"An Italian customer even told me, 'Sorry, we're the worst guests – I know!'", Tassos told me. This is Tassos the waiter at Alas grill – the island's best gyro and meat grill establishment, not Tassos the butcher nor Tassos who runs a rental car shop in the front of town. The Tassos in question is in his early twenties and is friends with the sons of Maria – the former owner of my house. Tassos has shared memories of playing in my front yard, how beautiful the garden was and how kind Maria and her family were.
Only a handful of restaurants stay open year-round. Alas is one of them, which keeps Tassos steadily employed and loyal to the very nice family who operates the restaurant. He's a mild-mannered, very patient young man who is ideal for his job. Very little rattles him and he finds ways to accommodate his customers. Sure, Tassos appears a little ragged on a particularly hot day – especially given he runs back and forth from outdoor seating to a very hot kitchen with only water-spraying-outdoor-fans for any refreshment.
As we ordered our gyros two nights ago, Tassos – like so many Patmians right now – confessed his dread of August. Not only is it the busiest month, but it is notoriously dominated by Italian visitors. There seems to be controversy around exactly what that means.
To Tassos it means loud, demanding customers. In fact, to almost everyone I've encountered, Italians mean loud – which is saying something from Greeks who are not the quietest people on Earth.
On the beach – especially Petra – it means a very different vibe: lounge chairs strewn about no longer in their tidily aligned order, loud conversation, people circulating and cigarette smoke rising as if there was a newly elected pope. The irony is Petra is the most adult and normally pacific of all beaches – which is why so many Italians without kids prefer it. Only they bring the noise and chaos typical Petra-goers are usually trying to escape.
Last year on the second or third day of prime Italian season, a middle-aged Italian man was walking around the beach, cigarette in hand, chatting with different groups, often sitting down or huddling briefly before continuing to check on the next group- as if he was hosting a party. When he sat down for a break near where I was sitting, I asked if he knew all these people.
"No, I just met them!"
To the family operating the Petra lounge chair concession, August and the Italian invasion is a financial godsend. They raise their prices and bring out backup, emergency lounge chairs – old, retired ones that are typically disused. Last year I saw them bring out some cheap plastic and metal chairs they may have rustled up from friends and family. Running, out of room, they put lounge chairs in the brushy areas at the edge of the beach and just about anywhere they could fit a person until they had even tapped their backup backups.
That didn't mean it was a cake walk. During the constraints of peak beach surge, individuals had to tolerate being seated in close proximity to strangers. Lounge chairs are clustered in twos and much like a midnight flight to Vegas, there was not a single empty seat available. So sometimes a stranger had to be your new best friend. Not everyone liked this and the beach chair owners got their share of flack. Same when they ran out of chairs. Or cigarettes at the snack bar. I saw more arguments between customers and beach operators in two weeks last August than in my entire prior time on Patmos.
Andreas from Naples who runs the Marechiaro gelateria near our house surprisingly hates the August Italian influx.
"They come, they talk to me, they see what I'm doing and then they think maybe they can do this too. They ask me all these questions about how I do it, and why… I don't want them here!"
Understandably, Andreas has cracked a code he doesn't want to share. He works and lives five months a year on a beautiful Greek island and makes enough to take off the rest of the year back in Italy. If Andreas works hard – which I'm sure he does – he certainly makes it look easy. Not only is he always calm, but I've seen him taking his afternoon breaks at the beach and occasional dinner breaks at the seafood restaurant next door. Lifestyle is important to Andreas and an Italian visitor would be a little dumb not to notice he's got a good gig.
One day in 2022 I was writing at a bakery cafe when two Italian tourists in a red convertible pulled over on the wrong side of the road, walked into the bakery, ordered some coffee and pastry, got into some tiff with the bakery owners, got their goods and drove off. I asked the very nice woman running the bakery what happened. She said Italians often just walk in and speak Italian – which no one here knows – and so mistakes with orders happen a lot because the Greek staff is trying to do their best, but not always understanding.
On the other side of the coin are lodging operators. Whether Airbnb, hotel, resort or holiday rental apartments – the locals who rent to Italians are generally pretty happy. Italians are known to pay and generally prefer to be left alone, not needing a lot of service, until they leave. They also have a good reputation for respecting people's homes and facilities, unlike Greek visitors.
I suppose how one feels about the August tourist wave all depends on which chair you're sitting.
"I'm coming back for the second shift!" Eirini said yesterday with a look of exhaustion as she walked past the parking lot where we had just pulled in at about 7pm, returning to her shop. At this time of year Eirini and Alessandro generally work from 7 or 8 am until at least midnight, if not later seven days a week and take turns giving each other breaks. It's obvious Eirini is getting tired and she still has the entire peak month of August to go. Eirini doesn't mind the Italian wave – they buy. She says the French and Americans make some of the best customers, but Italians aren't bad for her retail business selling traditional, natural Greek products.
To that extent, anyone in the food trades – if they OWN the business – is in Eirini's boat. They usually complain about the long and tiring days of August, but August butters or olive oils their bread. Visitors from any country enjoy meals at restaurants, buy groceries and cap their evening with gelato and crepes. Whether they enjoy their August days or not, owners of Patmos' key food establishments make hay while the sun shines and generally don't have to spend a single euro in marketing.
Perhaps my favorite of all Patmian business-people and neighbors is Dimitris who runs the car rental I use. Dimitris and his wife Christina are delightful people who live a block from my house. Dimitris is meticulous with his cars and business practices – very detailed, very organized, very fair, very honest. He's also a little bit of a hypochondriac. When I came to him in March 2022 to rent a car for my ten week stay, he was deeply nervous about getting COVID. He had been to the doctor countless times whenever he had any respiratory symptoms and at one point was diagnosed with some undefined respiratory virus that was decidedly not COVID. So when he finally got it, he was freaked out. Luckily, COVID was nothing really serious for him and he recovered faster than he did from whatever fly or RSV or cold he had over the winter.
When it was over, Dimitris told me his tale of woe. I pointed out that he had a lot to celebrate. He went through COVID, was fine, and now he doesn't have to worry anymore. The worst had happened – and he survived. Dimitris's face lit up as he realized I was right and from them on, Dimitris was very happy about having had COVID and thanked me for the relief I helped him realize.
So it wasn't surprising to me when two weeks ago while picking up the car for this half of the summer, Dimitris told me how he had suffered from heat stroke late last year – and then again around June. He spends a lot of time washing and caring of his cars and was out in the sun too much, not drinking enough. I heard the entire tale in detail. Now, Dimitris drinks a lot of water and keeps cool washcloths under his hat. Not cold – because that can be shocking and potentially cause facial paralysis. Just room-temperature to cool wash cloths to keep down his body temperature. And sometimes those cooling patches you can buy at the drug store for fevers. I brought Dimitris one of those neck fans that look like headphones I got on Amazon. He was thrilled.
For Dimitris, August is actually no worse than any month between June and September because he usually books out his entire fleet for the summer. The only particular stress to August is the intensified heat – so he has to be extra vigilant against heat stroke. I feel confident he's got this.
In August 2019, I don't remember being aware of any of the feelings and attitudes of the Patmian population about the August influx. Perhaps despite the fact we spent nine weeks here, we were staying in an Airbnb and relatively unknown prior. We still fit clearly into the tourist camp. Now, we're semi-residents. We're part of a neighborhood and a town. We have different vendors and merchants we deal with regularly. I ask after them, they ask after me and we exchange information – which apparently includes how everyone is feeling about their lives and businesses as we reach busy season.
As with all things, awareness creates both gains and losses. Being part of the community means enjoying the depth of what's happening on Patmos from a local's eye. It also means we leave Eirini and Alessandro alone when their shop is busy or perhaps decide to get our gyros to-go when we know Alas needs every available table. At Agriolivadi, we can express empathy for Andreas (the British-Greek lounge-chair operator, not the Italian gelateria owner) as he works long, hard days going up and down the beach not just seating people, but adjusting their umbrellas and checking in on them with genuine care. We may spend more days at the beach than our local friends, but we don't have to be removed consumers. We can acknowledge our friends' situation, support them and bring the occasional neck fan.
