By Ioannis Th. Patellis
Spring is a transitional season — a passage from winter’s low mercury to the highs and heat of summer. But spring doesn’t just change the landscape; it stirs the senses in a unique way. Sight, above all, is the first to greet the transforming world, with blooming gardens and lush courtyards appearing in neighborhoods and hidden alleyways.
As someone who spent most of their life in the city center, I sought spring a few days ago — during Easter — not on the city’s green fringes, but in a solitary walk along its main roads. There, in the dense urban web, the vision of spring is rare.
The housing boom in Pothia changed the geography of the center long ago. Dense construction and three- to four-story buildings erased what remained of gardens, courtyards, and orchard remnants. What little is left hides in side streets, in neighborhoods of narrow concrete alleys, alongside the few neoclassical houses that escaped “renovation.”
I was walking up from the waterfront, early April, in the late afternoon, on the town’s main commercial road now designated for uphill traffic. I was accompanied by the early spring warmth of 22°C, mixed with the smells of grilled meat, roasted coffee, and car exhaust. Unintentionally, the image of the road returned to my mind — especially the section near the car station — where I first lived more than forty years ago, an indelible memory of a different landscape. I remember — even though they’re gone — the rows of lemon trees, with tiny yellow-and-white blossoms, and some acacias with white clusters of flowers, their scents dizzying passersby and cars alike, behind lime-washed stone piles.
But today’s reality brings you abruptly back. On the right sidewalk, just before the building that once housed the Dodecanese Bank and now a pharmacy, a few sidewalk tables of a small café sit under the dense leaves of a climbing plant, growing seemingly out of nowhere. I feel its presence, its embroidered shadow — the only remnant of green on the parched, treeless stretch of our main commercial street.
More comforting is the view on the downhill road from the car station toward the waterfront — the one with all the curves. A few courtyard oases from two or three homes, untouched by the fever of “development,” offer a refreshing escape, allowing the senses to prevail over commercial priorities. At the final bend before the straight path to the square, you glimpse a small green pause — a corner of the Piraeus Bank, behind railings adjacent to the supermarket parking lot. A final refreshing brushstroke before the seafront and its rows of moored boats.
There are many ways to speak about our town in April — a town with its own version of spring, its own scent, its own decorated gateway to the season. Like the lush garden at the crossroads near the Post Office building, with the towering Judas tree and the courtyard of the florist across the street, adorned with colorful pots. A scene that catches the passerby’s eye, welcoming the season of the Earth goddess’s rebirth.
