Looted by Maltese Pirates

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Today we’re catching a bus to the small seaside village of Maltezana which is about ten kilometres east of Livadi just past the so-called Narrows of Astypalea. Our fearless leader Diana tells us that the name comes from a Maltese connection, and Issy suddenly gets very excited. This subsides quite quickly however when it’s revealed that the connection is that Maltese pirates used to use the bay as a hideout as they went about looting and pillaging the island. We heard similar stories in Naxos last year, and I remember thinking at the time that Issy’s Maltese relatives had been strangely silent on that particular aspect of their island’s history.

It’s a bit windy here, but there are a couple of respectable looking beaches with sunlounges and beach umbrellas. It looks like it’s a serious fishing village if the number of fishing boats moored alongside the small jetty is anything to go by. The Rembrandts set up shop along the waterfront to ply their trade. Most of them are opting to draw small boats. I’m told this can be quite challenging; it seems boats have a nasty tendency to move around on their moorings. I think my solution to that little issue would have been to pick a more stable subject, but maybe that’s why they’re Rembrandts and I’m not. A few of us non-Rembrandts retreat to a local taverna for coffees and to solve the problems of the world.

Problems of the world solved and it’s time to go exploring. I’m told by a member of our group, I can’t remember who, I don’t think they’d been drinking, that there’s an entire sunken city on the seabed just off here for me to go and photograph … or there might be. The closest thing I can find on the Google reviews is “interesting bottom” … I hope that’s what they were referring to. Unfortunately I left my scuba gear and underwater cameras at home, but it’s OK, there’s more of interest here. I follow signs back from the waterfront to the Baths of Talaras. I read that these are the remains of Roman baths from the third or fourth century BC, where I’ll be able to see “wonderful mosaics from the Hellenistic era”. And I might have been able to too if it wasn’t for the securely padlocked gate, guarding thick layers of what looks like gravel covering what I assume are the mosaics. I wouldn’t have thought that covering two millennia plus old mosaics with gravel would do them a lot of good, but as was the case with the Rembrandts earlier, that’s why the people who did this are archaeologists, and I’m not. … well I hope they were archaeologists. That was a bit disappointing.

I saw some peacocks in a cage while I was out hiking yesterday, and there are a couple more here, again in a cage, just off the side of the road. Apparently it’s ”taboo” to eat peacocks in Europe, but it’s OK to eat their eggs. I read they taste a bit like chicken eggs, but these guys are peacocks, not peahens, so if their owner’s expecting eggs he’s going to be in for a lengthy wait. All very mysterious.

We head back to Livadi on the narrow windy road around the coast. But what’s that up ahead? It looks like a whole row of abandoned windmills just above the waterline near the beach. I don’t know a lot about windmills, but I thought you were supposed to put them up on the tops of hills, where there‘s wind. I was offered a beer at lunchtime, but I didn’t have one, so I’m not quite sure what my excuse is now for thinking that a row of big ugly diesel tanks at the local power plant were cute windmills.

Back in Livadi and Issy and I adjourn to a restaurant on the sand for a peaceful dinner. Well that was the idea, so why does our table feel like it’s sitting on a nest of angry biting ants. Issy says we should move tables, which seems like an excellent idea until we discover that they’re actually angry biting flies. But no problem says our friendly waiter, I’ll bring you some insect repellant. Oops, it seems we’ve run out of that, but if you just rub the vinegar that I gave you to dip your bread in all over your arms and legs…. I really hope this isn’t a set up and we find out later that there was someone hiding in the trees with a video camera.

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