On display in the shop was a blown-up article from an international newspaper. It listed the places where you could really hide from the attentions of the world if you needed to become removed and anonymous.

The man in the bicycle shop put his hands on his hips and stuck out his moussaka belly with pride. He slapped it and smiled at the solid sound.

“Tomorrow it is going to rain and that is good for the plants and for the air and it is good for you too because then you will be able to smell the atmosphere.”

His accent was Athens-on-Thames, almost the mimic doing the souvlaki salesman in a comedy sketch.

He looked out of the window at the unmarked blue sky over Alónissos. On display in the shop opposite was a blown up article from an international newspaper. It listed the places where you could really hide from the attentions of the world if you needed to become removed and anonymous. Alónissos, in the Sporades group of Greek Islands, was one of the few places the paper felt you might find quiet obscurity along with Lundy Island off the Devon Coast in England and isolated Necker in the British Virgin Islands. The girl behind the counter in the shop was shutting up for the long afternoon lull. She looked surly when she saw me approach but smiled when she realised that I was only interested in the article and not in disrupting her routine.

It did rain the next day and the village was silent except for the splash of the water on the cobbled streets. When it stopped the cicadas launched into their pre-twilight cacophony as they shook off the rain. The man in the bicycle shop was right. The air had been washed down, sweeping away the usual mist that hangs over the Greek Islands in high summer. The dust had been rinsed away, and, as the sun came through it flashed the bursts of bougainvillea and hibiscus against the whitewashed walls of Alónissos’ old town. There was the scent of warming jasmine and ripe figs, hanging unpicked on the trees. The atmosphere was indeed giving forth for all to smell.

The woman who runs the general store stuck her head out through the half stable door of her shop, she readjusted her headscarf, pulled her apron up over her ample bosom and pushed her fruit baskets out onto the cobbled street again. She had a tiny puppy under her arm and she put it down among the oranges with a homemade bottle to latch on to. The taverna owner at the end of the street whistled to his son to pull the tables out from the rain shelter of the olive trees. Two old boys grunted as they were moved from their chairs. They picked up their ouzo bottle and followed their table out from under the tree onto the street. They had been impervious to the rain. After the smell of the atmosphere came the scent of the evening; grilling fish and tomatoes, and onions fried in oil.

This old town of Chóra or Alonissos has survived in a state of grace. It perches on a hill in the classic tumble of houses and vivid flowers, unpolluted by hotels or late night bars. There was an earthquake in 1965 that crumbled the whitewashed cottages into the streets. The government evacuated the town and shut off the water and electricity to frighten away any property developers. With the combination of a failure in the local grapefruit harvest and vineyards through disease the island ground to a halt, aided by conspiring local politicians determined to retard progress on Alónissos. Despite their dubious endeavours these county council characters have achieved a fine thing. The houses were gradually bought by some mainland Greeks, a few of the former residents and far-sighted foreigners who restored them faithfully as they had been before the earthquake. To spite the new owners the local government continued to deprive them of water and electricity.

Now the angst of the re-located islanders, who feared a foreign takeover, has subsided. They have realized the advantage of having outside owners; they are rarely there, they have restored the houses to their former simplicity and when they do come to the island they have money to spend. With this gentle compromise has come the reconnection of the water and electricity, but their tardy return has protected the area from an influx of tacky bars and fast food tavernas serving speedy Greek nosh with nasty Euro add-ons.

There are rooms to rent in some of the houses of Chóra. It is here that you can find the silence of the Greek Islands that so many glossy packages promise and never deliver. The old town is cut off from the port of Patitíri where the fishing boats bob and the dolphin hydrofoils buzz the day-trippers in and out. The road that connects the two is steep and winding. The pedestrian alternative is a steep climb through nut orchards and olive groves, every corner of the mule track giving the walker a sweeping view of the southern end of the island or a picture perfect shot of Chóra. Staying here is a luxury in tourist snobbism; you become a temporary resident and those who clamber around the cobbled streets are the outsiders. They come up from Patitíri or from other islands to snap the idyll that you are calling home. They eye you enviously as you scramble up and down your outside stairs or sweep out the kitchen with an ancient broom, in an affected rural fashion, as if you had been doing it every day of your life. The woman from the general store does not speak a word of English. When you try she flicks her long grey plaits and heaves her bosom with a bored expression. You have become so much a part of the scenery that you even begin to toy with the Greek alphabet and practice a few mispronounced words. Not only are you on holiday in the Sporades, you are becoming an islander.

The island is not for children. The best way to get around the sheltered coves and hidden bays is either on a moped or by boat. There is no sand but smooth stone shelves running down into the clear sea. Several of the beaches have hosts of sea urchins lurking just around the area where the water gets deep enough to make you lose your balance. These are not beaches for childish feet. They are quiet places for people who want to be able to lie in silence, in the shade of an olive tree, or snorkel among the throng of fish that feed around the island’s bays. Unlike many of the islands in the Northern Aegean, Alónissos is protected from the constant gusting meltémi by another island in its archipelago. The sea is soft and calm, especially when the sun drops in the late afternoon. The heat of the day starts to lift and it is easy to spend a long twilight just swimming the bays in a warm, safe state of delirium.

The man who runs the taverna at the end of one of the cobbled streets of Chóra offered to get us any fish that we would like as long as the fishing boats were going out. Alónissos is a great fish island. For some reason the sea is saltier around this archipelago and the fish tastier. Most of the tavernas down at the port boast a fresh selection of swordfish, octopus, sea bream, red and black snapper, Mediterranean lobster and giant sardines that wink at you with slightly glazed eyes from great blocks of ice; you choose the fish and they cook it the way you ask, allowing for the parameters of Greek cuisine and the recalcitrance of some of the taverna owners. The man at our taverna did not have such a big selection but he was willing to try and fulfil our whim.

“October is the best time,” he said with a flourish of paper tablecloths and salty olives.

“Everyone has gone then, even some of the peoples who are living here nearly all of the time. Many of the tavernas shut but I stay open because it is the time when the ones who really know come to stay,” he waved at the little white houses of Chóra.

“At that time it is most quiet and the fish is best.”

Just before midnight he started to play his guitar and the two old men who had sat in the rain with their ouzo bottle got up and started to dance. They danced with kefi (passion for life) rather than for a crowd of sunburnt tour groups with fixed smiles. They moved slowly, their crinkled brown faces intent on the motion of their feet; the old woman from the general store laughed and slapped her generous thighs.

(originally published in The European in 1994)