Trip 44 — Ikaria Walk

Day 4: Armenistis to Evdilos
Sunday, 27 April 2025

Today: 15843 steps/12.47 km/7.75 mi/2h 16m
Total: 103579 steps/79.41 km/49.34 mi/15h 47m

Late dinners mean late wake-ups, especially when combined with a little postprandial television. I finally found a couple programs in English last night, but they were "Bonnie and Clyde" and a show about a Sichuan Airlines disaster, neither of which is a calming story to put one to bed.

I rose around nine, went down to breakfast, contemplated a dip in the pool, lingered in the room, and left just after eleven. It was my third time starting a Ikarian walking day at that hour, but this time I had only a little over two hours to walk.

It was another bright, beautiful day — I haven't seen rain since Athens. Armenistis was sleepy on a Sunday morning; even the church wasn't seeing activity, though perhaps I didn't pass it at the right time. The souvenir shops were open, and the restaurants were just getting going.

My legs seemed to have forgotten the ordeals of the recent days, and I was back down under eleven minutes per kilometer, a pace I wasn't sure I'd see again. I soon passed Gialiskari — Armenistis's coastal suburb, such as it were — where the squat, white church with its blue dome beckons denizens of land and sea from its unusual setting at a bend in the marina that juts out from the town.

Up and down and in and out, the road went, but the hills and detours didn't bother me, especially with the usual array of purple, yellow, white, and red flowers. When I reached Kampos, the western end of the greater Kampos-Evdilos-Karavostamo metropolitan area — such as it were — I could make out on a hill the ruins of the Odeon, a Byzantine theatre built in the first century. The path to it winds among houses, and I was led to the site by a woman who happened to be going home.

In those times, this place was an especially fertile and wealthy area. It was Ikaria's capital, Oenoe, known for its winemaking. Two parallel stone wall slabs remain, with some fine arches; it was easy to imagine the appeal of the place, above the surrounding houses, as a gathering spot for entertainment and important meetings.

A few goats and one cow later and I was at the entrance to Evdilos. I just had to make a left turn...

...Which revealed itself to be a staircase of about 100 steps. My legs weren't yet ready for such an endeavor, and I returned to the laborious task of putting my right foot on each step and then having my left leg join it, rather than alternating feet with each step as usual.

I walked across the waterfront, a U-shaped harbor lined with restaurants. Children were fishing from its innermost part while their parents watched on from a nearby cafe. I found the Atheras hotel down one of the back alleys, and the receptionist showed me the maze of twists and ascents required to reach my room. At the room's opposite end, a door led to a terrace about the size of a castle's watchtower. The two high-top chairs could just barely be jammed together to face outward to the sea. It was one of the strangest-shaped rooms with one of the most romantic terraces I'd ever had.

A straight pier cuts the harbor entrance in half. I was lucky to be in Evdilos for one of the twice-a-week-in-each-direction ferry stops. The Blue Star Myconos — the same ferry I arrived on, and the one that'll take me away in a few days — spent almost an hour, discharging trucks, cars, and people, and then bringing on hundreds of the same, plus about 30 motorcycles, in an order that would stump the finest sleuth. Some cars came from this side, some from that; some went in frontward, some backed in; some went on before the remaining vehicles exited, and some waited.

All the while a queue of a couple hundred people, including the group I'd met up in Christos, packed on via the passenger entrance. It was just before sunset. Exactly a week ago was the Easter departure, and it was easy to imagine a large crowd trying to sneak on with tickets only for Syros and then trying to assimilate into the crowd until the ship reached the mainland.

Then I violated Mrs. Galton's advice from the sixth grade (or was it Mrs. Miller's, from the first?). Or every teacher's: There's no such thing as a stupid question.

I went out for an early dinner, just after nine, at one of the inviting places along the harbor. There was a list of items chalked on the wall outside, and when the server came over, she listed most of those, plus a few others. OK, I thought, maybe this is one of those casual places where they just tell you what they have. That had happened a couple of nights ago, albeit at the place that was almost closed, so maybe he had just offered what was left.

I had a good dinner of beet skordalia (garlic mashed-potato dip) and gemista (rice- and vegetable-stuffed peppers and tomatoes), and then another group sat down and were all given menus. See, this was a restaurant, and I figured the absence of the offering of a menu was enough of an aberration that it meant there was no such document. But I should have asked.

I might have asked for the octopus baked with ouzo and feta (though they were out of it) or the bacon-stuffed sweet potatoes (which they had). Or perhaps something else. Another English-speaking couple was seated, and they didn't get menus either. The practice reeks of tourist-scamming, but they could hardly be accused of trying to upsell by stealth: Prices on the island are usually remarkably low; tonight's dinner, with my standard half-liter of house wine and the bread that I don't mind being charged for, was only about €22.

Hopefully the early meal will result in an early departure tomorrow. It's the longest walking day of the trip — though I suppose even in little Fanari I'll be able to eat if I arrive late.

Go on to day 5