'd be amazed how many gift shops sell them).  The fish were tasty in a snappy, easy-to-eat way, a great snack as the sun set.

It’s hard to sit beside a deep, cold lake and not think about flashing silver scales or the smell of a freshwater fish frying in butter. Fortunately, there are also other kinds of trout here – and they’re very tasty.  Guides suggest the mavrovska, belvica, kaliforniska and rekna varieties as better alternatives to ohridska   Belvica is also found in Ohrid, and is less threatened, but it might be a good idea to avoid it anyway.  This beautiful half of mavrovska was pan cooked, thick-fleshed and juicy.  The pink meat was dense without being dry, the flavor was of mountain water and cold winters.

Another alpine treat, and a bit of a surprise, this “fish broth” was more like a potato and trout soup. Ohrid’s cuisine is wonderful for its mixing of coastal and high-altitude aspects, a phenomenon that this dish perfectly encapsulated. The lightness of the starched broth and slight piquancy recalled the Mediterranean; the savory, rooty potato and herb components called up images of high villages, pines and swift running water.  The fish, of course, is what draws the line between the two. It worried us a little that the species of trout wasn’t specified, but it seemed unlikely that a restaurant would waste rare specimens in a stewpot.

It's a little sad that we couldn't taste the local specialty.  Guidebooks published as recently as five years ago call it one of the culinary highlights of Macedonia, and those who've tried it call it unforgettable.  But we haven't really missed it.  Eating by Lake Ohrid is pleasure enough, whatever is on the table.  The water is so blue, so intricately patterned, so vast that it feels like a world unto itself, a mystery in the mountains.  From afar it can be frighteningly rough or glass-smooth; up close it's so clear that sunlight hardly refracts off the surface.
Also, we can't feel that bad about not trying the trout - locals prefer pork cutlets anyway.

The Beautiful Lake Komani Ferry

On a grey, cold early morning in Tirana, we boarded a minibus headed north for Lake Komani. A man got on a few minutes later with three sacks of corn and a shotgun. Hours later, in the tiny cabin of the Dragoba, he took the gun out of its case and began passing it around. His friends and neighbors admired it and someone told a joke. Outside, high cliffs passed by in the mist. This was one of the strangest and most beautiful boat rides one can imagine.
There are two ferries that ply the long, sinuous waters of Lake Komani. The more commonly-run boat is a conventional, small car ferry. The Dragoba, which we took, is an old bus with a hull welded around it. The seats were threadbare, the doors clanged open unexpectedly. A deep, slow, diesel note grumbled from the engine. Two young men were in charge - they looked as though they might be brothers. The captain piloted the boat quietly, surrounded by a chatty group of friends. The first mate collected money and made people laugh – he wore red pants, a fuchsia shirt and pink sweater. Both were lithe and tall, with ready smiles and the friendly nature of Albanian mountain men.

Lake Komani is a dammed lake, running some forty kilometers through the heart of the Dinaric alps. It’s not the easiest way to get to the northern towns, but is definitely the most scenic and the best route that doesn’t lead through Kosovo.

Our “furgon” (minibus, marshrutka) took us up to the top of the dam, some hour away from the nearest town, and dropped us off at the south-western landing. Here - on a patch of cement at the end of a tunnel, surrounded on all sides by cliff and water – there was barely enough room for a few vehicles, a bar, some waiting people and two forlorn cows. The buses were unloaded (our furgon, aside from the corn and firearm, had carried bags of fertilizer, some hardware supplies and sacks that looked to contain cured meat) and men stood smoking. The lake was vividly green.

When the ferry came, it didn’t seem that it could possibly be big enough for us all, but it turns out it was only about two-thirds full. Bags, boxes and sacks were piled against the gunwales (and the cows were left on land) Everyone aboard knew everyone else, they were all neighbors. One old woman held court in the middle of the rows of seats. Wearing a white kerchief over her hair, she spent time talking and laughing with all the young people on board; they took turns visiting with her, receiving kisses on the cheek and pats on the head.
As desolate as the lake seems, its shores are actually inhabited by a few hardy families. Clinging to the cliff-like sides of the mountains are tiny farms, not much more than hovels with a few square feet of plowed earth and a handful of goats. These people, almost totally cut off from the world around them, rely on boats to get anywhere and on the ferry to bring them any supplies or mail. The passengers aboard the Dragoba were mostly going home – we made a lot of stops at tiny landings, not much more than a few rocks, so that people could jump ashore or collect packages. One woman was met at the bottom of a waterfall by her son (who was about five or six). Together they scampered up a trail that looked impossibly steep – the two of them moved like mountain goats, jumping from foothold to foothold. They must have lived quite high up, we couldn’t see where their house was.
The forty kilometers take about three hours to navigate. The ship goes slowly, the way is twisting and narrow. Mountains like these offer little. They’re not more than walls. A way through was made by the river, and all the dam has done is widen this path a little. We moved as though down a hallway, taking turns when they came. The vistas were ever-changing and tightly focused. Shore was never further than a few hundred yards on either side. The others on board had seen it before and barely looked out the window.

A few times, some fishing boat or other would pull up alongside. One young man motored alongside us for about half an hour, communicating with the pilot and his brother with hand signals. Before he turned his boat off into a cove, the first mate tossed him an energy drink from their cooler.

These two men raced to a small landing so that they could get on board. After tying their little aluminum craft to a bush, they lifted the outboard motor onto deck and swung up after it. Our pink-clad crewmember greeted them with hugs and questions. They shared a lunch together in the back row of bus-seats.

By the time we got to the end, the sky had lightened a little. It had rained for some time on the trip, but it had cleared again. The remaining passengers took their things from the deck and said their goodbyes. It was a perfect voyage, the kind of traveling that makes you forget about the destination, casting the time between place as the leading experience. We got off gladly but would have taken the trip again if given the chance – when we left the north the boat wasn’t running. It had rained too much, the water was too high.

A woman we met in Tirana, Zhujeta, had told us that there were once two boats, but that one of them had “sanked.” Luckily, it seems that both are operational and floating.

Coastal Drama on Gozo

Walking down towards the Azure Window we were in awe of the scenery - and the crowds. It's amazing that people take bus tours in such a small country, especially on Gozo. But they do. Even though you can walk across the island in about two and a half hours, or take a public bus anywhere in about fifteen minutes. They're carted from place to place, let off to take some pictures, then herded back together and driven somewhere else. Unwilling to go more than a few yards from his bus, one American man whistled at another tourist who was in front of him. When the tourist didn't move, the man snorted. "Now I won't get a good picture," he said.

The Azure Window is probably the most visited natural feature of this green little isle, and for good reason. Notice the scale - there's a person on top, there in the picture - and the setting. But it's hardly the only beautiful, interesting bit of coast.

Near Xlendi and its perfect natural harbor, the coastline takes on a strange, rough/smooth mix. Gozo - like the rest of Malta - is mostly limestone, and the softer varieties of the stone are carved and rubbed smooth by the waves. Here, in a cupped hollow of rock, someone had cut a door.

On the opposite side of Gozo, at the base of a long valley, Ramla Bay's red sands stretch in a perfect crescent. The sand is as soft and fine as down, the color is beautiful in the late afternoon sunlight - though, admittedly, more deep orange than red.

This was, according to tradition, Odysseus' view for seven years as a prisoner of the nymph Calypso. Her cave is supposedly tucked into the cliffs that rise to the west of the beach. When we were there, few people were in their swimsuits. A cold wind was coming in off the sea to the north, and the water was frigid.
Near Dwejra, the fishermen earn extra money by taking tourists on short boat rides into the caves that dot the cliffs there. The ride begins in a sort of small, pondlike lagoon that the locals call the "Inland Sea." Between the lagoon and the real sea, a high cliff runs - there's a narrow passageway, though, just wide and high enough for a small boat to pass through. On the other side are a few other grottos, mostly uninteresting other than being watery.
Fungus Rock, a high-sided bump of land near St. Lawrenz, is one of the only known places in the world where a type of rare plant grows - not actually a fungus, but somewhat resembling a black mushroom. The Knights of Saint John jealously protected the rock during their control of the archipelago, and thought that the plant (which they named "Maltese Mushroom," and is now called Cynomorium) had powerful medicinal qualities. They built a rickety cable car basket from the nearby cliffs to the top of the islet, and smoothed the sides of the rock to discourage thieves of the plant - it was thought, at the time, to be unique to Fungus Rock, and the Knights treated it like a treasure.
On a walk, also near Xlendi, we found these old salt trays. At least, we think that's what they are. Among them, cut into the rock, was an open cistern that drained a cupped slope of limestone into a shallow pool. The water there was sweet, but these square, dry indentations had a thin powder of salt at the bottom.

Malta is beautiful, but much of the main island is clogged with buildings and motorways. Escaping across the channel to Gozo feels like going to the country, even if it's only a relative sense of calm.

If you go to the Azure Window, make sure to clamber around the rocks, down to the shore and along a narrow path towards the arch. There's a hidden, small cave there, where the view of the Window is spectacular. The sound of the surf against the rocks is amplified by the hollow, and the waves come almost right up to the floor of the cavern. When we were there, two young Gozitan couples sat drinking beer and staring out at the dramatic scene. For a while we were alone with them. Then a few Spanish tourists showed up and we left.

Here's a video of our trip back through the cave from the open water into the Inland Sea. We were alone on the boat except for its reticent pilot and a french woman.

Sunday Morning in Marsaxlokk

The Sunday morning fish market in Marsaxlokk is a national treasure. As Merlin so rightly put it, "People travel halfway across the country to buy their groceries!" Granted, it's not a large country, but it was still impressive to see - for example - the man boarding the bus back to Valletta with his bag of white beans and half a dozen hot peppers. Another man boarded with shoe inserts. Of course, fish is the main event, but why buy anything anywhere else when you can use it as an excuse to spend Sunday morning in Marsaxlokk?
The town is as picturesque as can be with its harbor full of traditional luzzus (heavy, wooden fishing boats painted bright blue, yellow and red and decorated with a set of eyes - a style said to date back to the Phoenicians) and old limestone buildings. Here you have the second largest harbor in a country literally surrounded by them - and it's filled with fishing boats. It's such an idyllic setting for a fish market that it could feel like a movie set if not for the familiar European market schlock bookending the fishmongers. Knock-off Cars toys and cheap shoes anchor dreamy atmosphere right back down to earth.
It took us a while to reach the fish, passing through the inedibles and then the green grocers and bakery stands. And the flowers - wow, Spring is in full bloom. People packed into the market avenue, making their way down the aisle between the two rows of shaded stands. Even when a few raindrops began to fall, the mood remained energetic and jovial. People caught up, children helped push strawberries and pastries, couples strolled in their Sunday best. It was a town a-bustle packed with the fruits (and vegetables) of their labor.
The produce is in that great transitional period right now. Cabbages sit in boxes, their big unfolding leaves asking for a little more attention before the fluffy, leafy greens take over. Tight little artichokes look downright seductive next to dimming brussel sprouts. Carrots are no longer the brightest kid on the block. This is the market in Malta - even people in Valletta, which has its own Sunday market - drive over to Marsaxlokk to pick up what they need. As the man in charge of our rental apartment put it, "anything here (Valletta) will be there (Marsaxlokk) - and then they have more." Of course, by "more" he meant fish, fish, fish!
Even in the outlying fishless sections you feel the true bait and tackle nature of the place. Notice the gas pumps for boats. When we ducked around them to get past a particularly dense crowd, we got our first real look out into the water. There was just as much activity out there as onshore. People came to and fro unloading, loading, taking a small boat out to their bigger boat with the ease of someone riding an escalator. Sunday is clearly not a day of rest for the residents of Marsaxlokk. For butchers, definitely. Not a single meat vendor present - a European market first.
Husband and wife teams worked in tandem at every aspect of their family business. On the boats, they untangled lines and nets, on the dock, they gutted and cleaned fish side by side. Malta just legalized divorce last year. Until then, it was one of three countries in the world in which it was outlawed (along with Vatican City - where I'm pretty sure most of the citizens aren't allowed to marry either - and the Philippines). Well, looking at the teamwork on display, I'd guess that the residents of Marsaxlokk weren't part of the majority who voted for legalization of de-coupling. Who'd hold the other end of the line? It was really sweet to see the way the town's fishing industry ran - the casual conversations and jokes shared between a man and woman in gut-specked aprons.
Once you hit the fish section of the market, you hit it hard. All of a sudden there's a veritable aquarium (albeit full of still lifes) around you. Since the fish are all caught locally, a lot of the stalls had these sort of potpourri bins filled with downright tropical looking catches that didn't fit into one of the conventional groups. Sometimes, you'd bend in to look a little closer and a fish would start flopping around at your approach. It was just playing dead! Crafty as a shark. Moray eels and slipper lobsters, gnarly fish that looked like coral. The cluster of tabletops was a stunning visual, so clean and vibrant that you barely noticed the characteristic grit of most fish or meat markets - the blood and guts, sharp knives and bandaged hands.
In the in-flight magazine on Air Malta, we read an article about the fishermen of Marsaxlokk. It mostly focused on the beauty of the antique boats and the current struggle of lifelong anglers due to increased EU regulations on overfishing. But it also read: "[Marsaxlokk] stages the life and drama surrounding the central occupation of fishing, which has remained largely unchanged." With everything going on Sunday morning, this still rang out as undeniably true. I'd go to Marsaxlokk on Sunday morning to buy shoe inserts, too. Just to be part of it.
And, yes, I did steal the inflight magazine. It's called Skytime.

Ferrily We Roll Along

Anyone who has ever nursed jet-lag after merely "crossing the pond," knows that sometimes travel is easier said than done. Such is the case with "island hopping," a term that suggests a buoyant bouncing from place to place, but which actually involves hours at sea and either a good dose of planning or absolutely no time or money constraints. Island hopping is tricky, but completely worth it. It requires a Type A strategy, and a willingness to cut it some serious Type B slack.
At least one ferry sits in every port, dwarfing the cars, buses, bikes and smaller buildings around it. Where and when that ferry will move into action is usually scrawled on a marker board placed outside one of many ferry offices. The routes are always the same, but the schedule thins out drastically in the off season. Basically, this is my ideal sort of travel. I was the kid who sometimes wrote her history report in the form of a song, but would be absolutely paralyzed without an assigned topic. Island hopping in March equals creativity within a framework. It's a lot like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books.
The ferry horn signals its proximity. People emerge from stores with packages they need to send off. Waiters collect coins and cups left by their customers, all waiting for the boat, all leaving at once. Napping bus drivers arise and start their engines for the load of arrivals coming in. Cars are returned to, bags are picked up. There's a very short amount of time for loading and unloading and everyone's gotta be ready. In Syros, men from the bakery sprinted on to sell candy to ferry passengers and, admirably, made it back off before the door closed once more.
These have been our first experiences as ferry walk-ons, having had our car with us on previous ferries. All crowded together, on either end, people recognize and greet one another. It's fun to guess how long someone's been traveling by what they have with them. A bag of newspapers and magazines was probably just a day trip onto a bigger island. A number of people carry sleeping bags, preferring to snag a spot in the lobby than pay for a private cabin on an overnight trip to Athens.
Ferry travel in Greece has changed a lot over the past decade. The ferries are faster and fancier, more expensive but more convenient. A recent conversation we had with a young gourmet shop owner named Achilles really got me thinking about how the culture of the islands must be affected by it all. We told him we'd gone to the Fourni Islands and he was amused/aghast. "They are crazy there!" he said. I immediately felt protective of Toula and Niko and all the rest, but understood where he was coming from. Fourni is remote, it's a backwater. Until recently, people probably rarely left their little island. Nowadays, students leave for school, to shop, to spend an afternoon out on the town in Samos. The characteristic 'craziness' may be dissappating.
There are a number of different ferry companies, but they're all basically the same, as the prices are fixed by the government according to distance, season and time of day. Still, it's fun to notice the difference in staff uniforms, docking procedure, refreshment options, decor. Here, on a SuperFerry, a separate walkway was available for people who wanted to avoid the car ramp. The high marks they got for this were offset by the on board Goody's and its wafting fast food smell. Our Blue Star boat had framed newspaper clippings near reception showing the vessel's special mission to Lebanon to pick up French refugees in 2004. They also had a self-service restaurant and didn't allow dogs. To each their own.
A port town looks its loveliest from the deck of a ship. Framed by the ship's solid lines and angles, an island's gorgeousness is magnified. Only from the water can you see the whole picture, the buildings piled on on top of another etched into the side of a cliff or scattered across rolling hills. It feels bigger and more three dimensional than your on foot experience had been and then it seems smaller and flatter as the boat pulls away from the port.
Watching the land fall backwards as you set out to sea stirs up a lot of excitement and tinge of sorrow. You're saying goodbye to a place you've called home, the solitary land mass that's been your solid ground for a few days or a few hours disappears before your eyes. And then it's back to the blank slate of the ocean and the anticipation of the next island's impression.

We sprung for a cabin on our overnight to Syros and were impressed with our location. Right at the front looking out over the prow! This wound up being unfortunate on account of the choppy seas. Our drawers slid open and shut, being vertical wasn't an option, but it was a heck of a lot more fun than airplane turbulence.

The Layover

There are worse places to be stranded for 5 hours than a Greek island - especially Samos. By the time we boarded our ferry to Fourni, we'd been utterly charmed by the place and wished we'd had more time. We arrived at noon and left at dusk, right as Samos slipped into her evening attire, dark and glittery. Our boat pulled away from the dock and the sun set behind the mountains as if the two were attached by a string.
It's an island used to these sorts of visits, a quick once over by travelers on their way to Ephesus in nearby Turkey, or other east Aegian islands. Samos is a ferry hub, neither close enough to mainland Greece to be a hotspot, nor far enough to be alluringly remote. When we arrived, this information board listed our next boat at 2:15 as opposed to the 6 oclock departure we'd been expecting. We were excited. Who likes a long layover? The woman inside informed us that the sign was old. "Another agency. Closed five years ago." She pointed to a luggage storage room, a welcome curve-ball. We'd be able to do more than sit at a cafe and stare at the sea after all.
Samos is one of the sunniest place in all of Europe with sunlight estimated at about 74% of the time. Well, we hit the other 26% - a mix of sun and clouds, as they say. Sunday's a fine day for that sort of thing, ducking into a cafe here or a museum there. Older women in black came back from church and joined their neighbors at a coffee shop. We followed the scent of bread and the tracks of a few loaf carrying men to find a bakery, hidden down a backstreet. Unable to find anything to really put on our sweet-smelling sesame roll, we treated ourselves to a more proper lunch. And this is where the series of pleasant surprises began.
12:30 is an unthinkable time to begin lunch in Greece, but we haven't quite acclimated to late feedings yet. So, we sat down at Kouros tavern, joining a trio of old men and a family with two young children. The Early Bird crowd. When shown the fish selection by a bemused young waiter, we asked for an order of each. Both the plump sardine and the thumb-sized red mullet could have dangled from a necklace, that's how beautiful they looked. Shiny silver and iridescent pink. The red mullet still shone bright pink through the light batter and was so tender, it fell off its barely visible bones. We've never seen or tasted anything like it. Their moist, delicate sweetness went perfectly alongside the meaty bitterness of the sardine (cooked in the same fashion). Truly awesome.
Oh, we'd also ordered a small carafe of "open" wine (meaning "house"), writing it off as a necessary cultural experience. Samian wine has been renowned since Classical Antiquity. Who are we to pass it up? While it was nothing exceptional, it gave us a midafternoon energy boost. Just when it began to rain again. These children in the main square didn't seem to mind, but everyone else huddled back indoors. We slipped up the stone staircase to Samos' Archaeological Museum, where we found a shuttered ticket booth and an open door. A woman turned the lights on for us and her grandson, noticing our bewildered looks, shouted: "It's free today!"
This part of the world is just so rich with ancient history, chock full of archeological findings. Still, Samos' collection was shocking. The island is the birth place of Hera, Zeus' wife. So, naturally, a massive temple was erected for her around the 8th century BC: The Ireon. Statues from the excavated site stand around the museum's first building. All intriguingly headless. One female was the twin of a statue on display in the Louvre. Another held a bird in her arms and had a long dedication inscribed in the folds of her dress. The pièce de résistance was the colossal kouros - the largest surviving kouros (male statue from the Archaic period) in Greece. Over 16 feet tall it was mind-blowing and, in a room of its own around a corner, popped up out of nowhere.
In awe, we were ushered out across the street to the second building. Here, the collection was focused on pottery, tools, trinkets for Hera and, as we like to call them, "ancient Precious Moments." There had to have been close to a thousand pieces in their "archaic sculpture collection," including a bronze pine cone and a bizarrely large number of bronze griffin heads that used to adorn cauldrons. Other griffin heads from the Ireon can be found in the MET. Birds, turtles, wooden figurines, the findings were the most diverse of any Archeological Museum I've been to. (I get a little sick of spearheads and nails to be honest). All from the island of Samos.
The Ireon site itself was too far for us to visit and make our ferry in the evening. Who knew we'd want our five hour layover to be longer. It is still being excavated, which I find fascinating. I would love to have seen the holes in the earth and the lone standing column. To imagine all the statues we'd seen whole and erected in the flower covered field. Instead, we just strolled back and forth on the waterfront until it was time to collect our bags at the ferry office and embark on our next leg.
Samos is the birthplace of Hera, Pythagoras (of theorem fame), Epicurus and the astronomer Aristarchus, who is the first person recorded to have suggested the Earth moved around the sun. We didn't know any of this when we arrived, not bothering to do much research on what we figured would just be a lunch stop and quick dilly dally. I feel like one of those people who say, "I found love as soon as I stopped looking." Travel is like that sometimes. The best stuff just kinda sneaks up on you.