Milos, Paros, Crete — October 2020
By Palma Llopis
The Greek islands have the capacity to isolate you from the rest of the world and connect you with the most essential: nature and your inner self. On this journey through the Cyclades Islands, specifically Crete, Paros and Milos, you manage to disconnect from the hectic routine of the city, the phone and commitments. And it’s not until you arrive on the island, isolated by the sea and surrounded by the beautiful nature of the Mediterranean, that you realize you really needed that break. The beaches of crystalline water and white mountains, the pink sand due to the remains of coral, the infinite landscapes of olive fields, the delicious food always made with local products and the hospitality and kindness of its people make you think that there is another simpler and more essential way of life far from the noise of the unnecessary.
Not making many fixed plans and going with the flow is the key when visiting the islands. You are on the beach and suddenly you meet some nice people, because Greeks are like that, they just come and talk to you. They invite you to their house for dinner, and you find yourself in a nice garden under a leafy bougainvillea drinking ouzo and eating local goat cheese with olive oil and pomegranates taken from the tree that very morning.
And that's the key to travel: to get into the local scene. That's the richness of visiting other places, which opens your mind when you see yourself in situations you never would have imagined. But you don't travel to escape life, you travel so that life doesn't escape you.
