When I entered the country on 17 June, Serbia was doing really well, but shortly before I arrived the government had relaxed controls and the Covid-19 infection numbers started rising again. I was worried not for fear of getting sick (my preference for staying in quiet mountain towns and having little direct contact with people puts me in small danger), but for the likelihood of not being able to enter any other country if that trend continued.
And indeed, as I had feared, after about six weeks it became clear that the prudent logistical move for me was to leave because countries were closing their borders to people coming from Serbia. I was extremely loath to move on again, especially since I was in a good spot in a mountain town where I could continue my endurance training, running long and far from people through the green hills, but I wanted above all else to get back into the EU so that I could (all being well) return to Italy in autumn.
Greece was the one EU country I could find that would let me enter from Serbia without a quarantine period, providing that the Covid test they did at Athens airport when I arrived came back negative. I had planned to stay in Serbia until the end of August, but I cancelled my lodging reservation and bought a ticket on Air Serbia (the only direct flight) for 4 August to fly to Greece, so I could celebrate my fiftieth birthday on 3 August with good friends in Belgrade. The flight got changed to 3 August, so instead, I flew to Greece on my 50th birthday! Which in the end I thought was just fine.
The evening of Sunday 2 August in Belgrade, my friends and I had a lovely few hours together celebrating my birthday and marking the farewell. At 10 p.m. (20h) Belgrade time we clinked glasses to toast my entering the next decade of my life — a significant one, as in this decade I will transition out of fertile womanhood. We raised our arms and touched glasses at 8 a.m. NZ time on 3 August, the time that I believed I was born. But the next morning I got a birthday email from my dad and he told me I was born at precisely 08:29:10 to 15. We were 29 minutes early!
Arriving in Athens in August after 11 months in relatively cool or cold locations (even though it’s at a fairly southerly latitude, Zlatibor lies at 1000 m and I actually had the heat on a couple of times during the day not long before I left!) and suddenly having to deal with high heat and humidity PLUS the full onset of menopause (hello, hot flushes!!) was too much for my system, and both body and brain struggled greatly for the next two weeks.
In August in Athens you bathe in the air as you walk, and it’s quite useless showering. The city captured me, though. Athens is full of green plants, lined up in pots on balconies, clustered in squares of dirt among the concrete and tiles on the streets and pedestrian zones, covering the slopes of the small hills that rise from the sea of white buildings. Looking up — or down from a hillside — everywhere one sees long strips of balcony stacked atop one another and overflowing with greenery. I took not a single photo of that aspect of the scene.
I was fortunate to choose a fantastic place to stay in Athens. I was in a very new, very nice and very well-air conditioned top-floor suite with kitchenette and terrace on a quiet street right at the edge of a cool district with cafe-lined pedestrian zones, several stores selling handmade chocolates (delish!!), and lots of useful shops.
I was 10 mins’ walk from the Acropolis Museum, 15 mins’ up along the foot of Philopappos Hill to the main gate of the Acropolis (and even closer to the less-popular south gate), and max 25 mins’ walk to most of the other major archaeological sites, including all the sites on the Acropolis combination ticket, which I bought without waiting in line from a vending machine across the street from the Acropolis Museum. And 5 minutes away by foot was the Museum of Contemporary Art, which unfortunately I didn’t get to, although I did more sightseeing in three days in Athens than I did in the whole of last year!
The funny thing is, outside of a vague desire to one day see the Acropolis, I have never desired to visit Greece, and I’m still slightly resistant to being here. I had no sense of the modern country or the culture, and I knew not a single word of the language, not even yes or no, although I made a small attempt to learn the word for thank you on the plane from Serbia. It didn’t stick. (I’ve learnt it now.) Confusingly, yes in Greek is no in the Balkan languages — the word is ne — and after half a year in those countries ne comes out automatically when I want to say no, but now that I’m in Greece, instead of saying no I’m saying yes!
That being said, it was an amazing experience to visit the Acropolis. The day after I arrived, I went there in mid-afternoon and ended up having the place virtually to myself. I was able to wander in peace, standing for minutes at a time in silence gazing at the details and scale of the architecture and being quite unable to comprehend that these columns with their detailed fluting had been created thousands of years ago and not only were the columns still standing, but their details of craftsmanship were still evident.
Towards the end I walked down below the Erechtheion and for a full five minutes stood alone, my attention captured by the Caryatids (korai) holding up the roof of the “Porch of the Maidens”. I stood in silence, the only sounds the breeze and the cacophony of cicadas floating up from the forested slopes of Mount Philopappos. The sunlight in Athens is clear and bright, and as I gazed at the maidens, they became sharper and sharper in my vision, each detail emerging with ever greater clarity in the bright white light.
(See a gallery of photos from my visit to the Acropolis here.)
Two days later, walking very slowly, I also visited the Temple of Zeus, Aristotle’s School — which I went round in ever-decreasing circles trying to find the entrance to! — and Hadrian’s library. Upon entering each site, I was instantly in a zone of peacefulness and quiet, despite being in the midst of a huge city filled with human life and vehicles. It was quite remarkable.
I was disinclined to walk around much, becoming drenched with sweat within a few minutes, but it was worth it to visit and spend a little time in these remains of ancient human creative endeavour.
I have almost zero tolerance for being in cities these days — their noise, pollution, endless tracts of concrete and sensory overload — but I could have stayed where I was in Athens for a few more days, except that I was exhausted and not adjusting well, so I needed to get out to a tranquil spot at higher elevation. I actually extended my stay in Athens one day simply because I couldn’t wrap my mind around all of the variables involved in deciding where to go next and for how long. In the end I settled on a week at a speck on the map at 605 m altitude called Neo Kostarazi, after which I would move to a really lovely apartment with a striking view over the orange-tiled rooftops of Kostarià and Lake Kostarià. Right behind the apartment I can walk into the hills and run along trails for hours.
But I’m ready to go home. I had planned to return to Italy in October, but me at a latitude this far south in full northern hemisphere summer while simultaneously adjusting to hot flushes and other aspects of the hormonal flux of menopause is a train wreck, and so on 7 August after arriving in Neo Kostarazi I bought a ticket to fly back to Bergamo on the 10th. Three days later I changed it to 3 September. Three weeks. Three weeks and I go home. I. Can’t. Wait.
Never have I been more grateful for my NZ passport. NZ is one of only about 12 countries on the EU ‘safe’ list.