Syros: I'm Returning to Write About You.

 

Jeff–Saturday

I'm placing my next Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis book (#13) on the Cycladic islands' capital of Syros. I actually decided that months ago, but with all the miserable news stories facing our world, I decided, why try to change the mood with happy thoughts such as...

There has to be more to life than television news.

 

There has to be more to life than war crimes.

There has to be more to life than greed for the sake of greed.

 

There has to be more to life than the unqualified obligation to carry it.

There has to be more to life than peanut butter.  Okay, maybe that last point is a bit extreme.

I'm midway through my second month in Greece, mainly on Mykonos. In a few weeks I'll be heading off to a few different islands, but circling back to Syros where, after a dozen years, I've decided to place a book.

And then it's back to New York where after a few days, I take off for Minneapolis and Bouchercon 2022.  It will be great seeing the MIE gang after too many years apart.

I’m beginning to feel philosophical.  Maybe I need peanut butter.   Crunchy style.  I’m attracted to nuts.

 

Syros' capital city of Ermoupoli

So here's a bit about Syros, the one-time capital island of the Cycladic chain of Aegean islands about an hour west of Mykonos by boat.  For one brief moment in the 1800s Syros’ capital city of Ermoupoli (and the actual capital of the Cyclades) also served as the capital of Greece.  Or so I’m told. 

Phoenicians were the first known inhabitants of Syros, naming the island from their word for “wealth,” and later occupiers, pirates, and Syriots seeking precisely that same prize brought boom and bust times to the millennia that followed.  Syros’ last great aristocratic run, as Greece's Nineteenth Century ship building and repair center (the first shipyards in Greece were established there), ended at the close of that century with the opening of the Corinth Canal and the harbor and shipyards at Athens’ port city of Piraeus.

 

Neorion Shipyards, first in Greece

Syros has its stunning neoclassical buildings, streets paved with flagstone and marble, and opera house––some say the first in Greece––but there’s no question the glory has faded.  Still, the island now gives off a vibe of renewal...as if things are changing for the better.  Yes, the once thriving shipyards are not back to their glory days, but the new owner is driving them forward, and though better known for agriculture than tourism, there's a noticeable new emphasis on tourisim, even though the island's main draw continues to be its position as the political center of the Cyclades.

   

Ermoupoli street scene

Ermoupoli City Hall, designed by Ernst Ziller

To be honest, until a few years back I never paid much attention to my time on Syros. I’d go there at least once a year, spend time walking around the town, enjoying its wonderful open market streets filled with fresh produce, fish, farm raised meats, candies, and pastries  (Nothing like that on Mykonos).  And I’d admire the buildings. How could you not?  Parts of Syros are as if you’re in Rome.  Make that old Rome, before its Benetton days.

Hotel Ploes

But then we were stranded on Syros by a storm for five days, and I found myself transported to a different time and place--as if a stranger walking through a once gilded age--giving meaning to my own simple thoughts on life.

After all, on Syros you’re in the heart of what once was the economic equivalent of today’s Silicon Valley and when you look at her now you see the flesh and blood embodiment of such truisms as “all fame is fleeting,” “all success is relative” (also in the sense that your successor relatives will likely spend it all), and “nothing should be more highly prized than the value of each day.” 

Don’t misunderstand me.  There is no reason to pity this glorious island.  It is to be treasured.  And those residents aware of its history surely do.  For it gives them perspective on what perseveres and matters.  People persevere, buildings fade.  People matter, buildings only if people care.   It’s people, not things, which determine a nation’s destiny. 

Greeks, understand that better than us all. Or at least they should. For they live amid a land that’s flourished (and floundered) for six thousand years (some say five).

I’m blessed to be lucky enough to be part of all that is Greece for six (pre-Covid) months a year…plus peanut butter.

—Jeff