A Small Island Man

I first came to Sifnos in 2016. It was my son who came here first for the wedding of a Greek friend. After he was here for just half an hour, he called me and simply said "Dad,....I think you had better come here".

The Port of Kamares

And so my next holiday was for two weeks on the Greek island of Sifnos. We disembarked from the ferry onto the small port of Kamares and wheeling our wheelie cases stopped at one of the first beach-side cafes.

Revithokeftedes

We ordered Mythos beers, a caper salad, a greek salad and some island specialities of the rρεβυθοκεφτέδες (revithokeftedes -  fragrant deep-fried chickpea balls). 

It was love at first bite! The gentle warm breeze blew across the bay as we looked out upon an iridescent landscape of a sapphire and emerald sea, sparkling sands, golden mountains and an Aegean azurite sky. The scents, the colours, the tastes, the warmth of the sun and the warmth of the welcome was in the most literal sense, overwhelming. Overwhelming. Overwhelming my whelmed was definitely turned up to eleven. This was not a happy holiday feeling this was a thoroughly busted whelmed! This was immediate grief for the prospect of ever having to leave. This was being handed a ticket to the garden of Eden. This was the mental somersaults that one performs to ask oneself how one might turn a life inside out so that fifty out of fifty-two weeks a year might be spent here rather than the other way around.

Οι Επτά Μάρτυρες της Σίφνου

It's hard to explain the strength of feeling that Sifnos engendered, but is head-over-heels love ever explicable? Having lived my whole life in England (and being lucky enough to have travelled both for work and pleasure), it felt shocking, almost frightening that there should be a place that would be so strongly attractive. It was an attraction that seemed to reach up from the very ground on which I stood. It was as if roots grew out of the ground and penetrated the soles of my feet and reached upwards to wrap and entwine themselves around my heart.

The holiday was perfect. But by the time I had to board the ferry to return to the UK, I knew I had to come back.

Kamares Bay at Dusk