Island Stuff

The Saharan dust cloud was so thick it turned day into night

And made a right mess of the car and outdoor furniture. 

Anyone with breathing problems wore a mask. 

A Moray eel. A frozen monster

Weighs about 10 kilos and is about a metre long. It's curled up here and has had the tail chopped off. 

Given to me by a relative who was given it by a fisherman friend. The body is as thick as a....... Can't think of anything. I would need 2 hands to put around it.

I think it was caught in a net. Heaven knows how the fisherman got it into the boat and killed it before it killed him. The teeth are razor sharp. 

And as for this!

Looks like a gila monster. It was about 8 inches long.  I came across it in an outside loo.  It didn't move when I took a photo. Helps to have my phone hanging around my neck.  Fortunately I was wearing shoes and not sandals. I gave it a nudge. Dead as a dormouse. Phew .

Another yacht with a NZ name.  Arohanui.  No-one was aboard.

I googled.  Arohanui is Maori for 'much love'.

Ladies who lunch. English ladies. And a kiwi. 

Lovely to have an hour or so with good company, good food and conversation in English, talking about things that weren't greek

Everyday  a holiday. 

So some people say. We entertained nephews on a  brief visit from Athens. They had a blessing of family graves performed by our local priest. 

Daughter Elli was supposed to be having a free Saturday. Accountants are always on call. 

News flash came over her phone. A group of tax inspectors were on their way to the island. 

Tourist businesses made sure their papers were in order. She had phone calls coming in and went off to the office. 

Celebrations Jubilations

20th and 21st May were huge family name days.

  

The 20th is the fiesta of Saint Lydia (and therefore a certain Poppi) and it's my name day too.  Lydia is the closest Greek name to Linda.  

It's the tradition here for the grandchildren to be named after their grandmother and father.   

So we celebrate together. 

It was also International Linda day. A day to honour those named Linda, which means beautiful in Spanish. A very special day which I knew nothing about till friend Jan sent me a message, from Facebook. Next year I'll maybe have a party. 

This year I was too busy getting ready to celebrate the family name days on the 21st.

21st May. The fiesta of Saints Konstantine and Elena. 

That's Greek husband, daughter, granddaughter and Greek sis-in-law. 

The church dedicated to Saints Konstantine and Elena. All decked out with flags and the council workers had whitewashed walls and steps and edges of the road. 

There was an evening service the night before. On the actual date of the Fiesta the icon of the Saints was paraded around the neighbourhood.  

After the service there was coffee and liqueur in the church rooms.  Sweet cakes brought by those named after the saints were handed around to be eaten then and there or stuffed into large purses to take home. 

Meanwhile back at our house there was a lot of cooking going on. 

I made a large baking dish of pastitsio, makaroni pie, to fill everyone up and to be taken home, not in large purses. You don't leave our house without feeling stuffed and with a tupper bowl or 2 for the next day. 

K cooked a medley of meat and potatoes. 

 

Jan came for lunch and I made sure I had a bottle if decent wine. 

The label read....

Dry white wine of the Peloponese. 

The severe choice of grapes and careful vinification gave a jumpy and balanced character to the wine. The Rose's flavour and the lemon blossom are perfectly combined. 

Indeed. 

Well, maybe the wine was jumpy but it made us very mellow. 

K with daughter Elli (Eleni, and also celebrating) and son-in-law Kyriakos 

People came in an orderly fashion.  One lot leaving as the next arrived.  

On a day like this, if you've got the stamina and the will, you spend an hour or 2 with one celebrant and then go onto the next. So many were celebrating. Friends, close family, neighbours. 

K got hundreds of 'Kronia polla' messages on Facebook and his phone rang every few minutes with more 'best wishes' and 'many happy returns'.  

Looking....... Good?

Something different today

What the kids are up to when

they play

Ma and Pa Kettle

Ye gods and little fishes

That's my grandmother looking back at me 

I don't know whether everyone is happy to see themselves re-created

I wasn't. But it's just for a smile or two

These two could be brothers. They're not.  

Just kindred spirits

Greek Island Pic Parade

 

More photos from a Greek island.

What life is all about.  

Coffee at a harbour café

People watching and setting our world to right 

The cafeterias are known, by us, according to the colour of their chairs.

This place used to be 'the blue chairs', next to 'green chairs' (which are no longer in favour). But they've changed the chairs this year.  Now we sit in these plain looking director chairs.  Last year they had big wicker chairs with fluffy blue cushions.

K doesn't mind. What he looks for is a good wine and meze.  They often have roast pork or grilled pancetta on the 'snack' menu. He's a happy blue-chairs customer. 

He's a very happy camper when he's coffee-ing with his grandchildren 

Nels, Pappou and........ Poppi

Moored along the quay was a catamaran flying a German flag but sporting a Maori name.  

Kia Ora ... Good Health

I went over and asked them if they had sailed from NZ.  The young lad laughed and said he'd been asked a similar question many times.  The catamaran had nothing to do with NZ or Maoris.  They were german and he said his mother liked the name and that was that.

A bicycle with a wooden frame parked outside one of the 'arty' shops in town.  

A Coco-Mat bike.

 It is partly electric but to start the motor you need to pedal like fury. And apparently the saddle is not bottom friendly. It's a little on the small side. 

Coco-mat is an environmentally friendly company which 'reflects the authenticity of the Mediterranean culture'. 

Along came a scooter covered in grass

Nylon grass

What would you have for your last Greek meal?

Paul's choice 

Okra with tomatoes and rooster with hilopites, Greek noodles 

We asked Sofia to have it freshly cooked for him.

 Our choice, greek salad and her speciality, grilled chicken pieces 

Sofia's Greek salad. 

Still the cheapest on the island at 7.50 euros

The olives have no stones in them! 

Wonderful. It's always a nuisance having to discreetly remove the olive stone from your mouth and find somewhere to deposit it. 

When you're at home, outside, you throw it over the fence or into the garden and hope it sprouts an olive tree

Saying goodbye to the family, sniff sniff

George turned up just in time to 'wave a hanky' as they sailed out into the bay and onwards into the Saronic Gulf and Piraeus Harbour 

It's not goodbye or arrivederci

Simply

Adio

Until next time 

Greek Island Home

 Poros. Our island retreat. 

More good days with family

Visitors at work

Danae sells champagne, wine and spirits to the wealthy visitors in the floating palaces moored on the quay opposite. One of those bottles of Vodka will put you back almost 200 euros. 

Here she is with Paul and Karen

Instead of drinking a morning Vodka we went across on a water taxi to Galatas for beer and a meze

Photo - 

Authentic Greek Pilsner and a cheese pie

Going across on a water taxi is a Poros experience. 

1 euro for a 5 minute cruise. What has the small village of Galatas got to offer?  Good coffee and a great view of Poros. 

Hoppy and free

Ks no-alcohol choice today. He prefers Alpha but they didn't have any. This Corfu brand is a boutique beer. 

The beer was cloudy. He wasn't happy with the Hoppy. Alcohol free maybe but it got a black mark. 

The Pilsner though got top marks. 

We went across on the Socrates. 

It's the only water taxi I'll use. 

Because Captain Kyriakos looks after me, helps me step in and out. He'd be in big trouble if he let his m-in-law fall in the sea

Last night's sunset over the Poros harbour

Idyllic Greek Scene

Travel Notes

 'Home James and don't spare the horses'

As my grandmother used to say

Nice to be home. So happy to have visited new places, places I may never see again. 

Very grateful to be travelling with my brother and wife. 5 days in close company. Every day a joyful one

The view from our balcony at our last hotel in Nafpaktos

The Hotel that was up a slope with lots of steps which some person was not happy  about.

The balcony was beautiful, shaded by bougainvillia and separated from the next one by a trellis of greenery.  It was lovely to sit there after a long journey, drink in the view and enjoy the peace

and have a cigarette

The RioAntirio bridge crossing over the Gulf of Korinth .  Joining the Peloponese peninsular with  mainland Greece to the north.

Impressive

It cost us a toll of 15.40 euros though.  Cheaper if you use the car ferry

The world's longest multi span cable bridge.  Opened just in time for the Athens Olympics in 2004

Beware.

Don't drink the water

You'll get a nasty shock, because it's actually Fire Water.  

K drank raki when he wasn't driving.  Some of the best comes from the colder north of Greece.  At Meteora he drank a few glasses he liked at a taverna and persuaded them to sell him some.  It wasn't bottled and corked, just the local variety, probably delivered in 5, or maybe 20 litre plastic bottles.

He got 3 half litres in plastic water bottles. One for him and 2 for friends on Poros.

Don't drink the water in our house. You never know....... and yes, it has happened. 

Greece is not just the islands. There's so much to see on the mainland. Signs pointing to ruins every few kilometres, piles of ancient stones on hilltops, and small white churches. Loads of Monasteries, not just on perched on stone pillars. 

Cypress trees, some tall and pointy, some with outstretched branches. Rows of oleander along roadside. Huge white crosses on hillsides, commemorating what, I do not know. Wartime massacres? Local disasters? 

Yellow wattle everywhere in full flower. It wasn't gorse as I thought. 

We played Lotto and bought scratch cards. Total winnings 2euros. So I played more. One more Lotto drawing still to check kiddos. You never know. 

K drove over 1.000 kilometres. He did well. 

The car did well too. 

The electric locking system gave us a few moments of stress.  The boot either wouldn't close or wouldn't open. The doors locked themselves, locking us inside. Lucky the back windows are hand winding, though I couldn't see myself squeezing out  a car window. 

But it was all part of the adventure and is being sorted out now. 

The weather stayed fine and mainly sunny, though it was blowing a gale at Delphi. Almost blew us off the mountain. Spring weather. 

Thank you again P and K. 

We wouldn't.. couldn't have done it without you. 

Crossing the Country

 Another long trek, this time cross country  to the West coast and down to the Gulf of Korinth, just a few hours from home. 

Leaving Meteora and it's Monasteries we wound up into the mountains again. It was so green, small villages with unusual names (Cherry Village, Dark hole, Madonna) cascading down hillsides, memorials to Nazi atrocities, chestnut trees and Norfolk pines. Those 2 trees are a sure sign of high elevation. 

We stopped at a roadside Cafe for cappuccino and toasted sandwiches. 

At 700 metres the temperature was decidingly chilly.  We went inside and sat near the stove. There was a pot boiling on the top. Paul lifted the lid and was disappointed to find boiling water. No savoury rooster or rabbit, goat or wild boar simmering away for lunch. 

Up there we saw big quarries, gaping holes gouged out of the hillside and convoys of lorries carrying what looked like iron ore. 

We stopped at a roadside shrine and I jumped out to take a photo. Of course. 

The door was open so K and I lit a candle for safe roads. 

Quite an elaborate little shrine

There were roadside stalls selling fruit, honey and preserves. Paul bought red delicious apples. 

K decided to buy some tomatoes........ until he found out the price. They were from Crete of all places, at the other end of the country. And the old man was selling them for 3 euros a kilo, twice the price of tomatoes on Poros.  

K put them back and told him curtly what he thought of them. 

Later we joined the national road and scooted straight through to the coast. 

The roads up here are engineering feats. 

There were viaducts spanning deep gorges and tunnel after tunnel after tunnel. The longest was 5.5 Ks long

Once on the West Coast we diverted to a secondary road through ravines covered in greenery and rivers full of trout. 

There are trout farms for miles and roadside stalls now sold fresh trout displayed in large tanks or smoked and packaged.

My 3 brothers are avid trout fishermen from an early age, wandering for hours along the banks of the Waiari river or trolling from small boats on the Rotorua Lakes. Good memories for Paul

After  a 6 hour journey we finally arrived in the seaside town of Nafpaktos. 

It was packed with lines of cars.  The good weather, and Thursday holiday making for a long weekend, had obviously brought out hundreds of visitors. 

We found our hotel, up a narrow cobbled side street ending in a steep slope.  The driver was not amused. Especially when he saw how many steps he had to climb to reach the reception and more to reach his room. 

He phoned the owner and told him to come down and carry the bags up or he'd go somewhere else. 

And 'lo, it was done'. 

Meteora

 We stayed in a hotel underneath the towering rock pillars in the town of Kalabaka. 

Lately we've had some long trips. 4 or 5 hours, or more. You can imagine how glad we are to find our hotel. Always hoping the GPS will guide us to the door and we'll find somewhere to park. All of this without the driver getting overly agitated. 

So far so good. 

The first night here was Ks choice. Souvlaki, pites, tzatziki, with that oh-so-popular Greek salad.  The salads here were cheaper than Delphi 7.50 - 8 euros compared to 13 and 11 euros. Raki for the boy followed by a jug of wine. We were walking back! 

The next day we found the Monasteries without too much trouble. 

It was a case of 'follow that bus'. 

There were endless lines of huge buses, pullmans they're called here, disgorging tourists from all over the world. Crowds entering, crowds leaving and groups inside gumming up the works while they listened to their guide's spiel. 

We three 

Me in the middle with a weird grin

Looking up at one of the Monasteries from the road below, can't remember which. 

There are 6 monasteries open to the public. 

We only visited one, St Stephens, which had easy access. Only a slight slope, no steps. 

Probably why it was so popular. The rest have endless steps going up and up. Mostly carved out of the rock. 

One has a cable car but it is only to transport supplies. 

Looking down to the town below

K waiting for his traditional evening meal under the spectacular sandstone pillars

May 1st is the equivalent of Labour Day. A holiday for everyone but those in the tourist industry.  Greeks love to get out in the countryside, make wreaths from wild flowers and....... visit monasteries it seemed. 

My contribution was a bit of greenery and some purple something-or-other to stick under the windscreen wipers. 

Thanks P and K

For another wonderful day

On The Road Again

 Willie Nelson..

 🎵🎶  Goin' places that I've never been

See'ng things that I might never see again 🎶🎵

Another long road trip. This time to the Monasteries of Meteora, perched on the top of steep rock formations.

A breakfast of champions

I can't describe how wonderful it is to be travelling with my brother and sister....in law

We talked about times long gone, childhood memories. Family. So many things in common. Music. Food. Recollections of our former lives 

A long drive through the fertile central Plains of Thessaly. Acres of solar panels, rice fields, the usual olive groves

To these amazing rock formations

But more of that tomorrow