Hippie Memories
In 1966 I was living in one of the Roman tombs carved out of the sandstone of this cliff in Matala, a Mediterranean fishing village on the south shore of Crete (part of Greece). I used to sleep in one of the crypts where a body had been buried almost 2,000 years ago; a bit spooky but I got used to it. Others had decorated the front of their tomb with the skull and bones of a skeleton they found. Besides us hippies in the tombs, there were a few fishermen and a bar/restaurant on the other side of the cove. No tourists.
This was a very romantic part of my life, so I felt a little tingle when I saw Matala featured in the Saturday Globe and Mail travel section. Someone wrote about having been there on a tour. Matala now has hotels and apartment buildings. As for the hippies who were driven out 35 years ago, they are mentioned as a quaint detail of the history of the place.
posted by Ken Erickson at 12:33 AM
3 Comments:
hi
Crispin here from Stroud in England. Jennie and i met on New Year’s Eve going into 67. We hitched to Crete
via Venice in April and met a couple from L.A Greg and Judy. it was they who told us about Matala, while we were staying in the Youth Hotel.
We had £50 each, the maximum you were allowed to take with you in those days, and planned to pick grapes or whatever and be away for 6 months!
Greg was a song-writer friend of Jackson Browne and he had witten songs for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. I remember other names, Zac Srtakey (American) and we became close friends with Lizzie and Adam also from L.A. Adam was wild and ended up jumping out of a bedroom window in Bombay sadly. Jackson Browne later wrote a song for him Song For Adam.
We were personally at the gentler, more flowery end of hippiedom (Donovan,etc) as opposed to the more out and out hippies then. We hitched down through old Yugoslavia and arrived in Athens virtually on the first day of a curfew, and military junta overthrow. I’d washed up in a restaurant in London to save money and met a Greek guy who’d given me his address in Athens.Even though he was now in the Army , we somehow ended up staying with his lovely Greek family for about a week until boats from Piraeus resumed.
Matala was a wonderful life changing experience. We found ourselves a sweet cave. I don’t remember cooking but we had an old parafin lamp , and rush matting on the
floor.At night we’d sit aound with guitars singing and drinking wine.
We heard about Be-Ins and Love Ins , acid and the West Coast music for the first time. There were two cafés .The smaller rougher one (Mermaid)used to make cheap tomate-salades (onions and tomatoes) with astragalia (sic) nuts .It was run buy an old guy names Costa who had a scrawny neck like a chicken. I reember someone ordering chicken once and him going round the back and killing it! Just bfore we became vegetarians!
Th other, which i guess was the Delphina (sic)
sold cheap and potent Retsina..and there was an old record player..with records left by freaks and travellers.
(Richie Havens, Blues Project, Donovan, etc).
We lived in a cave from April for about 3 months ,
at Easter when all the villagers came down. We’d walk to Pidsidia (sic) and hitch to Mires for fresh-made amazing Yoghurt. There was a little white shack, a bit like one of the
German guys pics. We didn’t have cameras so no pics sadly. We all talked about “where to next”..giving blood in Thessaloniki (as already documented on this site)..was a favourite..although I was quite queazy when i did it…400 drachmas sounds about right.. but it might have been less.We then hitched up to Istanbul, via Xanthi and scary coastal roads with sleepy and lecherous lorry drivers on dodgy mountain bends and all met up again in the stoned haze of the Gulhane where we managed to get a cheap room. The Pudding Shop was the place to meet. So many memoires. We went back in 85 but it had changed so much. i hated the big plastic fronted bits on the restaurants.It felt a bit sad.
all for now X love C+J.(still togther with kids and grand-kids)
ps would be great to hear from you...
Was in Matala in 1966 for a few months - we were 8 Canadians travelling together - lived in the caves - met Hans a German guy who had been there for a long time and Mike an American from California ...memorable times, will never forget
I was one of the 8 Canadians...great memories, will never forget
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