A Thing of Beauty by Peter Fiennes

Author:Peter Fiennes [Fiennes, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780861540624
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2021-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

There are many beautiful beaches running south from Epidavros Port to the tip of the peninsula beyond Troezen. We were staying in the Poseidon Hotel in the port, and very lovely it was too. The exceptionally friendly owner had seen his business badly battered by the first year of Covid, but he remained unfailingly cheerful. There were still plenty of French and German visitors in October, and the weather (did I mention?) was limpid, and when I unfurled my inevitable question he smiled and said that he expected next year would be better. ‘What else can we do but hope?’

The best beach, we decided, was tiny Kalamaki, a short stroll along the coastal path from our hotel, but we did also find time to experiment with a few others between here and the island of Poros to the south. We crossed to Poros on a small car ferry, heading for Love Bay (because who could resist?), the journey taking about ten minutes. Pausanias warns us that this area is dangerous for swimming because of the numerous sea monsters, including sharks, that infest the local waters, and that was enough to put me off, even if he was writing almost two thousand years ago. The idea makes my skin crawl, but the Mediterranean needs its sharks back. The island of Poros was once sacred to Apollo, but he swapped it with Poseidon for Delphi, or so the locals liked to claim, and perhaps that is why there are so many monsters in the ocean, keeping their sovereign lord company.

We drove past Love Bay but decided there must be something better further around the island (there is always something better further around the island). And for once it worked, and did not end in recrimination and regret (‘I told you we should have stopped at that bay’), and we found ourselves on an exquisite beach, with low flat rocks for our picnic, lapped by a lapis sea, fringed by pine trees, the hot sun in the blue sky, a ten-minute walk from the road, down a narrow goat track, past a burned-out car, and with just three middle-aged naked Germans for company. If you travel to the more remote beaches of Greece there are always three naked Germans for company, and it seems unnecessary to mention it, given that these shores (and gyms and athletics stadia) were once filled with oiled and naked men, not to mention erect phalluses at every single crossroads and front door, and swinging lustily from the loins of the actors at the theatre, and there were beautiful sculpted naked bodies in the temples and public squares, both male and (later) female, but these days most of us have been schooled to find public nudity uncomfortable. In earlier times, it was the god Hermes who was most often proudly on display, or at least part of him, but there was always plenty to choose from.

One of the middle-aged German men had positioned himself on a nearby rock overlooking

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