Revisiting Greece
I just returned from a 16 day trip to Greece, “the homeland”. It may not be warranted for me to refer to Greece as the homeland, but half of my family is of Greek decent and I’m proud of my Greek heritage, so I am sticking with it!
I was slightly hesitant to travel to Greece, as I have already visited Greece in the past. My last excursion was to Costa Rica, another country that I was fortunate enough to already have visited when I was younger. At first I was worried that if I kept revisiting places my list of countries visited (out of the possible 195 countries) wouldn’t grow. But, I soon realized that this was a silly notion and I quickly struck it from my mind. I try not to be a traveler who visits a place just to snap the perfect Instagram picture and cross the destination off the bucket list. It’s not about how many countries you visit, but who you meet and what you see, feel, taste, touch, and hear, along the way.
Inspiration for Traveling to Greece: Tenderizing the Octopus and Tracing my Roots
My family visited Greece 13 years ago and to this day I still refer to that trip as my favorite family vacation of all time. We rented a traditional Greek white stucco house located on a cliff on the eastern coast of Mykonos, and we used this house as our home-base for visiting other Greek islands, including Santorini and Delos.
One memory in particular from this family vacation stands out from the rest and depicts my authentic Greece. One day, my mom, forever our leader of forced family activities (just kidding Ma!), procured a local fisherman to give us a boat tour of nearby islands. We happened to be the first group of visitors that the fisherman had decided to take out on his boat. We quickly became enamored by our Greek fisherman tour guide, who barely spoke a word of English, was extremely proud of his country, and was drawn to our family due to our Greek heritage.
After a few hours of motoring around different islands and enjoying a few ouzo shots our new fisherman friend asked if we would like to meet his parents. We were excited to be offered this glimpse into his world. We soon arrived at his parent’s home, which was a small beach fort constructed with scraps of timber and plywood. His parents were the only inhabitants on this rocky island and there was no running water or electricity. As we approached the island, our fisherman tour guide’s father came into view; he looked the part of the classic old Greek fisherman from the movies. His skin was a deep Mediterranean tan and he donned ragged blue overalls. He stood in shallow water with his pant legs expertly rolled up above the knees. In his large strong hands he grasped the tentacles of an enormous octopus, which he repeatedly raised over his head and then smashed down onto a jagged rock protruding from the water, over and over again with no mercy. Apparently, he was tenderizing the meat. I’ll never forget that scene.
We rowed to the island home and sat down at a makeshift picnic table. With the octopus slung over the old fisherman’s shoulder like a small rucksack, he nonchalantly wadded out of the water, ambled over to our table and, with a proud smile, carefully laid the octopus out on the table. Then, he liberally drizzled fresh olive oil over the raw mollusk, added a few pinches of sea salt which he had collected from a nearby strainer, divided the octopus, and served us his catch. Raw, fresh, and inimitable, that’s the Greece I remembered and was hoping to rediscover.
In addition to rediscovering Greece, my other inspiration for traveling to Greece was to track down my family’s village and church. My Great Grandmother, Nana, was a legend in our family who lived to be 105 years old. Even after her 100th birthday Nana continued to attend Bingo games, enjoy a nightly glass of Metaxa, a traditional Greek spirit, and socialize with her friends around the clock. She wrote a short biography for the family and in it she described how her great grandfather had discovered a cross on the ground of a mountaintop near Sparta, Greece, and he had built a church at that very location. The town of Anavryti was built around this church. Nana’s great grandfather was the town priest and his son became a priest as well. One of my bucket list items and reasons for revisiting Greece was to find my Great Great Great Great (yes, four greats) grandfather’s church located in the small village of Anavyrti, Greece.
Trying to be a Nomad and Hop Around the Greek Islands Without Travel Arrangements, Bold Move
In early July I flew into Athens with very little direction to how I wanted to spend my time in Greece. I wanted to find Anavryti and my family’s church. Otherwise, I had no reservations or tickets; my plan was to talk to locals and fellow travelers and identify the islands and cities that were worth visiting.
It was not easy being a nomad and jumping around the Greek Islands without plans during high tourist season and I wouldn’t recommend it to my wanderlust readers. For the first week of my trip, I spent a couple of hours most afternoons sweating in front of my computer screen and praying to Zeus that I could find last minute hostel accommodations and tickets for ferries and planes. Although it wasn’t easy and I had a few set-backs, it all worked out in the end. I don’t think I would have been so lucky exploring on the fly if I hadn’t been traveling solo. **If you wish to jump around the Greek Islands without making arrangements in advance and want to avoid the hordes of tourists, I would recommend traveling to Greece in the spring (late April, May, or early June) or fall (late September, October, or early November). If you decide to visit Greece during July and August, book a few flexible reservations; it is worth spending a little extra money so that you can make changes in the future, but it is worthwhile having some bookings in place.
Athens Didn’t Do It for Me
My first stop on my Greece adventure was Athens. I spent four days in Athens, and with all due respect to the Athenians, it was three days too many. **You only need one day to visit the ancient ruins of Athens. It didn’t take very much city wandering before I came to the conclusion that everything was tourist contrived and designed to make foreigners spend their money; I guess that explains why nearly 25% of Greece’s entire economy is derived from tourism!
Athens, I respect you, but I don’t love you. You may be named in honor of the beloved goddess Athena, goddess of wisdom and courage. You may be the capital of Greece and the birthplace of democracy. And, your army of 10,000, against all odds, may have heroically defeated a Persian army of 40,000. But, Athens, you are mainland Greece, and you simply cannot compete with the islands.
Although I may have spent too long in Athens, as always, I made the most of my stay. My favorite activities in Athens included: going on a fantastic urban free tour of Athens (shout out to the tour guide, Jimmy); staying at the amazing City Circus hostel in Athens, a hostel that I consider to be in my top 5 hostels of all time; and walking around the acropolis at sunrise.
While hiking around the Acropolis ruins, I learned that an orchestra was planning to perform that evening at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, an ancient amphitheater which sits at the southern base of the acropolis. Unfortunately, the performance was sold out and I was unable to attend. **If you are visiting Athens, I would recommend securing tickets to a performance at the Odeon in advance of your visit, this setting under the lights is stunning, and I believe it would be an experience of a lifetime.
It Was Not an Easy Journey, but I Found Anavryti and the Family Church!
Although tracing my family roots and finding Anavryti was on my bucket list, I knew very little about what I was getting myself into. All I knew about the small village was that it was located in the mountains near Sparta. I asked a few local Athenians the best way to get to Sparta, and they eyed me suspiciously and warned me that it was not worth the journey. One of them wryly responded “Oh, you want to do the whole Sparta thing, eh? Don’t. There’s nothing there.” I think this individual was alluding to the Spartan warriors of ancient Greece which, to me, always conjures up images from the epic movie titled 300. Even after assuring them that this was not the reason for visiting Sparta, they still insisted it was a waste of time. I didn’t listen.
I don’t want to bore you with the details, but after a full day of: sketchy bus stations; stuffy buses which traversed winding roads; and a taxi ride consisting of approximately 30 switchbacks up a steep mountainside, I made it to Anavryti and I found my family’s church! The moment of discovery was made more special when, upon discovering the church, I heard a man singing and expertly playing the bouzouki, a musical instrument popular in Greece, out of a nearby window. In conclusion, Sparta was as unimpressive as the locals in Athens had warned, and there wasn’t much to Anavryti, but to me, making the journey and finding the town and church was what it was all about.
