UP AGAINST THE WALL, FLATLAND SUCKER

File this under: Things I've Done That I Won't Be Doing Again. Ever. 

That would be -- rock climbing. With its sheer granite mountains that seem to shoot straight up to the sky, Kalymnos is a big draw for rock climbers.

I fell in with a group of climbers from Italy and Holland while out hiking one morning. They talked me into giving it a try.

Some of them hung upside down in this dome (below, left). As for me, I took baby steps up a "starter" wall. See that guy in the red shirt? It took me about an hour to get there. You don't want to know about getting down. Let's just say that for Floridians rappelling does not come naturally.

From now on, I'll hang out with the goats. But yeah, the view of Telendos was worth it.

NOT THAT I'VE EVER BEFORE CONSIDERED ENTERING A MONASTERY ...

Scattered all over the hillsides of Kalymnos and other Greek islands you'll spot distinctive blue-and-white monasteries. A few of them are home to actual monks, but mostly they are private shrines, erected by families to celebrate good fortune or memorialize loved ones or simply to glorify God.




This particular monastery sat all by itself at the tip of a rocky peninsula approached by steep steps carved into the hillside. You had to work to get there. It was a snug little place -- my pal, photographer Peter Frank Edwards, and I had to stoop to get through the door. But once inside, it seemed to expand and become far larger than its outward proportions.





We lit candles. We paid tributes to our own particular gods. And then we went about our day, a bit larger than our own outward proportions.

BREAKFAST ON KALYMNOS

That's a big bowl of fresh Greek yogurt with black cherries and melon drenched with local honey -- breakfast on Kalymnos, the island where we recently touched down for a week. We stayed in Emporios, a village at the very end of the main coastal road, where goats roam the hills feeding on the thyme, oregano and rosemary that grows wild. So the meat here comes pre-seasoned and all those wild herbs help cancel out the eau de goat. The goats wear bells around their necks, each tuned slightly differently, so the goatherds can tell which goat is where. The result -- a daylong goat symphony from the hills.

The family that keeps the goats and the bees invited us to join them one afternoon as they made their rounds. A pretty steep hike, especially for flatlanders from Florida. Thousands of years ago, the rocky facade above Emporios served as a fortress when the locals had to fight off invaders, and the sanctuaries they carved out from the mountain still hauntingly remain, like armored faces looking out on the sea. The payoff comes at the top -- a view for the ages.

Faces from the road

These are some of the good people we met during our week on Kalymnos, Greece. Kalymnos is the island of sponge divers, and back in the early 20th century, when the Mediterranean sponge beds began to decline, many Kalymnians moved to Florida. They settled around Tarpon Springs, founded the now-famous Greek community there, and started sponge diving in the Gulf of Mexico. Everywhere we went on Kalymnos, whenever we told folks we were from Florida, we heard something like: "My great uncle Stathos, he lives in Tarpon Springs. You know him?" Next stop: Tarpon Springs. There are a lot of people we have to look up...

Eight-(al)arm salad

On our recent trip to Rome-Greece-Seychelles (I'll be posting about it at greater length soon) I ate octopus 21 days out of the 31 days we were on the road. So when I got home I had a real hankering for my cephalopod friend.

For some reason, octopus isn't all that popular in Florida despite the fact we've got a pretty decent octopus fishery and it's easy enough to find fresh. My friend Laura had a birthday party over the weekend and since it was Laura and her husband, Wil, who introduced us to the island we visited in Greece (and since they dined on octopus with us on a couple of occasions) I made a big bowl of octopus salad. Thing is, lots of folks just don't like the sound of octopus salad. At the party, I told a couple of people it was "Eight-Arm Salad." They misunderstood and thought I was saying "Eight-Alarm Salad."

Man: "So its spicy, huh?"
Me. "It's got a little kick."
Woman: "What all is in it?"
Me: "Oh, a bunch of stuff. Some protein, some veggies, some lemon juice and olive oil..."
Man and Woman (digging in): "Looks good."

Of course, once they got it in their mouths there was no sidestepping the fact that the protein they were munching on came from tentacles. Kinda chewy tentacles. But I've found that once you get people to try that first bite of octopus they generally like it. So what if it takes a bit of subterfuge along the way?

This recipe calls for frozen, pre-cooked octopus which can be found at most decent seafood stores. If you buy it fresh, please seek out the best ways to prep it, which can take a couple of hours of boiling before it's ready to go into a salad.

Eight-(al)arm salad

2 lbs. frozen, pre-cooked octopus
1 lemon, juiced
1 fennel bulb, sliced thin
1 bunch scallions, chopped coarsely
1 lb. cherry tomatoes, halved
1 red bell pepper, chopped coarsely
1 bunch arugula, chopped coarsely
Sriracha sauce to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup olive oil

After octopus has thawed, place it in bowl. If any pieces look too big to fit on a fork, cut them in half. Soak with lemon juice, toss and let sit for ten minutes. Add the other ingredients, toss and serve.