We meet up with a good number of those four-legged constituents as we explore the island. Each day we aim for a village that we think we’ll be able to reach in time for lunch; almost invariably, we get there far later than we intended, most shops and restaurants have closed for the afternoon, and we find ourselves walking deserted streets during what I have come to call “the time of disappearance.” Some people may be sleeping, but snatches of conversation and the smell of roasting meats creep through the closed shutters, to mingle with the clashing scents of donkey and jasmine, the amplified sounds of wind in the grasses, cicadas in the leaves, and, from dark sheds in village cul-de-sacs, the restive chuckle of poultry.
We follow a stone pathway outside Pigi to two memorable churches, both on the same site. Theoktisti is a plain 17th-century church whose walls and ceilings are covered by an expansive fresco depicting St. George and the dragon. The painting is in earth tones, the colors of Ikaria itself. Passing other small buildings dwarfed by surrounding boulders, we arrive at Theoskepasti—the most hauntingly beautiful man-made site we will see on our trip. Minute, primitive, fashioned from stone and mortar, it seems to hide shyly beneath a mammoth ledge that looks like a nun’s wimple caught in the wind. Rather than bejeweled icons or stained-glass windows, the treasure inside this thimble of a church is a cache of bones: by one account, those of a reclusive nun named Lesvia. We climb a rocky flight of stairs and enter a red door bearing a white cross; two windows look down the mountain through the branches of a big chestnut tree. The grace and peace of this place are arresting, its façade eerily human.
One day, we take a short drive west of Christos Raches to Nas, a spectacular cove at the foot of a plunging ravine, flanked by the most fantastically shaped promontories: towering rocks that look as if they have been ruffled, torn, and scored with hieroglyphs. The place is rendered just a little funky by a camp of tie-dyed tents between the beach and the flattened remains of the Temple of Artemis, one of the island’s few ancient sites. To get to the ruins, we have to step over some of the naked tent dwellers, who look as if they’ve been zoning out here since the days of Watergate. Flying from the temple is a colorful flag depicting Bob Marley.
Another day, we follow a casual tip to check out the great beach at Trapalou. What that tip does not include is the caution that, to get there from Christos Raches, we will have to drive three hours over terrain that makes the back roads of other Greek isles look like Route 66.
In no time at all, we are deep in a majestically forlorn landscape like something from Star Trek or Salvador Dali. Among the vast yet fanciful rocks, sometimes wedged beneath them, we spot abandoned “antipirate” houses, meticulously crafted stone walls, and olive trees so severely subjugated by wind that they bear a delightful resemblance to the curlicued trees of Dr. Seuss. Two sounds dominate this part of Ikaria: the soft but constant wind and the lovely dissonance made by thousands of goat bells. Goats—brown, speckled, black—sleep under trees, leap from rock to rock, and clamber along the vertiginous slopes.
The farther we venture, the farther it seems we have to go—because every ten minutes we hit a rise with a new view of the road ahead of and below us. Imagine a ball of brown twine tossed high in the air and coming to rest all along a mountainside. That’s what the road before us looks like. For miles, we see no signs, no occupied houses: nothing but goats, rocks, clouds, sky, and a sea so broad and far down that it’s hard to believe we are not in a plane.
The journey is beautiful, vertigo aside—and a journey it is, later to stand out as far more memorable than the fine beach at its end. The last half hour of road, right on the cliffside coast, is deeply pitted, the going slow. But finally we are in Trapalou. It is an ordinary, modest Greek enclave—yet right now it looks positively suburban. I get out of the car and teeter as if I’ve been on a boat. “This is perfect. I live here now,” I announce. I cannot imagine that anything would send me back along those roads.
The beach is wide and, but for one other family, deserted. There are no umbrellas or chaises longues, no snack bars—just a stretch of pale smooth stones and placid turquoise water. The one taverna sits above a small pier with fishing boats, a terrace shaded by grapevines. We loiter among the empty tables, certain it must be closed until an older couple emerge from behind a screen door.
They bring us Greek salad, Greek fries, and the freshest calamari we have tasted, along with a platter of red mullet, fried whole. And that is how we eat them, crunching through bones and tails, leaving only the heads. They are fresh and flaky, with a crispy brown crust. “This is the real thing,” says Dennis. “That’s good, because I live here now,” I remind him. The fries—canary yellow from olive oil, speckled with oregano, and oozing with cheese—are irresistible to Alec and Oliver, who fall on the plate like a pair of bandits.
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