The Authentic Eclectic
The Dead Body on the Beach
A Story of Greek Beaches
When I was young my brother and I were friends. We lived in Greece on the island of Paros in the Aegean Sea. In the winter we read books, listened to LPs, danced, and tormented our little sister. In the summer we climbed the little mountains and desecrated the ancient churches, and we swam in the Aegean. There were many beaches in our childhood.
Our favorite beach is called ‘Kolympithres.’ It is on the peninsula, so if you don’t want to ride in a stuffy bus, you have to cross the water in a tiny boat from the village dock. We loved that beach. It has a landscape of golden sand overwhelmed by giant silver boulders. You can pretend you’re on the moon; you climb those hot silver rocks and stare down into the blue-green sea and take a breath and jump in. When you climb out you flatten yourself on the same hot rock and dry in the sun until you jump in again. But the trip to Kolympithres costs money, so we didn’t go often.
Instead, we went to Agia Anargiry (Saint Anargiry), down the road from our house. It is a long pale slip of sand curving around a wide inlet. It is less protected from the elements as Kolympithres, so the waves are bigger and the water less blue. There are cool rocky isles you can swim to if you’re a strong swimmer. We swam to them…
