Pancratium maritimum

This lovely flower is in bloom on the beaches of Stavros. One of its common names is the Sand Lily and the bulb, deep in the sand of beaches and backyards, waits until now, after weeks and weeks of cloudless days, to put forth leaves and flowers. Maybe it was waiting for the migratory and nocturnal hawkmoth to make the trip from Africa to stop by and pollinate it on its way North. A couple of hawkmoths have migrated through our house; at first we thought they were small birds.

For reference, the lily plant in the photo is about a foot and a half tall; the flower, about 4 inches in length and, at the opening, about 2 inches wide (just the right size for the moth).

Short Trip to Omalos, Sugia, and Almost to Lisos

The Omalos Plateau is about 2/3 of the way across Crete south from Chania and a bit west from Chania. It reminded me of a miniature North Park in the Colorado Rockies (from a distance). Up close it is a bit drier and is a big goat and sheep pasture. The south edge of the Omalos plateau is the head of the Samaria Gorge. You can hike the rest of the 1/3 across Crete all the way to the Libyan Sea down this gorge. I say YOU can. We did not! We are thinking that we may be able to put off hiking down the gorge until it closes at the end of September, then it's likely to be too hot for us to go when it opens again in April, or maybe it will be too windy. One can only hope. But I'm thinking we are likely to hike down the gorge or be called wimps (which we are).

On the way to the Omalos Plateau we stopped at Laki where they have invisible hand rails. The village is on a lovely hillside, the statue and the platia are in Laki.

The incredible craggy mountains are at the beginning of the trail down the Samaria Gorge and late in the day the shadows were very pretty. We went for a short hike farther west along the edge of the beginning of the gorge trail, that's where the natural bonsai tree pictures were taken.

We stayed overnight in Omalos. It was wonderfully chilly in the mountains and we got to use blankets at night! This was so encouraging to us that we decided to hike to ancient Lisos the next day. To do this hike you drive to Sougia, which is on the south coast a bit farther west and then hike up the Lisos Gorge over a headland and then down to sea level in the next inlet west of Sougia. Both Sougia and Lisos were originally Minoan Settlements. Nowadays Lisos is an abandoned city other wise know as an archeological site. And Sougia is still a lively small port and summer time beach resort. We started out in Omalos very excited and energetic thinking about the hike, but as we lost elevation and gained temperature we turned into our usual wimpy selves. So we sat on the beach and took naps in St. Lucy. Then at about 5:00 PM we suddenly got energetic again and decided to go for the hike (it got cooler). So you will see pictures of the Lisos Gorge where we thought we had suddenly been transported to somewhere in the canyon lands in Utah or New Mexico. Except they don't paint Greek flags on the canyon walls in New Mexico. We did not make it to Lisos, but we did make it to the cliff edge looking down into Lisos. We are thinking of taking the water taxi from Sougia to Lisos next time and then spending our day hiking around in Lisos and maybe hike back. So, come see us and you can come along. You don't have to hike, you can take the water taxi both ways!

By the time we finished our hike it was getting along towards afternoon (7:00 PM) and we started the drive back across the mountains. We took a different route home because we saw on the map that it was a red road. This means that it is not a yellow road (we don't take yellow roads any longer unless under duress). But as we found out not all red roads are equal. This road was not equal. Actually I am exaggerating a little, part of the road had recently been redone. There were even some nice wide straight stretches along the road where new bridges had been built over some of the larger gullies. At each of these nice straight wide bridges there were extremely tall bright lights along each side of the road and then it got pitch black again on the remaining narrow curvy parts. We stopped for dinner at about 10:00 PM in Kolumbari at Grier's favorite restaurant. Then home by 1:00 AM.

Such a beautiful place and always something unexpected.

Some sad news. St. Lucy had her first (and I hope only) run in with a stone wall on my way home from work on Monday. It was one of those tiny windy roads, with double parking, two cars coming head on, and three following me, and a pedestrian. I chose the wall. Next time I will just stop. We were all going slowly enough, I could have. :(

St. Lucy has also developed a suspicious rattle coming from underneath. And I think there is also a new peculiar smell, although I haven't told Grier yet. But, he'll find out when he reads this Blog adventure. On a happy note St. Lucy got a bath on Friday. The Seabees are earning money for the Seabee Ball by doing car washes. They did a great job. The scratch on her side doesn't show up as much as it did when she was dirty.

Tonight the cats will get baths too. I hope you like the pictures.

Modern Greek Poetry

"Well," you say, "what about modern Greek poetry? Isn't it about time you said something about that?"

Okay, thanks to Kimon Friar, we can say a few things. Modern Greek Poetry, translation, introduction, commentaries and notes by Kimon Friar, Efstathiadis Group, 2005 (you'll be able to pick up your copy at the Hania airport), covers Greek poetry from the late 1800s through the mid 1960s. While you might object, saying, "that doesn't sound very modern to me", Friar has selected poems from all the heavy hitters from the 20th century: Cavafis, Sikelianos, Seferis, Elytis, and Gatsos; as well as lots more who deserve to be better known.

And, Friar has also provided short biographies of each poet with interesting information like: "Many of his poems were written on cigarette boxes and scraps of paper aboard ship."; "... he has tended toward a conscious control of the subconscious ..."; "His poems are often inspired by a frenetic, orgiastic, Dionysian ecstasy in an ultimate triumph of life, love, and a lust so cleaned of guilt and ethical distortions that it flows as from the pure springs of creation."; and, "In substance, his poetry becomes transcendent and ultimately irrational."

Of course, now you'll want to read the book yourself, but here are a few selections that we think stand out, and which seem to have the common theme of heat and light; impressive things here on Crete.

Aquarelle

On the mole, half-asleep in the summer's heat,
scalding mists leap above the blazing sand,
and its small houses, whitewashed and stripped bare,
make white brush strokes on the unmoving sea.
There gold-green waters in translucency
reveal snake-twisted seaweed, silver pebbles,
red-rusting anchors, shadows of dark blue
cast round their rims by the becalmed caiques.

Not a single soul! A lone man fishing there
stretches his numb hands sluggishly and yawns,
then sprawls on the hot stones and falls asleep;
there only a ferocious, black-haired dog
squats by the prow of a large fishing boat
and squints on the dead seastrand drowsily.

Kostas Ouranis

Daybreak

Frenziedly but certain
The colt of day charges into
The mouth of spring and the birds are singing
With the clear sky in their voices
Like flutes that echo and reecho in the flora
Of a handful of angels who remain in rapture
Like windflowers that arise
From the petals of pleasure.

Andreas Embiricos

And this, also by Embiricos, from his prose poem "In The Street of the Philhellenes":

"Oh God! This searing heat is necessary to produce such light!"

Documentary of an Excursion to Chania

Last weekend we had planned to go camping, but after we realized that it was too hot to sit outside in the shade and eat breakfast, we decided that we probably shouldn't plan to spend the weekend living out doors! So we did not go camping. Instead we relaxed at home, went into Chania on Saturday afternoon (about 7:00 PM is considered afternoon), recovered from going into to town Sunday (stayed home and stayed very still), and spent the day at the beach on Monday attempting to hide in the shade under our beach umbrellas. We learned that our umbrellas don't keep us from getting burned. So we spent the following week recovering from the trip to the beach.

Here are some pictures from our excursion to Chania. They are in order of the trip there, our walk around town and to the Agricultural Fair and then to dinner. Our camera batteries died towards the end, so the last few photos were taken after dark with my cell phone. Not the best photos.

The drive to Chania goes through some farm country, through a a small town called Horafakia, by Kalathas beach, through another larger town called Kounoupidiana, past the University, past the traffic circle that goes to the Eleftheriou Venizelou grave site, through the piney woods on a snaky road, and then down, down, down along the water into Chania.

We parked St. Lucy in the Santa Lucia parking lot (of course). The things that look like giant tooth brushes, or maybe more like toilet bowl brushes, are the lights at the stadium. We went to a store to buy two hanging candle holders similar to ones that were used in the Greek Orthodox Churches. Grier took my picture there. We then started walking across the town from the moat along the wast city wall (where the cars are parked) to the moat along the west city wall where the Agricultural Fair was being held.

On the walk you will see a rather bewildering variety of pictures. But I guarantee you that we could have taken hundreds more pictures that would have been even more bewildering, so this is a very small subset of bewilderment.

The pictures range from the Greek Orthodox church with minarets from the time of the Turkish occupation, old falling down Venetian buildings from the time of the Venetian occupation, what looked like bombed out (WWII) buildings here and there, creative engineering support systems to keep buildings from falling down, the old city walls mounted by modern, rather ugly (in my opinion) buildings that look to be hanging on rather precariously, knives on the street of knife stores, Minoan archeological dig sites, city wall restoration sites. other things that I don't know what they were or where they were for that matter. We got somewhat lost in some rather scary looking, winding, skinny streets with tall wobbly looking stone walls on both side. We did not walk back to St. Lucy after dark on those scary streets. We took a more direct route, not at all scary, just incredibly alive with the cheerful Saturday night party crowd. The party crowd at around midnight, when we were headed back to St. Lucy, still included some lively children. Too hot to be outside in the day time, children must also become nocturnal to enjoy the summer.

The lovely platia with the Plane tree and the two old friends visiting on a summers eve, not at all worried by the colorful graffiti, was charming. Well not the graffiti, that was not charming, but it was an interesting juxtaposition. I enjoyed it, I had to laugh.

In another picture you see more "artistic" graffiti in a colorful alleyway with a familiar pedestrian enjoying the evening.

The rather romantic looking picture of the lady in the flowing skirts under the lovely archway is a little deceiving. When she looked up after the photograph was taken, she could see to rotten timbers holding up whatever was above her head, complete with old carpeting showing through.

The Agricultural Fair was very nice. Honey, baked goods, hand embroidery work, olive oil, Raki, Raki stills, more Raki, many samples of Raki, cheese, juices, fruits, all kinds of canned pastes and sauces and more. Also, we finally saw some Cretan dancing. Very athletic, beautiful and it looked exhausting. But then, we had been walking for about 3 hours by then, it was10:30 at night and we still hadn't eaten dinner. It was likely just our point of view at that point!

So we walked back across the town to the restaurant we had chosen, in an old WWII bombed out mansion, no roof, but roofs are not needed here in the summer (except to keep off the sun). But happily there is no sun at 10:30 at night. The night was young, there were musicians playing (what sounded to us like) traditional Cretan music. Great food and music, more Raki, exhausted. We walked back along the quay wall lined with cafes, nice breeze blowing, nice wave sounds, and our feet were worn out. Thus we took Sunday to recover!