Sunday 21 April 2013

Naxos - cyclone Tracey, bannister, Gladwell and a panda

Itinerary

  • Run through the cyclonic winds
  • Blue Panda
  • Khouroi and Malcolm Gladwell
  • Demeter's temple and pomegranates

 

An early morning run and 'that race'

Story of this morning's run is told best in 2 short movies.

 

 

 

Ran a "breezy" easy am jog whilst chez Dembo slumbered. For perspective, I left just after 8:30 with Zozo unconscious, Drew buried deep in his blankets (always slept hidden) and Ree pretending to be awake but talking with that sleepy mumble "no I was awake already".

First bit of the run was particularly unpleasant. Uphill, cyclonic Aegean winds (not quite freezing) and sore ears. Made quite a few 'stops for pictures' etc more to tell myself that I was enjoying this ridiculous activity than to take a pic.

Running along, I pretty quickly left the town of Chora (the ch is not like "ch"eese or "h"orse; more like arabic guttural). Ran up a steeply inclined long windy (both kinds) coastal road. I was in my own little world pretending to be driving on the right when I heard a startled loud BLEAT. Scared a group of mountain goats as I turned a corner in much the same way that they startled me. Jumped quite high then quickly looked around to make sure nobody saw before running on.

 

Startled quadrupeds

 

 

Soon a piquant odour mixed with the blustery, ear attacking arctic breeze. I had, by pure luck I might add, chanced upon the city rubbish dump! Gulls in there thousands circled above (or were they buzzards). Enough. Turned around and ran like Roger Bannister, gale at my back down the mountain and back toward the town.

 

A brief diversion

I read a book about Bannister and "that" mile" last year. It's a gripping tale and well worth the read. He had to beat Landy and it had to be that year as he was finishing medical school and was off to become a professional (Dr). Obviously, professionals worked and did not involve themselves in frivolous athletic pursuits.

Bannister is proof that there is always enough time. His student days were long (12 hours + study) but he would get 1hr for lunch. Quickly get changed, jump on a train for 2 stops to the running track, do his running training then back to university. Landy was even more dedicated. He would go to Agricultural college from early am, get home, eat, study, then run (sometimes for hours) from 11pm or later. Both didn't miss any days.

Before they broke the 4 minute mile, many were concerned that it was beyond the ability of human physiology. There was medical concern that they would die in the attempt.

Found this footage of the great race. Landy would always go out hard and Bannister would try to kick past him. Bannister held as close as he could to Landy through the race. He was at his limit and then had to kick.

 

 

 

Compare this to one of my favourite ever races. Men's Olympic finals 1500m Athens . Hicham El Guerrouj was close to undefeated for 4 years. Went to the Olympics in 1996 and tripped with 400m to go. In Sydney, having trained specifically for this race for 4 more years and for 4 more years remaining undefeated in big races, unbelievably finished second to his pacemaker. Now back at the Olympics for his third attempt, he had try achieve his lifelong dream and to prove what the running world believed - that he was the greatest middle distance runner ever but......Lagat and Bekele had hit the running scene and had even had the temerity to beat El Guerrouj in Olympic lead up events. It was a great race....

Watch Lagat go past him at the top of the straight. They are going so fast it's unbelievable. To give it some perspective these guys are about 15-20 secs per mile faster than Bannister et al. Roger wouldn't have been halfway into the turn into the straight when these guys would finish a mile!

Athens 2004. Footage is blurry but commentary is cool.

 

 

 

This is an edited version with less grainy footage.

 

Ree thinks I got carried away in this story. I could have gone on for hours more. In fact was feeling chuffed at my ability to summarize.

 

As per Billy Connolly....."meanwhile"

Ran back into town. Once a bit out of the wind, things got pleasant again. It was about 9:30 by then and the town was only just beginning to wake up. Love the late nights, late mornings strategy. In particular with an added early afternoon Siesta.

 

Coming back into the town

 

 

Temple of Apollo in the distance. I want one for home

 

 

I see a ship in the Harbour. How does it feel? (Old favourite song reference)

 

 

Time for a quick shower, quick yummy breakfast and day to begin!

 

A little bird who joined us for breakfast

 

 

Naxos hire car, Kouri rediscovered a temple and a drive through Mesopotamia.

Driving in narrow streets, right hand side of the street with manual gears - what could go wrong?

Not much really. We had a fantastic afternoon driving Naxos countryside and discovering cool ancient ruins. One of our travel books about travelling with kids had said that the best kids fun is exploring and imagination rather than fancy museums and other "quiet places". This certainly proved true today. Stefano the hire car guy gave us a list of things to do and armed with our map of Naxos and sweet lil panda car (Fiat Panda), we set off.

 

Map of Naxos Island. Streets on the map bear little to no resemblance to the ones made of tar that we drove on

 

 

The maps of Naxos are abundantly available, all come with magnified town map and larger scale island map and are, alas, one of the great lost works of Greek fiction. They bear minimal resemblance to the location of, say, roads or points of interest which did make navigation "a challenge".

The town map is possibly more accurate than the city map, but does have one small idiosyncrasy in that it doesn't have the names of any streets on it except the big surrounding streets. A map with no street names and hundreds of small, one way streets. Genius. And these people invented democracy.

 

Map of Naxos, town view.

 

 

Our first stop was Kouros. There are some old excavations there including an old temple and two Kouroi which are in simple terms, great big old statues. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kouros. A few dad jokes about the unmarked daughter of the statues (Nana Miss Kouri, and many mentions of the running statue Yiannis Kourios) made everyone's day a bit brighter (or not).

The excavation is from 700BC. the region is famous for its marble quarries. The kids had a ball finding pieces of marble and being explorers. We then headed off to find the two Kouri.

I had first heard of Kouri when I read the Malcolm Gladwell book"Blink". It's a book all about how we make instantaneous decisions, about intuition and when it works and when it doesn't. Fantastic read and great audiobook. The story of the 10 million dollar Khouros bought by the Guggenheim is the intro to the book and has (obviously) stuck in my mind.

Gladwell is my all time favourite storyteller (not just because of his sensational hair) and if anyone is actually reading this blog you need to watch him at TED do his talk on how "chunky spaghetti sauce changed the world" - it did. Story embedded below). That story has two of my favourite quotes ever " to a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish" and "there is no perfect Pepsi, only perfect Pepsis".

 

 

There are many great Gladwell stories. This one has become legend. It has also previously sparked a media competition at the cardiac transplant service to try and get the words, "parenthetically" or "perverse" or "perverse but often baffling" (not yet achieved), into any radio or TV media we do. Please listen

 

But back to the Kouri. The site also has an ancient spring. Water was piped via an aqueduct through the marble quarry mountain to the towns of Naxos. Seriously impressive engineering for now, never mind 2500 years ago.

The abundant local spring water allows the proliferation of bamboo. Strange to see it on a Greek island but there you go. The water also seemed to be perfect tadpole growing conditions.

Bamboo explorer walking stick.

 

 

Tadpoles tadpoles everywhere. They love spring water it seems!

 

 

We're off to see the Kouri...

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Khouroi (note clever use of plural) are amazing. They are supersize and spellbinding which says a lot for a 2500yr old rock. Pics don't do them justice

 

He Rock(s)

 

 

At the site of the second Kouri, is a pair of separate marble Kouri feet (dad jokes about being two feet tall were greeted with guffaws that have not yet abated)

 

How tall?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kouri's favourite food? Yups, Kouri-ander. As we walked around the next corner to the "paradise garden" there was an Greek lady selling wine in plastic water bottles as well as honey, jams and nougat. We bought some nougat which was lovely......in 1999, but a tad stale now.

 

 

Drew holding nougat. Love the mobile phone of the wall. Wine and olive oil in the plastic bottles, jams and picked things in the glass containers

 

 

Next stop the temple of Demeter

So I asked Zoe who Demeter was. Here is her memory in action. When her airhead brain focuses, it's a thing of beauty.

 

 

As you can see, Zozo has trouble telling a story and staying still. Amplify this by a factor of 10 for Drew. Unable to have a conversation or do Maths or concentrate on anything (except video games) without being in constant motion. Sorry - one more TED talk you have to watch. It's Sir Ken Robinson on how schools are killing creativity. Bits in it remind me of our kids. Click on the link above to find out how to draw God.

 

As an aside (surprise), the story of Persephone seems another example of the cuckoo nature of Greek mythology. When you hear the story you kinda go uh huh, uh huh, but if you stop to think about it, the story is insane and a tad creepy.

So Persephone (played by the gorgeous Monica Beluci in matrix part 2), is the daughter of Demeter and the mother of dionysis (god of wine). Demeter is one of the old Gods. Zeus has 2 brothers, Hades and Poseidon. Persephone is abducted by Uncle Hades with the blessing of daddy Zeus. Tops! Demeter (mummy) is pissed so forgets to do her thing and there is famine / no harvest. Sooooo, Zeus tells his brother to give his niece back. Zeus has a big lightning bolt (good to be the king), so Hades has to agree BUT he gives her a snack for the journey. Sneaky Uncle Hades. Turns out the snack (pomegranate is food of the underworld and once you eat it you have tasted food of the underworld and so have to stay in the underworld - who made that rule and how does that trump kicking your niece?). Anyways, turns out Persephone has only eaten 3 seeds of the 12 (seems like a pretty seed depleted pomegranate). After intense negotiation, Persephone has to spend a quarter of the year in the underworld. When she is gone, mum is sad so earth not taken care of aka winter. When she is back in the real world, mum gets happy and spring, summer, autumn.

Now that's a complicated way to explain the seasons. Kidnapping, crazy laws, crazy in-laws and a bit of "niece loving".

 

We got quite lost on the way to find the temple of Demeter. Eventually found our way there. Well worth the journey. Just us, amazing sky and stunning surrounds.

Bloody maps - lost down a skinny road to nowhere

 

The only sign. Imagine if all tourist attractions were so low key.

 

 

First glimpse of the Temple

 

 

Unenhanced image. Dark clouds, white marble, setting sun. We were the only people there!

 

Panorama

 

 

Panorama with crazy Drew

 

 

Home time. We didnt lose Drew once today (sure he was mostly in a car with us, but a victory of any sort should be savoured). Will drive through Mesopotamia another time - I thought it was further away!

 

 

 

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