Day # 127 of Social Distancing – The Summer of No Vacation

Sunset after the beach From the upper road

The reminders started on my Facebook feed yesterday. One year ago today, my husband, the twins and I arrived in my mother-in-law’s birthplace of Gytheio. That evening, I posted from our favorite bar. Two years ago today, we were traveling through Copenhagen on our way to Athens. Three years ago today, we were having our pre-vacation repast Stateside. Six years ago today, we were enjoying seaside cocktails on day two of vacation. See the pattern?

The Beach at Mavrovouni

Today, a year ago, would mark the first day of twenty days with the same

itinerary: coffee on the veranda in the early morning, donning bathing suits and sunscreen, taking off with a frozen liter of water for the 5 kilometer trek to the beach while the rest of the family went by car, stopping at the bakery for doughnuts – great fried circles covered in course sugar – and lalakia, the orange and cinnamon scented fried dough sticks of the region. We’d swim and sun ourselves, punctuated with greeting various and sundry relatives and fellow vacationers, until it was time to eat. We’d make our way back to the little apartment, where my mother-in-law would have spent part of her morning preparing the mid-day meal: moussaka for our first day, yemista, french fries for Geoffrey (always), kokoras (rooster stewed in tomato sauce), bamyes (okra), fried fish, grilled fish, or, on the rare occasion Mama did not want to cook, off we’d go for souvlaki, cheese and fried bread. The adults would have tsipouro to ease into the afternoon nap, obligatory for those of us who would spend every night out at the bar until 3 a.m.

Nightlife in Gytheio

The evening would begin with another swim – from 7 pm to 9 pm or so – after which we’d return home to shower, have the first cocktail of the evening, and eat again, with dinner effectively beginning at 10 pm. We’d venture out again, most times with the kids who would walk with us through town, drop us off at the bar, maybe having a lemonade before heading home around midnight, leaving us to sip our cocktails and people watch the night away.

At least once during the temporary life of luxury, we’d venture away from the seaside to the mountains for a couple of days.

Village Traffic Jam

The  typical routine consisted of hikes to the village’s glacial springs deep in the forest, or a road trip to the Temple of Apollo Epicurius. Inevitably, there would be what we affectionately refer to as a village traffic jam, complete with not-so-friendly sheepdogs. The view from the temple is breathtaking, and the grounds beautiful, wild and somehow comforting. We’d then drive into the next town to walk the main street, acknowledging all that had changed, or in most cases, all that had not, in the year between visits.

The village Welcome sign

In the evening, we’d return to the village to have another meal of souvlaki, fries and salad with the priest’s wife who runs the taverna just below the family’s stone house. If the hotel, directly adjacent the family home, was open, we’d venture over for a late night cocktail. If not, we’d retire to the balcony of the house, and get ready for a relatively early night. The mountain air flowing through the open (screened) balcony door would send in just enough cool air to sleep soundly. Occasionally, the night-prowlers would make some noise, but mostly the sound of crickets would fill the night air. We’d light the mosquito repellent snakes and strategically place them around the house, no doubt poisoning the air we were breathing just as surely as we were repelling the pests, and turn in for the night.

Mountain vista from the veranda

The family outside the stone house

Morning coffee on the veranda offers an incredible view of the mountains while the crowing of the village roosters ensure that every living thing knows it’s time to wake up. The morning is still cool, before the Greek summer sun is so high in the sky that all you want to do is swim in the sea. We make our journey to the cemetery to pay our respects to my husband’s grandparents; past the taverna, up the hill, past the priest’s wife’s chickens, pigs and goats. We stop at the chapel and place an unlit candle for their memory and fight our way through the underbrush that has taken over the untended graves. After another hike into the forest to the spring, we’d shower, pack up and set out for home base, where we were assured a delicious mid-day meal and an evening swim. And such was the life of the vacationers for twenty glorious days.

Now, in the year of the plague 2020, the year of the nefariously incompetent United States president and his criminal enterprise, Americans are truly the scourge of the earth and are barred from most countries worthy of summer travel. And so we are here, in our quaint little American village, masking up and social distancing, pining for the respite of those other villages and their inhabitants, so far away.