Thasos, the green island in the north of the Aegean sea. Filled with olive- and pine trees, the island is surrounded by beautiful beaches and famous for it´s marble quarries, olive oil and delicious honey.
After the fall of king Constantine the military took over and during that time they build roads around the island and to the villages further inland. That opened Thasos to tourism as well and since the 70´s that is also blooming.
Nowadays tourists from Romania, Serbia, Albania, North Macedonia, Russia and even Italy, Swiss and Germany are flooding the island every year and from an undisturbed gem, it has become an overcrowded, polluted and stinking place. I know, the pictures encluded here doesn´t show that, but who wants to take pictures of garbage during their holidays..?
Of course you can´t blame all of this on the tourists. They will do whatever they want during their holidays, if you, as a host, don´t set the groundrules. These include, that you don´t let your children pee or take a dump right on the beach and you don´t encourage them to do that there. You bring them to a toilette. As simple as it sounds, that´s the way it should be, but isn´t. You don´t litter. That´s not hard to understand. Don´t you want to come back another time? Do you think it will stay beautiful if everyone is littering and throwing away their garbage wherever they like? No! This won´t happen.
And of course there is smoking. If you really must smoke and slowly kill yourself, well that´s your decision. But why the heck do you have to stick your freaking butts in the sand? Don´t you know that most beach owners are lazy and just want to make money out of renting the sun lounges and umbrellas and will neither pick up the litter, nor comb the beach after you left to pick them all up, so the beach isn´t stinking like a giant ashtray? We shouldn´t need to talk about this, this should be needless to say, or write in that case.
But that is exactly what tourists do. And because of the beach- and tavern- and restaurant- owners are totally lazy and just want to make quick money during the summer, the litter, the butts and the garbage is not being removed, but is kept right there and in the surrounding parking areas, where it slowly decomposes. Guess what happens then: Yeah, it stinks.. There are, fortunately, a very few beaches left, which are still maintained and cleaned every day by the restaurant owners, but these are exceptions. And there are even fewer beaches which can only can be reached by boat, so the bulk of the tourists don´t have a chance to defile them as well, but they are few.
So if you are not shitting, peeing and leaving you garbage and your cigarette butts everywhere you walk when you´re at home, please stop doing that when you are on holidays.
To the people of Thasos and especially the administration there I have to say the following: Start cleaning up! The beauty of this once magnificent island has been sunk under tons of smelly garbage, beaches that stink like they were ashtrays and roads which can kill the strongest cars. What is your problem anyway? Do you think that people will continue to come? Or recommend? No! They won´t.
I have been to Kos, even during the crisis with the refugees and guess what? The people there are trying to keep their island clean. You know why? Because it´s their freaking capital. So get it right!
Oh and by the way? When the hell will you start building that road from Theologos to Kinira, so one doesn´t need to drive halfway round the island to get there? There is money, from the tourists, from the EU, so stop filling your own pockets and do...
Read more
Learn more insights from Wanderboat AI.
