Greeks yearn for an Aegean islands escape, but even before this hellish summer we were being priced out

The nation relies on tourism, yet many local people feel the right to enjoy these timeless places is being denied themIt was mid-August 1997; I was in my 20s and heading from Athens to the Aegean island of Sifnos with three friends. We hopped on a ship at the port of Piraeus and sailed out into the blue waters. Arriving late in the evening, we spent that first night on the beach, close to the port of Kamares.It was bliss: the lapping of gentle waves a few metres away and the distant music from the bars as we gazed at the stars and the blazing meteors crashing through the atmosphere. You felt you were shedding your old skin like a reptile; it was painful and liberating; it was existential.Elias Maglinis is an author and the arts editor of the Sunday edition of the Greek newspaper Kathimerini. His most recent book is a nonfiction novel, The Very Last Voyage of Their Lives: Asia Minor, a Travelogue in Times of Peace and Times of War Continue reading...