I am home now back on the island of Skopelos, my base for five months a year. Always, it is good to leave the hotels behind, but alas, the pleasures and freedom of the road—new and old places visited, new friends—too quickly recedes.
Thinking back…I am driving over Route 3, west of Volos, south of Farsala to Itea and Delphi. The route is new to me, I think, yet familiar. There is the Kantina selling souvlaki pita and soda high on the mountain pass where I stopped to photograph circa 2011. I recall the man on the large motorcycle who pulled off the highway, asked if I was married and told me that as he traveled, he gave way to the smallest of creatures in his path. “I steer clear of even an ant that crosses my path on the highway,” he said. I think he wished me to perceive him as a sensitive man and therefore, wouldn’t I like to drink a coffee with him?
Many abandoned tavernas and nightclubs and even bends in the road, I remember. But then sometimes my memory gets confused. Over the years, my road trips around Greece have been many. Isn’t this the road south of Sparta leading to the Mani? This happens in Greece—Messolonghi and Delphi lie on the cusp of the Peloponneus and so Delphi echoes Nemea just across the Corinthe Canal. Kruonero, where I stayed this trip, resembles a village in the Mani 75 miles south on the tip of the Peloponnesus where a huge mountain formed a bookend with the sea. In Greece, every region reflects the greater topography—mountains, valley and sea. Unlike the US when traversing the continent by car, the plains stretch for days and mountain landscapes for half days. But Greece is a small country. A valley can be swallowed up in less than an hour, replaced by a road that winds steeply into a mountain pass. And then, just as suddenly, the view opens onto a great expanse of shimmering blue sea.