Monemvasia

A glint on the spearpoint of the Peloponese. You drive up to the tenuous land bridge connecting the peninsula to the mainland. Tall wild onions are flowering on the slope where Europeans are sunbathing. You walk through the town’s gates. Suddenly you’re in the shade of bougainvilleas and peeling walls. The town climbs up the hill to a church at the promontory. You relax under a trellis and drink a Fanta next to an old cannon, thinking about beauty born out of functionality and fear of one’s neighbors.