The Joy of Doing Nothing

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a few days now, but I’ve been busy doing--you guessed it--nothing. Now I’m here in the tiny Santorini airport, where there really is nothing to do (the Duty Free shop is also tiny), so now seems good!

Santorini was my idea (Istanbul was Paul’s). I wondered how Paul would like it ("what does one DO on Santorini for ten days?" he’d asked). But he fell in love with the place instantly. Who wouldn’t: it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Paul had also wondered well before the trip got started how he would feel about not working for three months. I know, I know, but Paul really likes his work. And he’s a creature of habit: going to work gives his days structure, he says. Well, I’m here to report that not only did Paul fall in love with Santorini, he’s learned to appreciate the joys of unstructured time. In fact, he’s taken to doing nothing like he’s been doing it all his life!

Now, there are several ways to do nothing. There is the obvious way: literally do nothing. Lie on a lounge chair by the pool while your mate takes a nap in the room. Sit on the little porch and listen to the donkeys braying down in Finikia. Read a spy novel. But there is also the "nothing" of unstructured time. Time when you’re not pressured to see the Hagia Sophia (Istanbul) or get to the Acropolis Museum (Athens) before it closes. With unstructured time you can decide to walk up to Oia for lunch then, because there is nothing else that has to be done, meander around town, spend an hour in what claims to be "one of the best bookstores in the world," and decide that, if not the best, Atlantis Bookstore in Oia is both impressive and unexpected, with books in many languages. And not just any old books. No spy novels or beach reads here: instead, Kafka and Camus, the poems of Beaudelaire, Greek myths, Shakespeare. I managed to find a journal written by a travel writer in Rome; Paul bought a book about the Crusades to add to his collection. And yes, for Paul, this is recreational reading.

The big decisions on this leg of the honeymoon/sabbatical have been: eat lunch or dinner at home? Which restaurant to go to for the meal out? When to rent a car? We did do a tour of the volcano that involved deciding the night before to go and asking the hotel manager to make the arrangement, and getting up to be ready for the 9:25 bus pickup.

[Aside: on the airplane now. Weirdly enough, the TV monitors are showing sights from Istanbul! The Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Basilica Cistern! I think this little Italian airline, Blue Panorama, has just begun flying between Rome and Istanbul.]

Anyway, such luxury to be able to say, what shall we do today? Have a rest day? Go to the beach? Drive around the island and see what there is to see? No pressure.

So, when we weren’t literally doing nothing, what did we do? Besides, of course, eating, which I’ll write a bit more about in the next post. If you’ve been following my Facebook posts, you already know. But if not, we have:

• Visited Fira, the capital of Santorini, although you can’t call it a city. It’s the place to shop, to marvel at the village built into the rim of the caldera, admire the view. Lots of hotels, many built into the cliffside, lots of restaurants. Good to visit, but I wouldn’t want to stay there. Very crowded, and it’s the one place the traffic really gets on your nerves, whether you’re on foot or in a car yourself. (Except for the last time we went (to go to the Museum), we took the bus, which stops right across the street from the hotel.)

• Visited Oia, the village at the northern tip of the island. We could walk there in about 15 minutes or so. Even more charming that Fira, and much less crowded. The shopping isn’t quite as good (except for that killer bookstore) but there’s still plenty of it. I hear the high-end hotels here, also built into the cliffside with decks that overlook both the caldera and Aegean (if the placement’s right) can run from expensive to outrageously expensive ($1800/night for a hotel room!). Some really great restaurants, all with great views. The caldera, by the way, is the body of water--well, the hole created by the volcano that is now filled with water (see photo) and a few other smaller islands--on the west side of the island.

• Wandered around Finikia, the "traditional village" of which our hotel is technically a part. One of the three roads (only one can handle cars; it’s at the other end of the village) starts right behind the Villa Agnadi, where we stayed. It is indeed charming: winding pavements that don’t really seem to connect with each other in any real way, houses built on top of each other, four or five churches (none of which seemed to be in operation despite the fact that it was Sunday when we were there), masses of flowers and huge cacti, grape vines in clusters on the ground in the few open spaces, and, of course, lots of cats.

• Beach days! The first beach day was to Red Beach, at the south end of the island. It really is a thing to see: the red cliffs, the red sand, very dramatic. Not the most relaxing of beaches, though! It’s quite a little hike to get there and, once you’re there, getting in the water is no easy trick. If you go, bring real water shoes: the sea bottom is made up of large, very slippery rocks. The beaches around Kamari, in the middle of the island, are more "beach day" appropriate: golden sand, sandy-bottomed sea, gentle waves. Aaaahhh. We went to Monolith beach, and it was perfect. There are black sand beaches on Santorini as well; we heard that the sand at those was way too hot to walk on--and it wasn’t even that hot (high 70s) when we were there.

• Lay around the pool. The hotel has a lovely pool. We happened on the "windy season" in Santorini. It was nice to lie in the warm sun with a breeze blowing over you. Although the wind did occasionally get a bit out of hand. (Those who know me well will be shocked to know that I am actually a bit tan!)

• Drove around the island. We didn’t stay too long at Red Beach; we went out to Akrotiri (the nearest village) for some lunch. There are ruins nearby of an ancient Minoan civilization (we’re talking several millennia BC), but they are closed to the public since an accident killed a tourist six or seven years ago. Luckily the artifacts--pottery and frescoes--are in the Prehistory Museum in Fira. We went on Wednesday--so glad we did. Unbelievable stuff, the murals are absolutely gorgeous. And old! Boggles the mind.

From there we drove up to the middle of the island. The ruins of Ancient Thera (Thera is the other name for Santorini) sit on a hill above the town of Kamari. Not as old as the Akrotiri civilization but still pretty damn old. For some reason, the park that encloses them closes at 2pm. By the time we got there, it was well after 3. It’s still a great view, and you can see parts of the ancient village without actually going into the site. What we can’t figure out is how people get up there when it’s open: we drove the unbelievably twisty turny (and unfortunately narrow) road all the way up there to find that there was very little parking. Is it not a popular spot? I can’t imagine driving on the road when there is actually traffic (including, shudder, tour buses) going in both directions. Hmmm. We also made a stop in the incredibly charming little village of Exo Gonia, looking for a restaurant that promised the best saganaki (fried cheese) in Santorini. We found it. We went there. Twice. More on that later.

• Oh, right: the volcano tour. The volcano has played the lead part in the formation and history of this island for millennia. Santorini was formed by the volcano many millions of years ago. Parts of it have sunk back into the sea because of it. The topography and changed and changed again because of it. Civilizations have come and gone. The last big eruption was in 1959. And yes, it’s still active.

To get to the volcano, you take a bus to a boat, then hike up to the top of the hill (in Santorini, many things seem to be at the top of a hill). The island is strewn with black volcano detritus and pumice. At a certain point, you can feel the heat of the volcano’s core through the soles of your shoes; the air grows warmer too. On the path, there’s a place where some very hot steam comes through a hole in the ground. You can put your hand near it and feel the heat, but don’t touch the rocks! (That means you, little tourist boy!) You can smell the sulfur too. You can look right into the core, but there’s not much to see. No hot bubbling lava (that would be bad); it’s just a hole strewn with rocks. You can feel the energy coming off it, though. Our tour guide, Mama Joy, tolds us that when her younger son was around eleven, he disobeyed her and went down into the hole. He came back, she said, drunk: the heat and the sulfur all but knocked him out.

Can you believe we forgot to bring the camera? We have a few shots we took with Paul’s cell phone camera, and a bit of video. Sigh.

So, as we are now officially on our way: what will I NOT miss about Santorini? Hmmm. Putting toilet paper in a bin instead of into the toilet (everywhere on the island). The tiny shower at the hotel. The aforementioned traffic in Fira (although the cars do at least acknowledge the presence of pedestrians here, unlike in Istanbul). That’s about it, really. What will I miss? Everything else! The absolute gorgeousness of the place--it never gets old; the beaches; the food! We’re both sad to leave. But hey--we’re going to Rome! (Where, I'm thinking, the joy of doing nothing will be put on hold in favor of the joy of running around seeing lots of cool stuff.)


Here are links to the rest of the Santorini photos I've already published (and this time, I figured out how to make the link actually work!):

First day: a few Oia photos and a killer sunset from the hotel pool photo

Thera photos

Oia photos

Oia (sunset dinner) photos

Red Beach photos

Akrotiri, Ancient Thera, Kamari, Exo Gonia photos

Finikia photos

Villa Agnadi (hotel) photos

Santorini: Last Night

Foooood, Part I

Tonight, since we had a late-ish and large-ish lunch, for dinner we decided to walk up the street to Santorini Mou, which we’d read on TripAdvisor is a fun, friendly taverna with good food. And is it ever! Foodwise, we just ordered some appetizers: Paul’s favorite taramosalata (fish roe dip), a salad, and our two must-have items: saganaki and tomato balls. They call them "tomato fritters" at this restaurant, but they are the same thing: in Greek, tomato keftides. I’m thinking that Paul and I should stay in Santorini for an extended period and research the definitive survey on tomato balls and saganaki in Santorini. No sacrifice too great for scholarship!

The saganaki I’ve had in the past (all in the States) falls into two categories: okay-to-pretty-good fried cheese, and the saganaki at Symposium on West 113^th Street in NYC, which is the food I’ll be greeted with in heaven (along with their tsatsiki, warm pita bread, and a nice glass of red wine). At Symposium, they do it in the showy "hoopa!" style: they douse the cheese in brandy, put a match to it, and bring it out in flaming fanfare shouting "hoopa" The first time I ordered it, I was a grad student at Columbia and didn’t realize about the fanfare. It was kind of embarrassing--but I got over it more or less immediately, once I tasted the cheese! The waiters put the plate in front of you while it’s still on fire, and hand you a small plate of lemon wedges. After the cheese has reached the desired degree of brown bubbliness, you squeeze lemon juice on it to put the fire out. Then you eat it with the aforementioned warm pita bread, and swoon with delight!

Anyway, I’d been looking around for "flaming cheese" saganaki here in Santorini, to no avail. I asked the nice waiter at MamaThira in Fira about it and he said that Santorini doesn’t really do that, it’s just for show. "For the eye," said Theodore. So I decided--despite those previous disappointing experiences--to give the non-flaming type of saganaki another try. Or seven. Or ninety. It is indeed heaven on a plate, and Santorini Mou’s didn’t disappoint. And their tomato balls may be the best ones yet. We’ve had them several places now: the first being at the very first lunch we had in Fira that day we went into town to find clip-on sunglasses for Paul. We’d passed MamaThira on the way up the coastline. I’d read about it--on TripAdvisor, where else?--so we decided to go there for lunch. It’s lovely, has a great view of the caldera, and the service couldn’t have been better. The tomato balls came with the prix fixe lunch (along with Santorini salad with fresh soft cheese, and a gorgeous grilled fresh local sea bass--actually, this is still one of my favorite meals we’ve had here). We fell in immediate love with the tomato balls and have ordered them at least once a day since! I found a recipe online that looks close to the ones we had:

http://www.greek-recipe.com/static/content/Tomato_balls.html

I’m finding fresh dill (rather than mint) to be the herb of choice here, though.

We will be continuing our survey of saganaki and keftedes for the rest of the time we’re here in Santorini (till Wednesday). Tomorrow we’re hoping to go to an out-of-the-way place in the middle of the island that’s supposed to have both the best AND second best saganaki on Santorini. Hmmmm, we’ll need to investigate this claim thoroughly.

Anyway, we had a great time at Santorini Mou. They take photos of everyone who eats there (yes, everyone!) and put them in books that they ask you to sign. They have a special book for honeymooners (Santorini is one of the honeymoon capitals of the Universe, apparently!). There was another honeymoon couple at dinner--a young couple from Istanbul, of all places. The owner had splits of sweet champagne brought for each of the couples, then serenaded us with "When I’m Sixty-Four." It was a lovely evening, and you could see that everyone there--and there were people there from all over the world--was having a great time. Ah, Santorini!

Two weird things: I’ve been surprised to find that pita bread--that staple of all Greek restaurants in America--is not all that popular here in Greece. They have it, of course. You’ll get it if you’re having a gyro--and maybe if you’re having souvlaki. Otherwise, you get regular rolls or French/Italian-style bread. It just seems wrong to eat tsatsiki (which is, if you are unacquainted, a delicious dip made of Greek yogurt and garlic, sometimes with cucumber, parsley, and olive oil) with a roll. You can ask for pita and they’ll bring it to you--but they’ll look at you funny.

Second weird thing: we’ve been eating (not to mention drinking) our way from London to Istanbul to Athens to Santorini--and I haven’t gained a pound. In fact, I may have lost a few! I’m attributing it to lots of walking, as well as a diet heavy in salads and fresh fish, and Greek yogurt and fresh fruit for breakfast every morning. It seems to offset the wine and excessive amounts of bread! Haven’t had any pasta since leaving Santa Fe: this is possibly the longest I’ve ever gone without pasta! Well, next stop is Rome--I’ll get back to you on that weight loss thing.

Antiquity

Soon after the wedding, Paul and I drove his sister Sally to Pecos to see the ruin of the old church there. Back in the day, Pecos Pueblo was the biggest town in what is now New Mexico: the trading center, the place to be. Now all that’s left is the ruin of the kiva, a few adobe bricks where houses used to be, and the stone remains of the 1700s church. (Note to self: if you want to be remembered for centuries, build things out of stone.) The town of Pecos does, of course, still exist. But the sleepy mountain village is something else entirely to the civilization that once flourished and is now lost.

Which brings me, of course, to Istanbul. The glory days of Pecos Pueblo were the day-before-yesterday compared to the city that had formerly been the Eastern capital of the Roman Empire. But, like Pecos and its lost pueblo, the modern-day city of Istanbul has only geography in common with the glory days of the Byzantine capital. But there, hanging out between restaurants and souvenir shops, tram tracks and carpet vendors, are some of the oldest and most glorious buildings in the world.

Paul is the medieval historian in the marriage. (Can you believe I married someone who is actually MORE of a history nerd than I am?) So he knows more about the story of the emperor Constantine, who embraced Christianity and founded the eastern capital of the Roman Empire at a place he named Constantinople. I definitely learned to be impressed with the Emperor Justinian, who lived a century or so later, and had the Hagia Sophia built--actually rebuilt, for the third time. This is a HUGE place, it’s fabulous and gorgeous, and it was built in the 6^th century! How cool is that?

Also from Justinian’s time, there still exists underground cistern with columns from all over the place, including two with the head of Medusa at the base. Being an American, this kind of thing just amazes me. Here I live in the oldest capital city in the United States, and compared to this, well, it’s barely old enough to walk. Even the Anasazi hadn’t made it to the Santa Fe area in the 5^th century.

[I don't think I posted the photos of the Hagia Sophia and the Cisterns yet. Will get on it, veeerrrry slow internet connection here in Santorini willing.]

The glory of Pecos Pueblo ended not as a result of conquest, by either Spaniards or raiding tribes, but by drought. Byzantium was finally lost for good when the Ottoman Turks invaded Istanbul in 1453 (thank you, Paul). It’s as hard to picture the glorious days of Justinian's time in modern Istanbul as it is to imagine a thriving native trading center in today’s Pecos.

Anyway, Istanbul will never be Paris or Barcelona for me. But the history here is something else. The Byzantine Empire in all its phases, then the period of Islam, when the churches (including the Hagia Sophia and the Chora Church) became mosques and the iconography was (mercifully) mostly painted over rather than destroyed. (Both of the above are now museums, with the earlier iconography once more uncovered. Ironically, perhaps, there was more damage to the old artwork as a result of warring factions in Christianity (iconoclasts vs. iconodules) than due to the takeover of Islam. (Boy is this ringing a "local" bell for me: so much of the old Spanish folk art--the santos in New Mexico’s old churches so prized today--was destroyed or painted over by the European priests who came to Santa Fe with Bishop Lamy in the mid-1800s!)

I’ll finish with another weird connection between Istanbul and New Mexico:

We saw a lot of carpets in Istanbul with Navajo designs! What?! It made me wonder if those designs had originally been Moorish and brought to New Mexico with the Spanish missionaries (as was, for instance, the adobe brick-making technique). But no: they are Navajo designs that Istanbul weavers had seen on trips to the US or in pictures. Go figure.