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Wild Abandon
A Journey to the Deserted Places of the Dodecanese
Wild Abandon by Jennifer Barclay and published by Bradt Guides is A Journey to Deserted Places of the Dodecanese islands in Greece, including Rhodes and Kos.
Bradt Guides publishes excellent guidebooks but they also publish travel narrative books, and Wild Abandon by Jennifer Barclay is one of those.
Jennifer Barclay
Jennifer Barclay is the perfect author for a book like this, as she has made her home on Tilos in the Dodecanese, has lived in Athens, and has travelled widely throughout the Greek islands. She’s also an adventurous traveller and a lover of deserted places, and has written two other books about Greece: Falling in Honey and An Octopus in my Ouzo.
Wild Abandon
In Wild Abandon she decides to focus not on the main sites in the Dodecanese, like the Old Town of Rhodes, but visits places few visitors are likely to discover for themselves. Some require some energetic trekking and camping out, and for most of the trips she’s accompanied only by her faithful dog, Lisa.
The Dodecanese
In Wild Abandon she visits eleven of the islands in the group, and as I’ve visited seven of them myself it was a fascinating read… making me now want to visit the four I’ve not been to so far. She includes the main islands, known for their busy tourist areas, like Rhodes and Kos, but you’ll see sides of these islands you probably didn’t know existed. Each island gets a chapter to itself, and the others are Tilos, Nisyros, Kalymnos, Astypalea, Kastellorizo, Karpathos, Kasos, Halki, and Arki.
Tilos
The book starts and ends on Tilos, where the author lives and which naturally she knows intimately. Here, among many places, she talks about the Harkadio Cave, which she can see across the valley from her office desk and is ‘where the last elephants in Europe died four thousand years ago.’ Elephants in Europe only four thousand years ago? This is the kind of entertaining and unexpected fact the author loves to dig out and entertain the reader with.
Nisyros
On Nisyros she uncovers the Pantelidis Baths, a grand therapeutic spa built in 1910, once visited by thousands coming in shiploads from all over the Mediterranean, but now lying in ruins. Who knew this was on Nisyros? Certainly not me. The Nisyros chapter is typical of the author’s detailed and descriptive writing.
‘As I stand outside the taverna to get a signal on my phone, I watch a little black cat sitting in a hole in the wall. Lisa sees it and growls, and it jumps away. Yiannis, appearing from the kitchen, points to the hole. “Put your hand inside.” I feel warm steam. It’s a geothermal apiria, or blowhole of the volcano.’
Kos
I realise as I read through Wild Abandon that I could quote from every chapter to give a feel for the book, for the contents and the author’s style. Here, from the chapter on Kos, called ‘Faith in Water’, she discovers the village of Pyli, where not all the houses are inhabited:
‘Others are obviously long abandoned, broken glass in the windows and rubbish in the garden. I tread carefully through tall grass to peek through an open window. There are black-and-white photographs on the mildewed wall. An old black travelling trunk sits open with a New York address painted by hand on the side.’
Don’t you immediately want to know about the trunk, the photographs and the New York address?
Kalymnos
‘Even in August, it felt excitingly wild and empty. The land was dramatic, fearsome even, with craggy grey cliffs, rust-streaked, dropping down steep inclines almost five hundred metres to the sea. Waves surged relentlessly from the northwest into the narrow inlet where aquamarine water almost glowed. I saw a diver in a wetsuit swimming close to the black rocks, then I watched it moving and realised it was a seal.’
Every chapter has gems of lovely, lyrical writing in it, along with detailed descriptions that make you feel you’re standing there alongside the author seeing what she’s seeing.
Advice
One piece of advice – if you’re reading the book then have
this website open alongside you:
https://wild-abandon-dodecanese.blogspot.com/
The author has put it together to enhance the book, and it’s full of her colour photographs of the islands covered. You can see some of them on this page. Unfortunately I only looked it up after finishing the book and it’s clear that lots of the photos are of places referred to in the text. It will bring the book even more to life if you can see the photos at the same time.
If you’re planning a trip to any of the islands covered in the book, buy a copy of Wild Abandon to sit alongside a conventional guidebook. If you like reading good travel books about Greece, or about anywhere for that matter, then put Wild Abandon on the shopping list or in your Amazon basket. It’s excellent. Or, as Victoria Hislop said: "A vivid and intoxicating account of these beautiful islands".
Buying Wild Abandon
You can buy Wild Abandon in print or as an ebook on the
Bradt Guides website. You can also find it on Amazon, including a Kindle version.
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Agathonisi in the Dodecanese islands of Greece
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Karpathos in the Dodecanese Islands of Greece
Karpathos in the Dodecanese islands of Greece is noted for its traditions, its music, and mountain villages like Olympos.
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Mermaid Singing: Kalymnos Travel Writing
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Books About Greece
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The Summer of My Greek Taverna
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Bradt Guide to the Peloponnese
The Bradt Guide to the Peloponnese is the best book on the Greek region which includes attractions like Mycenae, Epidavros, Olympia, Monemvasia and Nafplion.
Tilos in the Dodecanese Islands of Greece
Tilos is a small island in the Dodecanese between Rhodes and Kos with regular ferry connections, hotels, rooms to rent, beaches, tavernas and ancient remains.
Margarita’s Olive Press
Margarita’s Olive Press is a modern gem of a book of Greek travel writing, in which the author falls in love with and renovates a property on Zakynthos.
Lonely Planet Crete
Lonely Planet Crete is an excellent and thorough guide of almost 300 pages to the largest of the Greek islands.
Kalymnos in the Dodecanese Islands of Greece
Kalymnos in Greece in the Dodecanese islands is most famous for its history of sponge fishing, and see here information about flights and ferries.
Taverna by the Sea
Taverna by the Sea is an account by Jennifer Barclay of her summer spent working in a taverna on Karpathos and a welcome new book of Greek travel writing.
Great Greek Poets: Cavafy, Sappho, George Seferis, Odysseus Elytis
There are many great Greek poets, with two authors winning the Nobel Prize for Literature and names include Sappho, Cavafy, George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis.
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Leros is a sizeable island in the Dodecanese with flights from Athens, ferries from Rhodes and Piraeus, good beaches, restaurants and hotels.
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