A book extra for The Greek’s Royal Mistress , Christos’s Promise , At The Greek Boss’s Bidding , The Fallen Greek Bride
Greece delights the senses. Few places are as warm and fragrant as Greece. Arrive in Simi and you’ll smell the sun kissed —hints of sage, wild thyme, and oregano. There is always music somewhere—tunes from a café, a lone man playing a guitar, the lap of sea and creaking of boats. Swimming is a particular pleasure in Greece. The Aegean sea isn’t just warm, but very salty, making swimmers feel unusually buoyant.
Rocky cliffs, white-washed buildings, endless gold-white sunlight. But of the three, the sunlight is most memorable. You can’t visit Greece without feeling the abundance of light, and the pure glaze of sun is everywhere—on the land, the crumbling Pantheon, the dark green of the olive groves, the water itself. It’s said that nowhere the light is purer, brighter, more distinct than the light of Greece.
Revisit Greece again and the sense of light and white gives way to shades of blue and green. The Greek landscape is easily divided into three elements–water, land and sky.
Just like the pure light, the water is everywhere, gleaming, reflecting, connecting island to island and man to sea. But it’s not just the proliferation of water that sets Greece apart. Even the tap water here tastes different—fresher, cleaner, untouched by life.
Perhaps it’s this startling purity that gives Greek relationships such passion and intensity. Even today Greek families are exceedingly close. Fathers remain patriarchal, many women put marriage before work, and daughters are raised to coddle their men.
Greece, one of my most favorite places on the planet, is visited in several of my books.
