Trip 44 — Ikaria Walk

Prologue
Sunday, 20 April 2025

Ikaria is an inchworm-shaped Greek island in the eastern Aegean that looks as if it's inching its way northeast toward Turkey. It probably takes its name from the god Icarus, whose plunge into the sea is marked by a rock just off the island's south coast, but the name may also derive from "ikor," a Phoenician word for fish.

Ikaria was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1521 until 1912, when it became independent for three and a half months before joining the Kingdom of Greece. Ikarians kept watch on the sea for pirates and invading warships, and traditional Ikarian houses were built in discreet places and kept to one room with nonstandard chimneys that let smoke seep through the roof without being noticed.

Ikaria is one of the world's few blue zones: places with exceptional longevity due to a healthful diet, low stress, and a strong community. While the blue-zone concept is controversial, it's thought that the Ikarians' medieval frugal lifestyle, resultant from the island's vulnerable position, contributed to the general health and long lives the islanders enjoy today.

Things are pretty lax over in the eastern Aegean. I hadn't heard of Ikaria until my friend Kristy told me she had relatives there, one of whom runs the Pension Akti. When Kristy and her husband visited, they found all the rooms occupied by workers: The place was under renovation and the owners had forgotten they were coming.

This unfastidious attitude existed in 1977, when Nick Perry, ready for a change of lifestyle, gave up the Welsh farm he owned with his brother, boarded the three-day Magic Bus from London to Athens with his wife and three kids, spent a mostly sleepless night at the Piraeus port, and put his family on the first morning ferry, wherever it was going.

It happened to be Ikaria. "You no go there. Nothing in Ikaria," said the owner of the cafe before they departed.

The family had little money. While his wife home-schooled the kids, Nick did an assortment of odd jobs: early-morning fishing for octopus and barbounia (red mullet), tending goats at a monastery, hauling potatoes from cargo boats, working on the construction of the ill-fated Toula Hotel, and helping a man he called Datsun Jim build a house for Jim's brother. Jim always arrived late and had a tendency to let the cement harden before it was poured, and he never had any money to pay Nick. "Avrio" — tomorrow — was always the answer.

Nick didn't publish "Escape to Ikaria" until 40 years after he spent most of a year living there. Despite (or maybe because of) the relaxed pace, Ikaria seems a perfect little island: "I suppose there is nothing quite like it, wandering through a long hot summer living half naked on a beach, waking yourself up with an early morning swim in the Aegean, having a girl by your side and not noticing time passing because life is so simple," is how a friend of Nick's described it.

Or, as Datsun Jim said, "God and a goat. What else does a man need?"

Nick had the advantage of arriving on a daytime ferry; these days — at least before this year's main tourist season — all the boats from Piraeus call at Agios Kirykos, Ikaria's main town, late at night and only once a week. At least I'll have an easier time getting to Greece — Emirates' weird fifth-freedom flight from Newark to Athens promises to be more comfortable than the Magic Bus, if arguably less interesting.

I think I have a booking at the Pension Akti when I arrive just before midnight on Tuesday: After three e-mails I was able to coax a brief reply that didn't quite confirm that I had a room reserved and also didn't tell me the price, which I was able to elicit the next day.

It also didn't respond to the fact that I would like to stay there again after I round the island, but that is many "avrio" away; why worry about it now?

Go on to Prelude: Walking in Athens