Syros, Capital of the Cyclades

An unusual early cold spell hit Greece in September. We had planned to go back to Athens. Sifnos was completely dead. It was too cold to swim and there were not enough people around to make cafe sitting interesting. We were watching the same shopkeepers and locals wandering around.

Phillipe, Tony, Lefteris and the other bar and restaurant owners finally had the time to relax and pursue romantic interests, but there were no women left on the island. They wandered around desperately peering into the restaurants and cafes where people were taking shelter from the cold, looking for unattached tourist girls. It seemed that the few that were around had made the same decision we had: to take the Paros Express. But where everyone else got off in Paros we continued on to Syros. Syros is the capital of the Cyclades and arriving at night is like sailing into the lights of a major city. It's not as large as a major city but it used to be the main port for all of Greece and the harbor is home to a shipyard with drydocks and several large tankers that are being worked on.

Our ship was delayed in Paros to bring aboard an Egyptian guy who had been injured in a motorcycle accident and was being taken to the hospital here. As we walked down the stairs and through the garage of the ferry we saw him laying on a mattress where the carbon-monoxide could finish him off as the cars and trucks revved up their engines in preparation to leave the ship. We had made friends with an adventurous British couple named Jan and Otter and were planning on a wild evening together after we located a hotel.

Our first try was the Hermes Hotel, right on the waterfront, where I had stayed with my family for an entire month in 1963. They were booked full so we crossed tiny Kanaris Square to the KYMATA pension which was formerly part of the Greek Navy station. Thirty years ago we would watch as soldiers ceremoniously saluted the flag as it was taken down each evening from the balcony that is now the finest feature of our hotel room.

From it we can see the entire waterfront, the comings and goings of the ferries and the day and nightlife which is abundant. The building itself is at least a hundred years old and is on a long narrow peninsula with the harbor on one side and the open sea on the other. The rest of the peninsula is full of historic Naval buildings and one large apartment building style hotel. When the sea is rough a walk along the coast can be a wet one as waves crash and spray the stone streets.

Hermoupolis is a walkers paradise. Plenty of small streets and little shops and cafes tucked away waiting to be stumbled upon. The waterfront is alive with people, cars and commerce. There are plenty of good restaurants and ouzeries and many of the older places have these screened in boxes where they hang octopus to keep the flies off them while they dry in preparation for grilling. There is nothing like grilled octopus and ouzo to begin an evening.

Niko the concierge who initially seemed irritated by our arrival and desire to see other rooms besides the first that he offered us, gradually opened up after he noticed my speargun sticking out of my bag. He sent us to an ouzerie called Manoussa in the giant square that is the center of Cycladic government. Our waitor, Stomatis, turned out to be the owner and after a fantastic meal of ouzo, grilled sausages, galeos and skordaya, saganaki and a beef soup I had never seen in Greece, he entertained us with tales of his own drinking history, while his sexy cosmotologist wife had me contemplating infidelity long after the party broke up at three in the morning. When visiting a traditional Greek island it is not a good idea to seduce or be seduced by the tavern owners wife. At least not on the first night.

It surprises me how much I remember from my first visit to the island. I knew where our room was in the Hermes from 1963. I walked through the lobby of the elegant old hotel and looked into the restaurant where I ate my first marmalade. Behind the hotel is a small stone beach where we spent our days with the other Fullbright families who were there for orientation, and as I watched the waves break upon the shore I recognized the boulder that protruded just above the surface and I thought to myself "I wonder why they haven't removed that thing yet."

I remember body-surfing and always being aware of that rock and where I was in relation to it so as not to shatter my little nine year-old bones. I also recalled a day when the sea was calm as glass and I sat upon that same rock and noticed how unthreatening it was then. The beach was actually a strange introduction to the Aegean sea since it was usually very rough and not at all typical of the sheltered sandy beaches that I am now more familiar with.

The island is known for Loukoumia or Turkish Delight which is a sweet, gummy, sugar-powdered, nut-filled candy sold in attractive boxes from stores and loukoumia factories all over the city of Hermoupolis. When the ferries stop on their way to Mykonos or from there back to Pireaus, loukoumia sellers run onto the boat to sell to the passengers and then dash to get off before the boat leaves taking them and their candy to Pireaus.

"The winter weather has finally passed and it is late summer on the Aegean islands again. Today we swam on the rocky beach next to the Hotel Kimata. It was cold but bearable. We have switched rooms and now have a balcony that overlooks the entire harbor. I can watch the ferries sail in and out from my bed. Our former room also had a view of the harbor and overlooked Kanaris square and the waterfront, which stays busy until four in the morning.

There is a line of cafes and bars that are very active and a restaurant right on the square called the Yannina. They have fantastic lamb, chicken and kokoretsi roasted on a spit, as well as all sorts of grilled fishes and meats and other cooked dishes."

Of special interest is the gambling casino on the waterfront.