Crete. City of Chania. All of a sudden, life has once again light, laughter, colors.
Palaiochora. According to travel guides, a quiet fishermen village at the farthest south point of Greece. Situated between two picturesque gulfs, in the Lybian Sea.
A quiet fishermen village? Don’t let them fool you. Keep your eyes and ears open, and you will not miss the extraordinary magic of the place.
It’s a place where the rocks and the trees managed to reconciliate over the years. So perfectly that stone reflects wood. If you don’t believe me, walk trough the Anidri Gorge and you’ll understand what I mean.
It’s a place where you can meet the famous pirate Barbarossa, sitting alone in a small tavern, drinking his “raki”, wearing a modern military uniform but still having those firy red hair and beard.
It’s a place where you can meet an ancient horseman from Thessalia, with his fair complexion and curly blond hair, who serves homemade sweets (roses and pergamont) in a nice little cafe near the port, and thinks he is just an actor, desperately wanting to play ancient greek tragedy plays.
It’s a place where Juliet’s governess, merry and full-bussomed works in a bakery and treats guests with whole bread loafs and declares she has the best bosses in the world, and if something happens to them she will die.
It’s a place where a 90 years old lady knows how the winds blow and runs down the stairs to show you your way, to guide you to the right direction.
If all this sounds like a quite fishermen village to you, than that’s what Palaiochora is. But if you ever get there, watch out. You never know whom you might run into.
Eva Danadiadoy is a disillusioned but passionate lawyer specializing in urban law and urban human conditions, but she could be also be called a closeted artist. She has been reading and writing fiction and poetry for years and won the Thessaloniki Bar Association’s third place literary award for Best Short Story in 2010. She has lived in the city of Thessaloniki in Greece for her entire life, but has traveled to the most remote corners through her reading and writings.
