The First Story: Thassos, Greece

The roadside motel was a few miles south of Kavala. It was supposed to be nice because it was on the Greek coast and they advertised it as a “resort,” but it had the feel of a depressed, barren truck stop off a one-lane highway. The vibe at the reception desk was like something from a Twilight Zone episode. After seeing our tiny, pink-heavy room and confirming that the online pictures were of some other place, we headed to the nearby beach to check it out. The clouds rolled in as the sun set behind the mountains. The sandy beach was across the road, down a weed-ridden dirt alley. The area was empty; a ghost town. A stream of suspect run-off flowed into the small swimming area. 

Bugs were everywhere: sand fleas, gnats, mosquitos. We tried to have a drink right there on the water, to get acclimated, but my girlfriend couldn’t take it. It was the bugs. There were too many. She was swatting and shifting as she sat there, then got up and said “Fuck!” as she swiped a bug off her leg.

I took a big drink of Greek beer. “We need an escape route, huh.”

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“Yeah, I made a mistake,” I said as I looked out into the Mediterranean, shocked that it wasn’t more impressive. Maybe feeling a bit spoiled because it didn’t look like much. I was disappointed at the crappy motel-like room I’d found and paid for online. I was expecting more. I was expecting any Greek town on the coast to be beautiful; picturesque; something out of a movie.

“Let’s get the hell outta’ here.”

“OK,” Julia said with a big smile on her face.

When we got back to the Twilight Zone after dinner, we cancelled our reservations for the next few days and decided to drive and upgrade to the island of Thassos the next morning. 

We drove fast to Keramoti, barely making it to the ferry boat in time.  I drove our little car right onto the boat like I did that kind of thing everyday. The ferry ride was short. Seagulls guided us the whole way because Romanians and Bulgarians and Serbians were throwing crackers and assorted junk food off the  top deck for seagulls to catch in mid air. Those seagulls put on a show, timing it, swooping down to catch the salty food in one smooth, gliding motion.

“Those seagulls are good,” I said.

“Yeah,” Julia said, “They don’t fly to where the food is. They go to where it’s gonna’ be.”

That’s the trick, I thought. The key to survival. The key to success: Don’t go where it is, go to where it’s gonna be.

We drove around Thassos town for a while and got lost, but it was a small place so we were bound to find our way eventually. An hour later we found our hotel. It was better than the one that felt like a roadside motel, and the rate was cheaper.

The friendly Greek guy at the reception pointed to a few good beaches on the map and circled them. We drove straight to one of his recommendations-- a beach called 'Paradise.' It sounded like just what we were looking for. After forty minutes of driving on steep, pine tree-lined, windy roads, we made it to Paradise.

It was worth it.