Cut Off? On a Greek Island?

Cut Off?  On a Greek Island?

When we leave Australia we also leave 'an island' , though also a continent!

We leave a small village behind to go to another small village, but in neither place do we find the world forgotten

True, on an Aegean island you live in comparative isolation. True, you rarely get Australian news except online. But we certainly do not find ourselves ‘cut off’ from the world, in fact living on a Greek island has taught us a lot about parts of the world we we would never have visited if we did not go there every year (on our stop overs), and we have heard stories from other visitors of places they go to inbetween living on Lemnos. 

As you fly into Lemnos you can see many bays and low hills

The sea, and the boats that were used by travellers are iconic pictures. The boats used to get from island to island in the past are still images used in illustrations throughout the Mediterranean

No, living behind the red door of our old Greek house the world can not be entirely locked out as modern travellers arrive. 

Although Lemnos is still mostly a place for Greeks to excape the summer heat of Athens nowadays foreighners, like us come there each year. And yes, many are Australian or American-Greeks, but we have met English and Americans with no Greek forebares who have bought homes on the island, each with their own fabulous travel stories to tell.

And one thing for sure, we find we have not left the world of politics behind for the internet will fill us in the the latest gastly happenings.

Yearly we’ve been visited by guests arriving, from England, the USA and Australia – university lecturers, photographers, students, government officials, accountants, teachers, factory employees. And all, on their travels to us, and after they leave us visit other countries - Laos, Cambodia, France, Scotland, Turkey, Germany, Switzerland, Rwanda, Bulgaria and Austria, to mention just a few of the other places they have just been to.

True, we can rarely get hold of foreign newspapers (in summer you can buy papers from England and the International Herald Tribune), and the local TV and radio concentrate on Greek news (with overseas news often exaggerated to make a point about the benefits of living in Greece!). However Takis and I have found that more often than not the world comes to our door, journalist-free. These visitors will show us pictures of their great European adventures and we talk. We talk about the living conditions they have found in those countries, and they ask us about conditions on the island or in Greece. Often our talk disabuses preconceived ideas and often joint concerns are emphasised.

From the days when Odysseus sailed to Lemnos travellers have kept coming to this island and they are still coming. And as in those far off days tales are still being told about journeys.