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Bridges and Roads
In western Thessaly, not far from the famous Meteora, lies the village of Sarakína and its historic bridge of the same name, which spans the bed of the Piniós River. In the past, this bridge served as a transit point for travel toward the settlements of the Aspropótamos region—nestled in the Pindus mountain range, between Thessaly and the neighboring region of Epirus. “The grandeur of the multi-arched bridge, combined with the massive rock formation nearby, commands the visitor’s attention,” state promotional materials for tourists issued by local authorities. Or rather, it *used* to command it.
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The Tile
In Greek, Keramídi means “the roof tile,” but for our family, it is the name of a small village—once considered all but lost—nestled between “its” two Thessalian rivers. If you take the road from Tríkala, in Western Thessaly, toward Palamás, you will find it just upstream from that larger town—the very place where my mother’s family hails from. For us, then, passing through is, in a sense, unavoidable.
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Thessaly Flooded
Thessaly, the region I come from, has just experienced… yet another Greek disaster. Huddled together in our family home near Trikala, we waited for the… event to come to an end. The heavy rain, which began on Monday, September 4, finally stopped on Thursday, September 7. Three houses in our village were partially flooded, but elsewhere—for instance in Palamas, the village where my mother’s family is from in the neighboring region of Karditsa—many homes ended up literally underwater.