Harke the Boeotarch
Dreams Wash Away
I'm sure you're right. It's a dream I had when I was a boy, having read the story of Hero and Leander and learning that Byron swam it. I liked to imagine myself as a Greek hero of some sort swimming naked across the strait. As you may know, there's now a yearly organized swim. It doesn't look like much fun. I've been to the area, but only once and then in the winter.
Byron also swam from Portovenere to San Terenzo on the Bay of La Spezia (now also known as the Bay of the Poets--clever marketing) where Percy and Mary Shelley were living in a palazzo only accessible from the sea. I gather they weren't particularly happy there, having misunderstood the particulars of the place, not unlike Chopin and George Sand in Mallorca. As you no doubt know, Shelley died off the coast when his boat capsized in a storm. A lungomare was constructed later in the century, so one can now walk past the palazzo, and stop to read the commemorative marble plaque. There's also a yearly organized swim here as well, which also doesn't look like much fun. One of my brothers has a place nearby, so over the years I've come to know the area, and have enjoyed swimming along its shores, but it doesn't have the mythic resonance of the Hellespont.
Swim with Lord Byron in the Bay of Poets
“I’m glad I am a woman who once danced naked in the Mediterranean Sea at midnight.” -Mercedes McCambridge Did you know that Eng…timelessitaly.wordpress.com
Please don't let me destroy your beautiful dream.
We have so few of those in our lives. And they last so short.
