Skansen, The Swedish Original

Just fifteen minutes by boat from Stockholm's old town traffic, on a green island in the archipelago, one can wander through the 18th and 19th centuries.  When we asked one young volunteer how they had decided on the "year" of the house we were in (meaning the time portrayed, not the date built) he nodded to a wooden-faced, centuries-old clock.  "Because of that," he said.  "It's the newest thing in here.  We don't want a clock expert to come in and tell us that it hadn't been built yet."  He was dressed in garters and a tri-cornered hat, and had just put a few more logs on the open fire.  Because of the warmth and the dusty light filtering through wavy glass, we were ready to believe that this was some version of the 1700's, some parallel existence of rural Sweden.
Skansen is the oldest and largest outdoor museum in Sweden.  A cluster of buildings, objects and traditions rescued from the brink of extinction, the collection is a pan-temporal glimpse of the country's past.

We've been to many "skansens" in different places - the name has become a noun, and we use it pretty broadly to mean open-air house-museum.  Notably, there was a terrific one in the Czech Republic and a half-abandoned example in the hills above Tbilisi.  Our favorite, probably, was the first of the trip - we actually spent the night at the rambling, rainy skansen in Ciechanowiec, Poland.
Several years ago, on a trip with my mother and aunt, I'd taken the ferry from winter-darkened Gamla Stan to the island of Djurgården.  From my memory, I was able to call up a kind of endless landscape on a hill outside Stockholm proper, where the buildings were all of old wood and we watched wolverines and a grey owl.

I found Skansen about how I remembered it, if less dreamy.  The trees were more fully leafed when Rebecca and I got off the boat, and there were more visitors.  Like so many public green spaces, the hill that the museum is built on has a specific grayness in the offseason.  The sky was overcast, but the gray was more emotional response than true color - shuttered buildings, leaves being raked, the smell of woodsmoke trickling from the chimneys, a melancholy that comes before bare branches. The ferry docked at the entrance to Gröna Lund amusement park, where autumn-quieted rides loom over the boat and the walk uphill to the museum.  We shared Skansen with a few other young couples and American tourists, but schoolchildren made up the largest demographic - and the most energetic.
Above, potato starch set on a windowsill to dry.

As the afternoon got close to evening, the air was cold.  We were drawn to the various hearths and kitchen stoves, where costumed men and women told us about their imaginary lives.  One man in large-buckled shoes showed us a collection of rocks and told us about copper and iron mining.  A pregnant woman lit an oil lamp and talked about the portrait she was painting of a farmer and his wife - she was usually the wife, but the dress in the picture didn't fit her at the moment.  A schoolteacher worked at knitting something (a mitten?) and laughed when we asked about the wallpaper.  The performances were casual, and broke between eras and characters.  In general, the people seemed happy to talk to someone - most visitors ducked in and out without saying hello.

Peasant architecture, handcrafts and artwork weren't appreciated much before they began to die out. Because they weren't considered high art, the beautiful objects of every day life - painted walls, carved tools, woven clothing - weren't preserved outside of the home.  The idea of needlepoint being worthy of a museum is a rather new concept.  As modernity began changing lives, it also changed the value people gave to their old things, and much was discarded.
At ethnographic museums, those objects aren't the entire point.  They're important, but their effect is more so - like a theater set's is to a play.  We are supposed to enter living dioramas, where fires crackle, chickens cluck around the doorways and the smell of yeast hangs in the air.  It's a kind of theater in perpetuity.

Of course, the buildings themselves are as fascinating as anything inside them.  Collected from all over Sweden, they range from churches and chapels to government-built soldier's homes and windmills.  There are several complete farmsteads, a faux mine, a Sami camp, a schoolhouse, post office, countless barns and the tallest steeple in Sweden.  All of the buildings were carefully taken apart, moved and reassembled.  Walking around the seventy five acre collection is surreal, especially when one catches a glimpse of modern Stockholm in the distance.  The juxtaposition of old, new, rural and urban is a little comical.
The idea behind Skansen was actually Norwegian - King Oscar II had created a similar museum a decade before the Swedish one opened.  Industrialization was rapidly shifting the way people lived their lives, and things that had once been taken for granted were suddenly disappearing.  Artur Hazelius, a professor and folklorist, founded the museum after traveling in the Swedish countryside and noticing how much the peasant communities were changing.  Today, it's one of the most popular attractions in Stockholm, even among the Swedish.  We talked to one woman from the capital about it - "Everybody goes at least once a year," she said, only half joking.

Skansen's collection extends even to live animals.  Moose lumber around on spindly legs, brown bears sleep in furry piles, wolves hide in the trees.  The scandinavian wildlife collection is interesting but - as with all zoos - a little lifeless.  The owls are maybe the best feature.  One, the great grey owl, is housed in a walk-in aviary.  It's possible to get quite close to the huge thing, which is unnervingly still most of the time.
Less depressing are the domesticated livestock, who are much more content than the fat seals and pacing lynx.  Goats and cows dutifully graze and look placid.  Horses swish their tails and stare into the distance.  Peacocks preen and give grating cries.  Here, bloody fish wait to be thrown to a pair of otters.

Of course, Skansen isn't really magical.  Walk around and you'll run into tractors and golf-carts, women shoveling sawdust with earphones on, cotton candy and (even) the tinny music of amusement rides.  There are buckets of lollipops and bad coffee.  But the boat ride really does something for the visit.  Leaving the city pier and arriving at the island, then getting back on the boat as the sun gets low, the museum gets set apart from everyday life - cut off by gray water and some minutes of voiceless wind. By the time the division has been made - hotel room and tourist bars cut away from windmills and hair kerchiefs - Skansen is impossible not to find fun and interesting. These sort of things are inevitably hokey, but they're important too.

In the Land of the Puffins

The Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands), off the southwestern coast of Iceland, are home to the world's largest puffin colony.  Anyone taking a ferry ride from the mainland to Heimaey - the largest and only inhabited island in the archipelago - is at least somewhat drawn to it by the promise of puffins.  Us included.  The front deck of the boat was closed off. So, standing outside meant approaching backwards.  We saw the mainland move away into a silhouetted sliver and then disappear entirely.  Then, it was just sea until islands began to pop up, out of nowhere, on either side of the ferry.  Cliff side streaks of white bird poo were our first signs that we had arrived in the land of the puffins.

Some of the islands look like the little round scraps that would confetti a tabletop if you hole punched a photo of the alps.   A grassy peak with a lone sheep on top of it smack dab in the center of a body of water.  We had no idea how Lamb Chop got up there.  At least two of Vestmannayer's uninhabited islands have a single building set atop or nestled into the side of a hill.  That white dot on the left side of the island above is one.  We thought, initially, that these were maybe the homes of the world's most romantic loners - or possibly its devoutest monks.  But they are actually puffin hunting cabins which are rented out to groups of dedicated huntsmen within the six week season each year. Needless to say, they have to pack reserves. 

The main island of Heimaey has 4,000 inhabitants who receive around 6 million visiting puffins per year. This used to be quite the boon for residents, a food source arriving in bulk. Puffins were the diversity in an islander's diet of fish, fish and more fish. There was a period at the end of the 19th century when the birds were harvested for their down, too, which was then sent off to Denmark to use in bedding. While lucrative, this put a big strain on the Atlantic puffin population and the practice was banned. All hunting was called off for 30 years. Today, the Atlantic puffin's conservation status is ruled as "least concern," meaning they are far from endangered.

Still, like so much wildlife in the world today, the puffin population have been showing some signs of decline and, as a result, hunting the birds has been prohibited for the last two summers.  Most people chalk the dwindling breeding numbers up to changes in the eco system, over-fishing of the puffins' food sources (small fish), and the introduction of new predators such as domestic pets.  Whether hunting plays a role or not, it's better to just err on the side of caution and cancel the season for a few years.  Or maybe for good?
Any hunting that does take place is done using a method borrowed from the Faroe Islands.  "Sky fishing," involves grabbing a puffin right out of the sky with "fledges," a kind of oversized lacrosse stick.  Their neck is then broken by hand.  It's actually very humane - and only non-breeding puffins are caught.  You can see a huntsman in action in the above Heimaey building art.

Puffin art adorns plenty of buildings on Heimaey.  The people of Vestmannaeyjar have a special relationship with their birds.  The yearly arrival of the millions-strong colony is an event, a tradition and a cause for celebration.  This is the only time in a puffin's life that they set foot on land.  Aside from this breeding period, their entire existence is spent at sea.  As they arrive in Vestmannaeyjar, the birds meet up with their mates.  Some are known to meet midflight and go right at it.  Honey, I haven't seen you in so long!  Puffins are monogamous, except in the rare case that no eggs are produced for a few seasons. Then, the puff daddy goes out and finds himself a new puff mommy.  (Ever think the problem may be with you, bub? Look at him, so smug in that tophat.)

The domestic life of a puffin is undeniably endearing.  Aside from the whole swoon-worthy mating-for-life thing, they also act as true partners in their time together on land.  The male puffin is mainly responsible for building their nest, burrowing a hole into the side of a cliff or finding a rabbit hole to repurpose. The female lines the spot with grass and leaves to make it more comfortable.  Then, once the single egg is laid, the couple share incubating responsibilities - and, once hatched, feeding duty.  Then, the little puffling is mostly on its own, braving the world outside its nest for the very first time during the night.  Its natural instinct is to use the moon to guide its flight, but some get confused by the bright orb streetlights of Heimaey.  So, every year, a "Puffin Patrol" goes out onto the streets and finds the confused little pufflings, bringing them back to the water's edge and sets them free by hand.

Breeding season was just coming to an end as we arrived on the island, but we still got a glimpse of a few stragglers.  After seeing their image on just about every souvenir possible throughout Iceland and in street murals and pub signs in Heimaey, it was both more and less exciting to see them in person.  It's a lot like seeing a rainbow.  You know exactly what one looks like, you know what environment you're most likely to see one pop up, but it's something so attached to drawings, symbols, cartoons, iconography that spotting a true one in nature feels predictable, but lucky somehow. 

"Do you hate it when people order puffin?" Merlin asked... after ordering puffin.  "No, no," the young waitress answered, shaking her head on top of which about a mile of blonde hair was piled.  "When they are young, they are cute.  But when they get big..." she scrunched her nose.  Four deep brown puffin breasts were served alongside a candied pear and some roasted potatoes.  They looked like beef liver, even more so when one was cut open to reveal an intense pink.  It definitely didn't shout "poultry," but then again neither does duck.  The texture was also similar to liver, but the taste was a cross between duck and venison.  You know, in case you were wondering.

Xlendi Bay, Home Sweet Home

On the corner of Xlendi Bay, where the main road from Victoria meets the waterfront line of restaurants, we feel like we can predict the future. That corner white and blue building above is where we rented an apartment. The rhythm of the waves heard from our window in the morning tells us what kind of weather the day will bring, before we even leave bed. A loud group making their way down from the bus stop in the late afternoon means the restaurants won't clear their oil+vinegar sets from the tables quite as soon as they'd planned. A certain boisterous laugh made us know, immediately, that it was a group of Americans. Perhaps likening it to clairvoyance is a bit of a stretch, but we feel a bit ahead of the town's rhythmic ebb and flow.
We awake to the fishermen going out, and it feels like it is only us and them that have opened their eyes to the day just yet. When we hear them come in, we know that it is time to take our trash down to the curbside for 8:30 collection. By this time, the diving school students have arrived and made black constellations in the blue green water below our patio. So has the Xlendi Pleasure Cruise boat, a small compact thing that sits waiting patiently for any biters. The sound of the garbage truck signals a final check of our backpacks and we make our way out to catch the 8:45 bus to Valletta. Without ever once looking at a watch.
Xlendi Bay sits and waits for people to arrive and enjoy it. In our seven days here, we have not been able to figure out the business hours of any establishment. They all seem to run according to the same principal as us; when you hear the day come out your window, you better get up and ready. If we are home during the day, we have a truly Pavlovian response to the clinking of utensils being set out on the tables below. We fix ourselves a sandwich and smell pizza and pasta wafting upwards to our patio. In the evening, the clinking begs us to uncork our wine and plate whatever we've made. At least once a night, we hear a rendition of Happy Birthday from below.
Xlendi is a place for special occasions and daytrippers. But mostly daytrippers. They lap onto shores like waves. We feel like the thin line of current that shines in the bay - that last mark of arrival when all other incomers are long gone. Daytrippers, or "afternooners" more precisely, announce their purpose more than they realize they do. Backpacks and sensible shoes mean that they want to climb the white staircase that zig zags up the cliff. Then, come down and around to the tower. Afterward, they get a treat from Gelateria Granola and/or sit for lunch. The click of high heels hitting the pavement out of a parked Jeep Tour vehicle, tells us that they are going to skip the hike and go straight to lunching. Souvenir stalls open, selling thick knit sweaters you hope you won't need and thin Maltese flag beach towels that you purchase optimistically. (Ours will leave this country with us, unused).
The Boathouse Restaurant is the first to open and the last to close. Churchill, on the opposite side of the bay, is sporadic at best. We were told about both by a woman from whom's minimart we bought our necessities in Valletta. When she described The Boathouse as being on one side of the bay and Churchill as being on the other, we hadn't really thought that they were as close to each other as they were. "They are both great. Or anything in between. It's all good!" she'd said. Moby Dick restaurant and bar was right below us, where these British women ate smoked salmon salads. When we arrived without a cell phone and saw a sign to "call upon arrival" on our door, the proprietor of Moby Dick gave our landlord a ring as we drank coffee. When we left, he gave us a business card with a wink. He also had rental apartments available. No hard feelings.
That first afternoon, as we waited, a very tan man who had initially asked if we needed a cab kept checking up on us. As we sat and waited, two huge groups of high schoolers on Spring Break occupied Xlendi Bay. A French group raucously swam and pantsed each other as they changed back out of their bathing suits. A Spanish group sat along the water's edge, chain-smoking and texting. Sunglasses on. These two lovebirds snuck away to a cave and jumped a little when we came clomping in our boots.
It is a beautiful bay with nooks and crannies, old churches and limestone cliffs. The modern buildings may be a little bit of an eyesore, but the laidbackness counteracts them perfectly. The water is clear and full of fish. In fact, we really wonder if the Maltese Scuba School we saw advertised on a flyer back in our St. Petersburg schoolhouse was here. We'd seriously considered signing up, but thought that it'd be difficult to blog underwater. It's amazing to think that we may have wound up right here, in the same apartment, in the same village, having made an entirely different decision.
At night, when everyone is gone, the bay transforms back into its most natural state. A few lights, illuminate the road on one side and the staircase on the other, but those will turn off eventually. The sunsets are as spectacular as the sunrises. All we hear is the water out our windows. Home Sweet Xlendi.

Malta's Old Necropolis, St. Paul's Catacombs

Shipwrecked and sodden, the apostle St. Paul arrived on Malta under less than ideal circumstances. The people he met there were apparently gracious and friendly - Roman citizens, technically, but far removed from Rome and with their own customs and habits. During his three month stay on Malta in AD 60, Paul converted Publius, the island's de facto leader, cured an old man of dysentery, wowed the population and established a strange relationship between Christianity and Empire in Malta.

Some two hundred years later, as they were digging graves in the Maltese limestone, the residents of Melite (now Mdina) mixed these two influences in a strange and fascinating way. Above, a marker for the subterranean grave of a doctor.

On a recent sunny morning we descended into the cool, dark world of St. Paul's catacombs, where about 1,000 people were buried during the third and fourth centuries. We were in the relative center of Malta, just on the edge of Mdina and Rabat, the twin "cities" (villages is a more appropriate word) that constitute the old capital of the country. The towns occupy a pretty little bulge in the land, where yellow limestone rises above the green fields below.

Underground, a maze of interconnected caverns and passageways spreads out into the rock, the walls pockmarked with hollows and archways - the biggest necropolis found on the island.
St. Paul's catacombs actually have nothing to do with Paul, other than that they are nearby to the cathedral built in his honor. They were dug to house the remains of Melitta's dead, which - under Roman law - were required to be interred outside the city walls. Compared with similar catacombs in Italy and elsewhere, the complex is only of middling size. But, at 24,000 square feet, the place feels huge. Graves were dug into walls, next to one another and, eventually, into the floor as space grew scarce. There are markers adorned with carvings that gave some information about the person's livelihood and guild. Most of this is normal.

But because Malta was isolated to an extent from the rest of the Empire, the architectural style of the tombs is unusual and distinctly local, particularly because of how varied the different graves are. A few badly damaged remains of murals also survive, which are almost unique to the site. But the main point of interest is that the catacombs seem to have been (at least in part) a Christian necropolis dug in the time before Rome converted.

St. Paul's cathedral stands on the spot where Paul and Publius, according to legend, were said to have met. It's a large, rebuilt structure - an older church was destroyed by an earthquake, the current iteration was constructed around 1700. It soars suddenly out of an open square, a surprise in the tangled, cramped lanes of Mdina. When the Normans conquered Malta from the Arabs, during the 12th century, they cleared a large part of the city to build the church on ground they considered especially holy. Today, Malta is the most religious European country, and one of the most homogenously Roman Catholic in the world - the tradition of Paul and his miracles still runs very strong here. But, surprisingly, there is no proof of Christianity in the years directly after the apostle's visit.

It's been suggested that early Maltese Christians were too afraid of Roman reprisals to express their religion outwardly. After all, Publius himself was killed by emperor Hadrian for his beliefs. One of the most important parts of the catacombs is that they represent the earliest concrete evidence of Christianity on the island, apparently while the Empire still condemned it. Tomb inscriptions and figures of the cross show up in both wall carvings and in the mural fragments, and some of the stranger features in the underground architecture have been attributed to a non-Roman religion.

Probably the most curious and illustrative Christian features of St. Paul's catacombs, though, are the "agape" tables. Circular, low and carved directly out of the rock, the tables were probably used for feasts during the burial, as well as on the day of the dead, on which it's believed that Roman Christians held a festive dinner near the graves of their relatives. Agape tables are common only in Christian necropolises, and are almost always surrounded by a kind of "banquette" made of stone, where the family members could lie down to drink and eat. There are several at this site, all with a strange notch in one side that's hard to explain.

Unfortunately, the human traffic and the humidity we bring in has all but destroyed the paintings and the more important inscriptions. Wandering around the catacombs is a tight and confusing experience. At times, there's quite a bit of space, but often the going is narrow and low. There's interesting variation in the size of the graves - some are tightly packed in small alcoves, other feature large, carved stone drapings and deep troughs. Quite a few feature small headrests, like pillows. Only a small part of the entire complex is open to the public, but it still takes more than an hour to explore.

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.

The Interior World of Greek Tavernas

As soon as it gets warm enough, it is almost impossible to resist dining alfresco. Surprisingly, in Greece, where it was almost always warm enough, we found ourselves choosing a seat inside more often than not. Greek tavernas all feel like they're cut from the same cloth, a comfy cloth that you just wanna wrap yourself right up in. If you were to stumble upon any one of them in another place, they would strike you as either quirkily cozy or contrived kitsch. In Greece, they are simply restaurants - their atmosphere is a part of modern tradition.

Like walking into a British pub or a French brasserie or a New Jersey diner (another type of Greek tavern?), there are certain key elements that are almost always present. The pub has its thick, polished dark wood, dim lighting, bartenders in ties. The brasserie has its zinc bar, art deco advertisements and chalkboard menus. The diner decor isn't complete without tabletop flip jukeboxes, paper placemats with cocktail recipes and a spinning pastry display stand. The Greek taverna has plaid tablecloths, covered in paper, wooden chairs, unset tables (utensils come tucked into your bread basket), white walls covered in anything and everything, globe lamps hanging from high ceilings, at least one painting of a boat.

Don't let this picture fool you - at 6 of the 10 dinners we ate out in Greece, we dined alone. We'd wait as long as we could and would still only see locals just arriving for their meal as we left, around nine or nine thirty. In fact, the diners pictured above aren't locals either. They were a group of American tourists in from the idling cruise ship in Nafplio's harbor. The man standing in the corner fits an integral part of the tavern recipe: the proprietor.
They welcome you, set your table, sit with you to explain the 'menu,' serve you food, clean your place and - often - serve you a little something else. Clementines at one place, rings of apple dusted with cinnamon at another, warm halva, which, nothing like the sesame treat of the same name, is a sweet polenta cake. If the proprietor isn't preparing your meal, their mother or wife is. Greek tavernas are family affairs and the concept of hired help never really enters the equation.
In Fourni, Niko's father cleared our plates when we finished eating. His father and father's father hung around in black and white photos. Mostly, he sat and watched the television strung up high in the corner - another tavern staple. At dinnertime, most places shut theirs off completely. Here, the tv was tuned into a channel with a split screen - Forrest Gump on one side and lotto results on the other. A vase of fresh flowers sat on each table, a detail that we would come to see time and again.While eating alone, we never felt the chill or echo of an empty dining room. With walls full of family portraits or Broadway playbills hanging around, it's a little easier. There's a certain embrace that clutter can give you. If nothing else, the model boats and horse saddles offer conversation fodder.
And this is how they would all inevitably look at the end. The paper cover spotted with water and wine, the emptied bowls of greek salad and horta with their puddles of olive oil and huge lemon halves, a tip, unfinished bread and not much else. There's probably a forgotten pen hidden under their somewhere.

So Full o'Life

Back in October, while in the Alentejo region in Portugal, the British owner of our campground described one village as being 'like a museum' and another as being "so full o'life!" Said with such relish, the phrase stuck with us. Ever since then, we channel ole Gary- accent and all- anytime a place bursts with liveliness. On Andros, our final island, the expression was used time and again. From the wild flowers that covered the fields and the donkeys, sheep and goats that joined us for legs of our walkabouts to the schoolchildren, churchgoers and cafe dwellers, Andros was just so full o'life.
Andros is the northernmost of the Cyclades archipelago, which means it takes about a two hour ferry ride to reach Athens. This makes the island an obvious weekend destination for Greeks and an easy island hop for travelers. With no big name sights and a mostly mountainous terrain, it's meant for a certain type of tourist. One that's not necessarily looking for beach discos and grilled fish. (The island specialties are zucchini fritters and froutalia - a sausage omelet).
The port town of Gavrio gives a complicated first impression. There are cafes, tavernas and trinket stores lined up between the two ferry docks. On one end, a gorgeous little gourmet shop with a sign that reads "we support organic farmers" sells local products and an impressive array of cheese. On the other end, the businesses peter out and a few shabby buildings sit far back from the shore. We walked back and forth along the beach to pass the time, kicking at a single washed up flip flop and other summertime relics tossed ashore by the winter storms. Gavrio feels well worn and slightly worn down, a real port town - as opposed to a pretty little harbor.
On the other side of the island, a full hour by bus along a winding road with steep unwalled drops, is Hora (which literally means "main town.") It felt a world away from anything we'd seen on other Greek islands, with its marble paved pedestrian avenue and neo-classical mansions. The town, more commonly referred to simply as 'Andros,' felt downright regal to us. With a population of about 1,500, there were more people here than on all of Fourni island. Children ran around, teenagers sat on steps, everyone greeted everyone else along the promenade.
We came to Andros for the nature and the well-kept system of walking paths that allow you to explore it. Cypresses knife into the sky, stone walls cut across the hillsides. Green valleys give way to arid shrubs with no notice. Sheep and goats graze and donkeys stand around. It is beautiful. A sign here or there would point us toward a cobbled staircase or a chapel or a spring. Little lizards darted through grass and slinked along rock faces. Andros town sat piled up on its peninsula below.
Many restaurants were closed for the season and a number of storefronts, like this one, were undergoing some renovation. Paint fumes wafted out of open doorways on the breeze and voices echoed out of the empty spaces. It never felt sleepy, though. "This is the best time to be here," the beyond sweet owner of our pension said, nodding her head earnestly. A number of the houses in Andros are second homes and I wonder how the neighborhood changes when the fair-weather neighbors arrive.
These lampshades hung across the square right outside our window. They are one of the many artful little details all around Andros (which happens to be the unlikely home of a world renowned contemporary art museum). Also hanging around town, posters for upcoming events like "Mexican Fiesta" and "80s-90s dance party. Every evening, music would boom out a place called "Prive," until the wee hours. Every morning, the church bells made their own pretty racket and the pitter patter of heels on marble would put everyone in their rightful place for the morning.
For some, that was behind the counter of a clothing boutique, bakery or pharmacy (there were multiple locations of each). For this young boy, it was out with his fishing line. His mother and siblings yelled for him to come back in already, but he loudly refused. A group of similarly aged kids went around in circles in the water nearby - a sailing lesson. An old woman, all in black, sat alone on a rock staring out at the sea. That is, until her cell phone rang. In a lot of seaside towns, especially on the islands, the water feels like the key player. Here, with so much life brimming on dry land, the sea was simply the backdrop. Gary would have approved.