Myrina: Public Spaces

Myrina: Public Spaces

In my last blog I posted the back streets and main street of Myrina, in this one I want to look at the public spaces of Myrina. Their public gardens, children’s playgrounds and large areas free for public use.

The use of flowers and folliage plants in public spaces is a new venture

I have now been living in our renovated house on an island in the Aegean for almost fifteen years, but we also live half the year in a very different village in the Dandenong Hills in Victoria, Australia. If you like baking cakes you know that all cakes require flour, sugar, butter and eggs adding the spice and fruit and perhaps chocolate makes the difference. I recognise that the basic ingredients of a village are the same but each village has its own spice and sweetness. 

Public Gardens

I worry about watering all this grass in summer, though this year has been unusually wet and the grass is very green,

Children’s Playgrounds

Other children's parks are being renovated, I hope not with too much cement!

The spaces for children’s’ slides and swings are very similar in both of our villages, and there is some similarity in the public gardens.

Large Public Spaces






Swings on the Beach

Being resident in each long settlement for so long I’ve developed a degree of intimacy with both, and I can see that while it is the mix of geology, geography and history, that makes a difference, it is the large public spaces that make the biggest difference. In Myrina the beach is the most used public space, and the mount where the old castle is situated is the larges public space.

 

 

 

 

It’s interesting to compare the two villages, Emerald in Australia and Myrina in Greece, though they are not interchangeable. In one there is a tourist steam train passing through, and it is your obligation to stand at the crossing and wave to the passengers as it passes by. In the other village there are special fetes for Saints days, and when it is time for the fete for your area you will be expected to join in with everyone at the march around the parish and at the party that occurs the night before the main service.

In our part of Myrina the celebration for Saint Pandeleimonos will be quite soon, on July 25/26.  Unfortunately we will miss the BBQ in the village park this year as we will be back in Australia.



Our newly renovated local park

 

View of the Castro from one of the tavernas