I haven’t updated this site for awhile because I’ve been moving from Athens, Greece, to Boulder, Colorado. I’ll be spending the year in Boulder on a Ted Scripps fellowship at the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado. Many, many thanks to the Scripps Foundation and CU for the wonderful opportunity!
* A “better late than never” post…
THE NEW YORK TIMES
July 27, 2008
Journeys | Crete
Days of Wild Oregano and Goatherds
A SPIRALING, slightly treacherous dirt road leads to Aspros Potamos, an enclave of 300-year-old cottages in eastern Crete once used by olive farmers and goatherds. Peaceful and primitive, with stone floors, oil lamps for light and a starry night sky, the cottages, now a rustic retreat for tourists, offer visitors a glimpse into the life of old Crete, without the boutique airbrushing.It’s not the usual vision of Greece’s largest island, but for many, it’s far more rewarding than the seaside nightclubs, umbrella-pinned beaches and Riviera-lite resorts that attract many people. The eastern Lassithi prefecture, which stretches from a lush plateau of farms to dry crags overlooking transcendentally blue bays, offers plenty of portholes into a disappearing Crete and its robust geography.
But the last-paradise vibe may not last much longer. Several developers are scoping out the land for resort development, and residents fear that the resorts will guzzle the island’s increasingly scarce water resources. I explored this old side of Crete during a trip last summer to the eastern side of the island. My family left Greece for the United States when I was a child, and though I have visited my mother’s island many times, Crete remains a tableau of longing: the puffing chimneys on the tiny stone houses in my mother’s village, the farmers riding donkeys to orange groves. Somewhere between our rented stone cottage and the expanse of Lassithi, I figured, were pieces of this reverie…
Here’s the rest of the article on The New York Times website.
The New York Times
Journeys | Nicosia, Cyprus
LIKE most of Nicosia, the Atolye Cadi Kazani Cafe feels nostalgic. It is awash in jazzy piano music, the scent of cardamom-spiced coffee and an Ottoman ambience that reminds the owner, Nilgun Guney, of her grandmother’s house.
“This is the magic zone,” said Ms. Guney, a Turkish Cypriot painter who lives in northern Nicosia, the Turkish side of the city, Cyprus’s capital. “Here we try to create something new from something old that is fading away.”
You need a little magic to see Nicosia, the last divided capital in Europe, as one city. For decades, the Mediterranean island-nation of Cyprus has been cleaved between ethnic Greeks and Turks into the wealthy sovereign south and the poorer, Turkish-occupied north.
Read the rest of the story here.