Work is going well on Skopelos Drive. The rain we had 2 days ago did not stop the guys from working and planning the rest of the road. Big yellow raincoats were seen all over the street.
My daughter Julia (Daphne) asked me if she could stroll along this part of the village in the summer? The kids do this and walk up and down the harbor front with their friends. They walk well into the old harbor and then turn back. Walking, looking, discussing and to be seen I think.
On the island of Syros there is a square where people walk around the square, especially in the summer and in the old days families allowed their children to walk with each other for a couple of rounds so they could get to know each other better. An old fashion way of courtship?
I counted at least 6 (and maybe only 6) holes for trees on the south side of the road. Mostly by the old butcher shop and Owl Bar. There are also holes for planters.
Isn’t the ‘stroll’ known traditionally as the volta?
And today’s fun fact: flâneur translates into Greek as ‘peripatiteis’ – which I guess is where the English gets its ‘peripatetic’.
The ‘volta’ … a bit like the ‘paseo’ in Spain, though the main purpose of that is to be seen, I think?
A flaneur or a flaneuse in French is a stroller’ idler or dawdler. i will take a stroll around the ‘Drive’ in June when I hope it will look tres bon!
Read your Walter Benjamin, Olwyn, particularly his ‘The Arcades Project’, and it becomes a little more than just dawdling. Hopefully, when Rodeo Drive is finished, there might be some bars or at least seats where we can flâner and report back…