As long as I can get around I will... walk. Because I can afford it. Walking, most of the time costs nothing but it can also be expensive. It depends on where you want to walk, around the house or to a faraway place, for me the most faraway is an island.
Here's what I meant by the first sentence. All my working life I've been moving and running, to provide the necessities for a decent living. Now that I'm retired, I don't run anymore... I just walk, wherever I want to go.
This would be a very enjoyable stage of life if I didn't know it was the penultimate one, before the final rest!
I got into the habit, every Wednesday, writing something about the walk following the rules of @tattoodjay's @WednesdayWalk challenge and the #Pinmapple map!
The rules are simple and can be summarised as follows:
"Try and get out once a week for a short walk, which can be from your office, home, or anywhere really, and walk for a few blocks or a few minutes looking for things to get shots of."
Fortunately, this wording in the rules above, "or anywhere really" gives us a great deal of freedom of expression and choice and I appeal to it in certain situations, such as today. Because...
I wanted to tell you today about my most recent walk (I think you notice that I avoid using the expression "last walk") I did on the road, in my city Bucharest. While I was preparing the photos for the post I saw this post by @fotostef... Silly me. I haven't even read it yet, just looked at the photos. I think you know that @fotostef is a great photographer! He shows us in general Greece and especially the island where he lives, Crete. Just looking at these photos made me miss the island of Thasos immensely, the only place in Greece where I went for a few years in a row on holiday. The last time was in 2019, then the global pandemic but also "personal pandemics" prevented me from going there again.
Only memories, photos, and dreams now still take me to the Aegean island. Stefanos's post made me forget the most recent walk in my grey city, in a constant motion between winter and spring, and made me set foot on the island again, virtually.
Until now all my posts about walks kept the chronology of the photos in the order seen during the walk. This time I will make a random presentation of some places, objects, or beings that I met during the walk(s) that I liked the most and that caught my eye, interest, and, of course, the camera lens!
The wish of the Greek hosts is that tourists have a great time, staying as long as possible "at the tables"... in cafés, terraces, taverns, and restaurants. Of course, they leave as much money as possible... "on the table" This famous hospitality coupled with the same famous practical and commercial Greek spirit! Perhaps they could be criticized in a way if they did not bring so many benefits to the tourists, but, it's a happy situation when both sides have something to gain!
For me, coming from the north, the Mediterranean climate is fascinating. Here, in Thasos, it's a somewhat mixed climate, with many plants that live at my home but also tropical ones, like these palm trees.
Every place is used for tourism. Small terraces line the shore or the edge of the small harbor.
The town (some call it a village) where I like to stay in Thasos is called Limenaria. What a beautiful, bright, and melodious name! Here is a place for normal people looking for ordinary places and enjoying the small pleasures of life. Nothing spectacular, nothing luxurious... but so welcoming and gives me a feeling of "home"!
As is this street away from the seashore. Far away if you relate it to the size of the island, otherwise only a few hundred meters. An ordinary street, where the ordinary people of the city live, a quiet street with nothing touristy except the place where people (connoisseurs!) gather in the evening to eat.
Here they eat only in the evening, from 8 pm until the last customer is full. Daytime strolling through this place stirs stomach memories of last night's food.
If it weren't for these tables and chairs lined up along the sidewalk no one would imagine that this is a place where you can eat...
Yes, here eat both tourists who know and locals who know even better...
... that the food here is the best, fresh and just like the Greeks eat at home, not in a restaurant. Of course, there is no luxury, no waiters with manners, no waiters at all, the service are done by the members of this family who live in the house next door and they cook all the food. Anyone who wants to understand how these people live on this island should come and eat here!
I can now say that every evening walk had an end here. This taverna doesn't look like a classic waterfront taverna. The atmosphere was more like a celebration at the Sotiros' home. We were invited to dinner!
I have shown here only one of the beauties of this small town on the island of Thasos. The island of Thasos is not exactly small, it is the twelfth largest of the thousands of islands of Greece. Located in the northern part of Greece, it is close to the Balkans and as I live on the edge of the Balkans, in Romania, it is easiest for me to get here. I drive 800km, cross the whole of Bulgaria, and then drive a bit more through mainland Greece.
That's what I call the ride that is not free. It costs something to get there. I can't wait to get there again and I think the small possible obstacles ( Putin, earthquakes, the state of my health and my car, personal finances.... and so on, haha!) don't stop me from my dream again.
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