The tiny beachside village is cloaked in an atmosphere of quiet desolation. Thatch sun umbrellas are bundled up disassembled along the promenade in front of their respective resorts, and the curving expanse of brown sand is deserted and dotted with heaps of browning seaweed. There’s a chill in the air, an itinerant wind, and the clouded sky remains unwelcoming.
Psakoudia seems to be slowly waking up after a long slumber, straggling lethargically out of a winter’s hibernation. Shops and cafes keep erratic hours and locals trickle into the Café Paradise at noon for their morning coffee, unfurling newspapers tucked under their arms and spreading them across the bar. Conversation between proprietor and customers is jovial but indecipherable, the rhythmic rise and fall of Greek, the accents falling on unexpected syllables.
The whiny hum of power tools sporadically fills the air as repairs are made and the trappings of summer are reassembled. Preparations are performed with the methodicalness of routine.
The rush of tourists will first come after Easter, and their Western European imperialism will transform this place. Their presence lingers even now, in Roman-alphabeted street signs, in the anglicized names of the resorts and cafes, and in the shopkeepers greeting suspected foreigners in streams of German and English.
There’s a strange sense of intimacy about off-season Psakoudia, in these unoccupied months free of its resort veneer. It’s like witnessing a normally perfectly-coiffed movie star with her hair down, in the comfort of her own home. And voyeuristically watching while she languidly costumes herself, paints her face and plasters on her public persona.
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