Do you remember what did you do last summer?

I don't remember what I did last summer, much less what I did five years ago. I know I went and saw the sea. I saw it and felt it, especially because it was the first time I had ever been on an island.

My memory often asks for help. The best help it gets from photographs. Photographs that I take, as you all do, on every trip.

It's already been seven years since I first went to Greece, to the island of Thassos. I saw the Aegean Sea and that was the maximum marine beauty for me...

Half an hour was the ferry crossing from the mainland to the island. Half an hour of intense excitement, both because I wasn't used to traveling by boat, and because of my impatience to set foot on the island.

I liked the island from the first moment. I liked it mainly because it was nothing special. Sounds like a paradox, but it's not...

Everything on the island is made for tourists. Tourism is the main source of income for the inhabitants. And yet, I didn't see and wasn't impressed by luxurious resorts, multi-star and all-inclusive hotels. None of that. I could say that everything looks poorer, in the sense that many buildings, houses, and streets would have needed renovations, and probably there was no money for that.

In most seaside resorts the tourists are attracted and impressed by modern facilities, the special hotel architecture, and swimming pools of different shapes and sizes. Here I didn't see such a thing, and, unexpectedly, I also understood why it was so...

... Because here the sea is the most important! True sea for true sea lovers.

I thought that when I got to an island I would just sit by the sea on the beach. But it wasn't like that at all. I was amazed to see the gorgeous Mediterranean vegetation. Pine forests and olive groves...

I walked more than I sunbathed. Even after all these years since I last set foot on the island I can still smell the salty sea and seem to hear the rustle of the pine forest.

I tried to feed my tired memory with photos from my trip to Greece. It worked and I remembered. Looking at those photos gave me the idea of converting a few to black and white. Thus this post was born.

This is my entry for the #monomad challenge