Folegandros - a magical island

Wednesday, September 25^th:  

Leaving Athens, and all of its glory, is bittersweet. Being a student of history Athens has always excited me and being in the cradle of western civilization was truly special.  But alas, the islands are calling, and we must go.

As we left Athens’ port of Piraeus on Wednesday morning, we boarded a ferry for the Greek Island of Folegandros.  Greek ferries are like big 120’ long x 30' wide buses.  You sit in aircraft style seating with almost as much leg room as you get on a United economy flight.  The seats are arranged 3-4-4-3 with about 400 of our closest friends on board.  Such an efficient way to travel, but very boring stuff. But ferries are the real mode of moving around, to-from and between islands in this area. The ferry we boarded had about 8 stops and we were getting off at the third stop.  

Susanne stated that she anticipates finding all of the Greek islands that we are going to visit, bewitching in their beauty.  Me, I was trying to avoid any expectations and let it happen.  As we came alongside the island in the ferry, we could make out the rugged mountainous terrain with cliffs rising out of the water on almost all shores. It was 1:30 pm when we arrived and we just stood on the shore at the port and allowed ourselves to just breathe in fresh, foreign air!

As we landed in Folegandros, we realized the word of the day was ‘Chillin’.  (Thank you, you know who! Perfectly labeled.) Our room was on a bluff overlooking the Aegean Sea. We had a small patio with table and chairs at the front of the unit that overlooked the ocean.  We sat mesmerized by the tranquil, calm Aegean Sea and had a glass of wine. Soaking it into our being.

Yes - this is really the view out our door and window.

Folegandros is a small island with 762 residents at last count.  I know that is twice the size of Hungerford, Texas but it is still small. Thirteen kilometers from one end to the other.  Its temperature is driven by the sea which varies from 68^o to 75^o this time of year. We checked and it was 74^o.  So we spent the afternoon relaxing and coming down from the fast pace of Athens. In other words – chillin!

An interesting man-made geological feature is all of the stone fences that terrace this otherwise rugged terrain.  We heard that they were put here in earlier times for the growing of grain crops. Don't try to take this answer to the bank, but it was a plausible reason. They are constructed with no concrete and are totally stacked except in some places they have been capped with concrete. But they are very structurally sound with many holding up 4' of soil on the other side.

Those of us who have been to Santa Fe and seen an Ed Sandoval painting may recognize the man with the cane in the middle.  So Sandovalian!  Even to the bowed legs when he walked.

Thursday, September 27^th:  The word of the day was ineffable.  

We awoke excited and ready to go on our next adventure… a 5-hour boat ride around the island that stopped in 5 different coves for swimming and time on the beach.  Three of the five coves could only be reached by boat. When we reached the first cove, we both jumped into the water and after our first shock, it was 74^o you know, we were both in awe of the water clarity and the truly ineffable blue color of the sea.  We rode, gazed and gawking our way around Folegandros island.  We swam in 4 of the 5 coves where we stopped and chilled-out the other one on the beach.  At dinner Susanne asked me “what was the highlight of the day” and we both agreed it was the first splash of the cooling waters of the Aegean Sea on our faces and bodies.  It was a spellbinding moment and spending the rest of the afternoon savoring and reliving that moment with swim after swim was fantastic.

The town of Chora (pronounced Hora, the C is silent) is also fascinating. About 300 residents playing hosts to hundreds of tourists is their major economy.  We are here during their transition phase from summer tourist season to winter and some of the restaurants are starting to shut down for the winter.  But the ones that are open served outstanding food. We had Dakos again as well as the Greek salad. These are certainly not the store-bought tomatoes we get in our local grocery at home. 

On a hill high above the town is a Greek Orthodox chapel.  I say chapel because it was a small place seating maybe 40.  The locals called it the cathedral, but then they called every church there the cathedral.  We hiked up there on Friday morning after breakfast and the view of the entire island from there is breath-taking.

I am reminded of a story told to me by a friend from childhood.  When I was 10-12 years old there was an elderly gentleman that lived across the street from us.  He was the grandfather of my friend.  Until a few weeks ago, I had no idea of any of the details of his background, but I knew he was of Greek heritage so I contact his granddaughter. He passed away before I was ever old enough to get to know him well.  But a few weeks ago while planning this trip, I found out some of his story from his granddaughter and some from my sister.  Two stories, one which he told to his granddaughter growing up as to why he left the islands for the USA and one more likely true story.

He was born sometime around the turn of the 1900s and raised on the island of Ikaria, not too far from where I am sitting now, but closer to Turkey.  He was always Papa Gus to his grandkids.  The story he told her was that his dad, a Greek Orthodox Priest, made him acolyte twice a day and he had had enough of that and left. The more than likely true story is that his father would lie about his son's age and his brother’s age until the two boys got too big to lie anymore. Their fear was being conscripted into the Ottoman army where one of the first requirements was to convert conscripts to Muslim.  If you did not convert you would be killed on the spot. So, the father shipped both sons to America.

Another story was that when he was an young acolyte, during services they would tie a bell onto a baited, fishing pole and if a fish took the bait, the bell would ring, and his job was to go get the fish off the line. Eating was important too.

According to my sister, when he arrived in America he must have landed at Galveston.  The only set of instructions he had was to go inland from town to town and the first town you get to that does not have a Greek restaurant, you stop there and open a Greek restaurant.  And that is how he ended up in Wharton.  That same Greek heritage accounts for why he had two sons named, appropriately, August (Gus) and George.  In high school, I worked for the two of them in their carpet shop for about 3 years.  A wonderful time of life.

Stories, such as this, help us all understand the relationships we have with each other.  As someone said in a comment earlier, our interconnections are more about what we have in common rather than what are our differences. I am sitting on a small island and can picture Papa Gus’ dad in one of the churches here. I can almost picture the fishing pole story in real life but am a little skeptical about the veracity of that one.  Watching the young kids run and play here I can imagine growing up here.  I can also picture him in the restaurant although I never made it there.  I knew the building because The restaurant became the carpet store after it was closed as a restaurant, and reopened as the carpet show and I knew that shop well.)  Knowing someone else’s heritage helps you understand your own heritage as well as yourself. 

For my Mariposa friends, living with pigeons.  Just wanted you to know that they are a specialty item here going for 9.5 Euro with french fries.   Happy to say I did not taste any.

Tomorrow we sadly leave this magical place, but we gladly take a sparkling sprinkle with us in our hearts.  A truly beautiful place that we can’t say enough good things about.

Next up: Santorini