On An Island.

Memories are my friends... Of course, when I remember them. They're also more and more valuable as they become more and more stale.

I saw this little community that I hope will grow as soon as possible, Throwback Thursday, and liked and agreed with what it calls for. Reminders and lessons learned from old times!

I love reminiscing about past events, places, and people and I'm glad I now have one more reason to share them here. Especially since the memories are supported by photographs. Photographs that bring proof that what we talk about really happened.

The sea is my great passion in life. Well, not so great... true sea lovers swim, sail, drown. I'm a more contemplative admirer! I think most of the memories I will share here will be about the sea.

First time on an island

When I first saw the sea I was 18 years old and that was more than fifty years ago. I lived then and still live about 200 km away from the Black Sea. My parents were not at all interested in the sea, so after I turned 18 I went to the sea alone.

It was instant and definitive love.

I've been to the sea every year since. Until 1990 only to the Black Sea, in Romania. After 1990, when the borders of Romania were opened, I also went to the Black Sea, but in Bulgaria. Not every year. Life doesn't always work the way we want it to.

In 2017 I went to Greece for the first time.

On an island.

David Gilmour - On An Island (Live At Pompeii)

Thassos!

Three years in a row followed in Thassos, 2019 was the last. The pandemic prevented me from going in 2020 as well, although I had promised myself that I would go to the island every year, as long as I could move.

I started to retreat home. In 2021 I went to Bulgaria again, although every year I dreamed of the island in Greece but life wanted to show me again that it doesn't just "flow" my way.

Thassos 2017

We arrived in Greece without having planned it. I received a gift from my son of a week's holiday in Limenaria, the second town of Thassos. A pleasant surprise... and I still didn't know what I was going to see.

We went with a group of tourists, by coach, from Bucharest. We went one night and half a day. Enormous. The trip was quite tiring but what we got was miraculous.

The Aegean Sea!

Then I saw and understood what a warm sea means. A sea and a Mediterranean climate. I understood why the Black Sea is more a lake than a sea...

The Aegean Sea, a sea from the writings of Herodotus, is a sea on which all the gods and heroes of antiquity lived, fought, and sailed. An emerald sea, with clear and truly salty waters.

When you go in a group, you have to stay in a group. Together we tried to discover the island. We were between conflicting feelings. Where there are two people there are different interests. Where there are thirty people there's a whole mess. Everyone wants something else. I didn't like that and decided never to go to the group again. I almost succeeded.

Despite the unpleasantness of being forced to do what the group does, I have to admit it was the only time I've ever taken a trip around the island. We saw hidden beaches...

... we visited the biggest monastery...

... I saw bays and rocky shores falling into the sea...

... and many, many more.

Limenaria, the town where we stayed, remained my favorite. In all the holidays that followed (two), we lived only in this town, only with the same host.

Here we saw the most beautiful sunsets.

I had the best gyros!

Generous taverns.

And many, many more...

I hope I have managed to follow the rules and guidelines of the community.

Share your best memories with a new perspective of learning, reflection, and fun through images and videos. You can write about those special moments in the past that marked your life taking into account that it must be an original and quality post... Throwback Thursday

Other than that, I'll try to save my memories here. Time is passing, my neurons are dying by the millions and I fear the time will come when the photos in the folder called "Thassos" won't tell me much. I would like to remember then to look for the posts in this community, that remind me who I am and what I was looking for on an island, in Thassos!