Motels. The epitome of modernity. Everything revolves around cars. You’re in the present, thoroughly contemporary. You come in from the day’s travels, shaking or showering the exhaustion off of your body in your rented room. Your one-night center of the universe—after which you’re somewhere else again.

Motels are multifunctional things. They’re made to revolve around the car. The word motel itself is a portmanteau of “motor” and “hotel.” The motor comes first. The hotel only second. There’s also the restaurant—with its constant view of the parking lot, looking out towards

the Europastrasse. And its back turned on its surroundings—that’s the idea.

Arrival at the parking lot. The more spectacular the vehicle, the closer to the entrance it gets parked. You step into the restaurant. Making your appearance, enjoying it. You can also visit the bar. And the next day, the society that re-forms here is a new one, a different one, with today’s guests long since scattered to the winds.

Motels are modern, but we’ve left modernity behind. They’re history, 20th-century history. Where the Europastrasse’s still a two-lane highway, you still see them. And where it’s been upgraded to limited access, the motels are no more. They’re fenced out, like everything else that’s undesirable. But they still stand there. Present-day oases look different, and they’re inside the fence.

Motel Edelweiss in Greece