Shaky Isle

Santorini is still being shaken by hundreds of quakes a day. 90% of residents have left. 

Santorini Animal Welfare is thanking everyone for taking their domestic cats and dogs with them. However there are dozens of donkeys used for transporting tourists. Shepherds with herds of goats I'm sure have stayed behind to look after their animals. The Animal Welfare Society is doing their best to make sure all the beasties are fed, watered and in a safe place, well away from rock slides and falling buildings.

The PM declared a state of emergency in the area till March 3.

The Army has moved in to set up in preparation for disaster and help keep people distant from landslides and falling masonry.  They also patrol the deserted streets to stop looting. Wherever there's a catastrophe there's  low life ready to further the misery. 

If you've ever visited the island you'll know that the landing places, harbours, ports are at the bottom of steep cliffs. 

Cruise ships off-load at the bottom and you can walk up a steep winding path, ride a donkey, or take the cable car.

I've never been there but all my non Greek family have. I'm glad they all saw it in its heyday.

It is known for its picturesque blue and white cliff top villages, narrow streets, cliff-hanging hotels and rich ancient history. However, it's  crowded with daily visits from dozens of cruise ships. Beaches are mainly black sand or volcanic pebble.

It is, was, a popular wedding and honeymoon island.  Thousands of tourists gazed nightly at its spectacular sunsets.

It's volcanic soil grows excellent tomatoes. My father remembered them from his visit, searching out German troops, during WW11.

It is also known for its split peas and it's white wine made from unique varieties grown only on its wind blown vineyards .

Santorini and all the nearby Cycladic Islands Amorgos, Ios, Naxos and Paros would have been booked out for the upcoming Western and Orthodox Easters.

Even if the emergency is over by April there will be clean-up to be done and people will not be hurrying back to stay in an uncertain clime.

Turkey and Israel are both preparing for an aftermath tsunami if a big earthquake does occur. Turkey says they'll have one hour to evacuate coastal towns.

This quake phenomenon is called a seismic swarm . It happened before in 2011 and was a series of moderate quakes which  lasted 15 months. I can't remember that happening. 

Experts are divided on whether there will be a stronger earthquake, 6 and over. However they do think an eruption unlikely.

Seismic Santorini

 The Greek island of Santorini. Renowned for its amazing sunsets*, besieged by thousands of tourists and cruise ships all year long

Over half of it's residents and all tourists have been evacuated as continuous seismic tremors shake the island.  The nearby islands of Amorgos, Ios and Anafyi are also along the same fault line  

Schools are closed and people are being warned to keep away from cliffs faces, especially on Santorini as rock falls and landslides occur.

The tremors are continual since Saturday, increasing to over 5 on the richter scale.

Experts naturally are monitoring the situation. But really, who knows. They wait for the worst.

Emergency services are in position on all these islands and residents given instruction on how to protect themselves.

The last big earthquake was 7.7 in 1956. They're used to earthquakes but not these constant tremors.

Santorini is an extinct volcano.

The volcano erupted in 1600BC. It was one of the largest volcanic explosions in human history. It is thought that the volcanic cloud and tsunami wiped out Minoan civilisation on Crete. Was this when the island state of Atlantis was destroyed?

These earthquakes are not thought to be linked to volcanic activity.  By some experts.

*Poros too has awesome sunsets over the harbour and mountain known as 'The Sleeping Lady'.

Battle of Salamina

 When we travel, not often now, I like to take photos for the blog. Stopping for photos is not on Ks to-do list.

This time I had allies. The 2 little Greek girls.  We passed this memorial to the Battle of Salamis a couple of times . Elli made him slow down so she could photo the memorial and the area overlooking the Straits. This was where 370 Greek ships  beat 700 ships of the Persian Navy in 480BC.

Persian King Xerxes set up his throne on a hilltop overlooking the Straits of Salamis expecting to watch his triremes annihilate the much smaller Greek Navy.

Themistocles, the Greek commander lured the Persians into a trap and achieved a massive victory, forcing Xerxes to retreat to Asia.

It is described as the most important sea battle of the ancient world.

The now peaceful landscape overlooking Greek shipyards

Commemorating the Liberation of the Greek Fatherland, it's women and children and their future Autonomy.

Or words to that effect. 

I've posted this short clip before . Gerard Butler as King Leonidas from the film 'The 300'. He kicks a Persian envoy, demanding  Sparta's surrender, down a well. 

Spartans Never surrender. 

In a desperate fight to the death Leonidas, King of Sparta, with his 300 warriors held the pass of Thermopylae against the Persians long enough for Greek forces to retreat. 

Described as one of the 'most historically inaccurate movies ever produced' . 

It's still an epic show.

Salamina Get-Away

 One Saturday past we packed a small suitcase, picked up the 2 daughters and headed back to the island of Salamina.

It's 3 hours by road from Poros. Half an hour from Athens. 

 We lived there in the late 80s when the girls were very young. K was serving aboard a minesweeper which when in port docked at the big Naval Base on the island. We had just finished a 3 year stay on Crete 

That was 34 years ago.

We were going back for a memorial service and looking forward to a road trip with our  two girls.

They're good fun, a load of laughs.

And a lot of the time that's the way it was. Some of the time it wasn't .

Our chauffeur was a little bit on the short-fused side. There were roadworks and a detour near the Korinth Canal. 

All he had to do was follow the yellow signs but he wouldn't, couldn't, see them and he had the three of us yelling, straight ahead, turn left, turn left. The lorry driver on his tail was not amused by his indecision and gave a long loud toot as he passed us.

That was just the beginning. We had to leave the national road and find our way to the car ferry across to the far tip of the island. 

Who can remember a route after 34 years. So Danae and I had google maps up on our phones and were getting different directions. We managed to get there and in good time but you could have cut the tension in the car with a knife.

The last few kilometres were down a narrow back road past a line of  *Apache helicopters. Just before it reached boiling point we emerged onto a quay with a line of cars ready to load on the ferry. 

*Probably weren't Apache but they were big army helicopters with a few sets of blades

Driving off the car ferry on Salamina we knew we had to turn left and that was it.

We discovered Salamina has no Sign Posts at all to tell us where we were going. The bloody Google Maps girl, Siri, Georgia, Alexa, whoever she is, kept on telling us to turn right or left but didn't make it clear whether it was simply that the road swerved to the right or that we actually had to make make a right hand turn onto a different road.

We wanted to see the house we lived in. No chance of that! K and I didn't recognise anything. 

By this time anyway the chauffeur didn't believe a word we said and was yelling at us at every turn 'are you sure' No of course we weren't bloody sure!

This was the beginning of our tours around the island. We would think we were almost at our destination and suddenly we'd realise we were going round in circles. At some stage we reached the coast road and eventually found the hotel. Just before dark.

The Straits between Salamina and the mainland .  About the same distance as Poros and the mainland. The tickets however were half the price.

We made the car ferry right on time.

The evening view from our balcony . 

The hotel Votsalakia and Suites was rather nice. We had booked 2 double rooms but they put us in a 2 bedroomed suite with jacuzzi. For the first time in 25 years I could tuck my 'babies' into bed and sing them their wake-up song in the morning. 

Grumble, grumble. 

'Leave us alone mother. We need coffee'. 

We arranged to meet our nephew in the evening to eat together. He told us there was a souvlaki shop 2 minutes down the road. Literally. We piled into the car just as he arrived and followed his car. 20 metres down the road. At least we all had something to laugh about. It was more or less next door. Really good souvlaki. 

The next morning early we set out for the Naval Base. The Memorial service, 5 minutes at the end of the long Sunday liturgy, was being held at the Navy church on base. 

🎵🎶 Here we go looby loo

Here we go looby light 🎵🎶

One minute into the 5 minute journey we were lost again. I think we went 3 times around that part of the island before K pulled up beside a taxi driver and asked the way. 

Follow me to the traffic lights at the end of this road he said. 

We did. 

At the traffic lights the taxi driver put his hand out the window and pointed to the left. 

Our driver however was in a panic and didn't see the signal. 

Once again he had the 3 of us yelling

Turn left

Didn't you see his hand

Turn left. 

Very reluctantly he did. 

And 'Lo', there was the harbour and the base entrance. 

And poor Nels who had been waiting for us for half an hour.

 

Granddaughter Nels with the other 'little Greek girls' as they were once known.

We almost got lost in the Navy Base as well. It's huge.

We passed a line of frigates

Then a line of submarines.

Even our Navy veteran wasn't sure where to go but we did find the church, St Nikolas, patron saint of sailors, in plenty of time.

Memorial over, Greek coffee drunk, sweet bread consumed we got directions to a cafeteria for a decent cappuccino. 

'Go straight' they said.

And we did. We found the row of waterfront cafés quite quickly. A miracle! 

Cappuccino consumed, cigarettes smoked and supplies of cheese and spinach pies obtained from the bakery, we all got into the car again to go home to Poros.

By this time we had worked out that Alexa wasn't much help but without signposts we didn't have much choice.

After a few more circles

🎶🎵 Looby-loo and shake it all about 🎶🎵

We all breathed a huge sigh of relief when we actually  found the car ferry.

The rest of the trip was not uneventful but we got home without any more major blow-ups.

The now grown-up Kiwi-Greek girls.  

They acted just like the naughty little Greek girls they're known as.

They annoyed each other yelling out

'Mummy, she's hurting me, tell her to stop'.

Oh boy, did that bring back memories.

They made grimaces behind our backs and held their breath going through the tunnels trying to scare me or themselves. I had to scold them severely and tell them to behave themselves . Or else

I'm not sure I want to do all that again. It was quite an.............um, experience. 

Roll Out the Barrel

 A month or so ago s-in-law Yiannis arranged for this year's wine delivery.  2 x 20 litre cartons of white wine and 20 litres of red wine from a vineyard in nearby Korinth. 

It was undrinkable. Plonk

Son-in-law Yiannis had given us the wine and brought quite a few litres for himself.  Both he and K agreed it was unacceptable.  A disgrace. 

K  was very happy when Yiannis told him he was returning it all .

The plonk was returned and another variety acquired from a different winery. 

Life is too short to drink bad wine. 

Fine-r wine delivery

Yiannis with his daughters 

Poppi and Nels 

In K's 'cellar' 

That Poppi tasting the wares

Pinky in the air

And what has this promising young wine critic got to say about the new delivery?

'Quite nice. But a bit strong for my liking'.

She's a water drinker.

Greek Gods

 Climbing Mount Olympos

Last October my son-in-law Yiannis and a group of his friends climbed to the top of Olympos, Greece's highest mountain.

 Home of Zeus and the Greek Gods of Mythology

Here's Yianni at the top of Mytikas, the highest peak,  

almost 3,000 metres.

He spent a couple of months training and trying to lose a few kilos in preparation. He ran, and rode a bike up into the Poros hills.

The throne of Zeus

You can see the huge curved back and there's the seat part (level rock) in front .

The throne of a giant

Trekking over barren mountain face 

The boys celebrating their ascent

The last part of the climb before the summit is a rock face. The climbers are roped and ascend hand by hand, careful not to kick rocks onto the climber below. 

The descent is by another route. Not any easier so Yiannis said.  Descending has other hazards. 

Sunrise

From 'The Greek Reporter' -

Many believe that Mount Olympos, like Atlantis, is a myth and does not exist.

However, it is not simply a mountain from Greek mythology. It has inspired stories, movies and television series. It's a mountain with challenging climbs and is scaled by around 10,000 climbers every year.

It is a National Park with a rich array of rare flora and fauna. 

It's lower slopes have steep gorges, caves and waterfalls.

From his home in the misty peaks *Zeus shaped the destiny of the mortals below and hurled his thunderbolts at anyone foolish enough to challenge his power.  Lesser Gods and spirits lived in caves below. 

Nowadays Olympos is known for its extreme sports, trekking, paragliding, rafting, mountain biking and jeep Safari.

*Zeus

Known as Dias

Δίας 

In greek

His name means 

'Sky Father'

Torta di Sant'Antonio

 

An apple red wine tart, flavoured with cinnamon.

Made in the Italian alpine village of Oulx to honour the town's patron Sant' Antonio.

- Recipe for the Pastry

2 cups of flour 

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp baking powder 

6 tbsps cold butter cut into pieces

1/2 cup milk

2 egg yolks 

Rub butter into the flour till it looks like breadcrumbs. Add1 tbsp sugar and baking powder. 

Whisk eggs and milk. Mix into the flour. 

Knead into a smooth ball. Chill 1 hour. 

- Recipe for the Filling mixture

1 1/4 cups of red wine

1 tsp cinnamon

5 tbsp sugar 

4 apples thinly sliced

Zest 1 orange

In a pot simmer -

Apple slices

Sugar

Orange zest/cinnamon

Wine

For about half an hour till the wine has turned to a syrup.

Leave to cool.

Roll out the pastry and place in the baking dish . Let the dough hang over the sides. Trim. Fill with the apple mixture and fold over sides of dough.

Cover the bottom with baking paper, or grease the dish.

Sprinkle with sugar.

Bake 180oC for about half an hour.

If you're artistic form leaves and flowers with the dough trimmings and decorate the tart before baking.

Good luck and Bon Appetit 

Antoni

 17th January

The feast day of St Antoni.

He's an Italian Saint from Padua, a Franciscan monk, protector of the poor. In Italy and Portugal he's the finder of lost property.  

Somewhere I have a recipe for an apple pie with red wine that is made in an Italian village on this day.

One of our local churches is dedicated to this Saint.

The little church down a narrow dirt road which in one part was flooded from recent rain.

We arrived at the end of the service but lit our candles and picked up a few pieces of scrummy sweet bread and a small bag of funeral wheat.

One of the housewives must have made it in remembrance of one of her menfolk named Antoni. Or it could have been a female family member, Antonia.

When we arrived the Priest had gone off with a candle bearer to a nearby house. Probably to bless someone who was ill or to give communion.

I hope my dear brother Tony had a happy name day. Not that he knew the Greek Orthodox church was celebrating the saint he's named after. 

Winter's Pleasures

 

What to do with the gingerbread house now that christmas is well and truly over?

A tasty pleasure

First break your gingerbread house into pieces

Then eat it.

And eat it we did.  Quite a lot of it.  The rest of it is in the biscuit tin.

It was a bit soft but not enough to put us off.  K decided he loved it and he's the one now finishing it all. I ate my share and thoroughly enjoyed every gingery, peppery bite.

Thanks to the girls in the office who made it for me. The best gingerbread I've ever eaten

A nightly pleasure

A glass of red wine.  The wine is from the area not far from us called Nemea, known for it's vines and wines.  

We used to buy grape juice in bulk and K then fermented it and made it into wine.  Uusually white wine.

This wine is 2 years old, from a variety of grapes called Agioritiko. It's usually mixed with cabernet sauvignon but this is not. I gave Jan a litre and she found it 'unusual'. Herby. It's described in Wikipedia as being spicy with notes of plum. OK. If they say so. 

Whatever it tastes like we will drink it. We have drunk a lot worse.  40 years ago there was only one wine, served in a metal jug, in every cafe and taverna.  That was a white wine called retsina. Every barrel of wine was flavoured with a lump of pine resin, to kill off any germs. The first glass was a bit rough but the more you drank the easier it slipped down. 

It's out of fashion now and hard to find. 

Simple Sunday pleasure 

For K

A Sunday afternoon ouzo with a friend

Just exactly how K loves to spend his Sundays. A glass or 3 of something with a good friend and a meze.  We had spicy sausage and in the photo is a bowl of rocket from my garden and slices of avgotaraho, salted and pressed fish roe. The spicy sausage was fried and he fried bread in the sausage fat. 

Fishy pleasures 

Kalamari or calamari

Or squid

Tis the season I discovered.  They both told fishy tales about giant squid caught in days gone by.  

We eat them in the summer, frozen. Fried  by Sofia and eaten at her taverna by the sea. Fresh are too expensive

Chestnuts on the wood stove.

I don't like them but K snacks on a couple in the evening

Today's Highlight

 Surprise visitor.

She made our day 

Athletic granddaughter Nels running in the hills.

It's 8ks from her house in Neorion to our house. Uphill all the way.

 She popped in to see her Nana and Papou, for a swallow of water and a wee chocolate mint for energy. 

The last 8ks home, doing the round trip, are at least all downhill. 

Bravo Nels Moy

It was a beautiful day, after so many cold rainy ones.

She inspired me to go for a walk too.

Only about 3ks. 1  1/2 each way for me

The sky was blue and the sea was calm when it finally came into view.

From Above

 One sunny day. Which is Not today. My granddaughters walked up to the Old Mill at the top of the hill. Beside the abandoned mill there is a little church too. And a wonderful view of the harbour and across to the mainland mountains.

Poros. On a sunnier winter's day

Today it's pouring 'chair legs',  thunder and lightening rumbling all around.

Great day for ducks 🦆🦆🦆

And olive trees

No gnomes today

My gnomes have gone away

......they shall return 

G'day Maties

Classic Eats

 

I made moussaka' for the family.

Layers of fried

Melitzanes (eggplant or aubergine )

Kolokythakia ( zucchini or courgettes )

And potato

Topped with ground beef in a tomato sauce, finished with a layer of cheese sauce 

Quite a bit of work . I cook the meat and fry the vegetables the previous day. Then put it all together and make the bechamel/cheese sauce.

Moussaka and Greek salad are the two most well known greek dishes . However neither of them are considered the national dish.

That's fassolatha, bean soup.

I baked it early in the morning but then had to deliver it down to their houses in town.

On the worst day of winter.

As they say here

'ti na kanoume'.

And a shrug.

What could I do. We had to take the food down while it was still warm. 

The rain had been coming down like kareklopodara (ha, try saying that!), chair legs, or cats and dogs .

 We did it. Dragging s-in-law Kyriakos out of his house to grab the oven tray, covered in foil and a plastic bag, and run back up the slippery marble steps.  I got drenched in a minute and so did he.

The football field which is at sea level had turned into a swimming pool . The road round the back of the island called Turkodromos, Turkish road, was closed because of rock falls. The harbour road was flooded and water rushed down the stone steps like a series of waterfalls cascading down to the sea .

Dear granddaughter Luli loves moussaka. The 'stage coach' battled the blizzard and delivered the 'mail'. 

Meantime in Athens granddaughter Nels made a big baking pan of pastitsio, Greece's other favourite. Something to stick to the ribs and warm you up in the winter....or summer.

It's a layer of thick tubed macaroni with a tomato and ground beef sauce topped with lots of cheesy bechamel.

What a Beautiful Pussy You Are

 12 days ago

It was a quiet, enjoyable day. Without fuss. Without bother. I dressed up a little.

New Year's Day 

Not at our house!

Some of us went to eat at the slightly more classy restaurant we discovered only 10 minutes across the water, and straight down the road

Photo - 

Elli and Luli 

Enjoying a first course.

 Boiled vegetables with a little olive oil

Cheese pies 

And a huge pile of  fried potatoes, eaten, gone

Jamie  with his new look

And Papous looking on

This eating place is a little above your normal taverna.  The food is excellent, the wine very drinkable, quick service.

Low music. No loud voices.

Extremely reasonable prices. Full of Poros people, friends and acquaintances enjoying, like us, good company and good food. 

It's cheaper than a Poros taverna even after paying return tickets for 2 cars on the ferry.

Fresh little cakes served afterwards were offered 'on the house'. 

After our meal we found a handy place for smokers outside on the porch. 

Elli noticed all the smokers were female. A big change from days gone by when it was almost exclusively males who smoked. 

Gossip time!

 

Back to Elli's house to cut the New Year's cake. Vassilopita

With a cup of coffee

The lucky coin

Not wrapped up in a five pound note* but a bit of silver foil. 

We missed you D

The owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat

They took some honey and plenty of money

*Wrapped up in a five pound note 

The owl looked up to the stars above

And sang to a small guitar

'Oh lovely Pussy, oh Pussy, my love

What a beautiful Pussy you are

You are

You are

What a beautiful Pussy you are'. 

- Edward Lear

That's a few too many 'pussys' to be politically correct these days

Gn-omes

 My daughter sends  a 'good morning' to me and my other daughter every morning, via WhatsApp, along with a daily gnome. 

I like gnomes. I have a few in the garden. I've knitted a few too, Christmas gnomes. They're more popular than elves or reindeer these Xmases past. Called 'tomte' in Swedish, they help around the home and are rewarded with porridge. 

Anyway

Why does the English language have so many  oddities?

Gn is a digraph. That's from Greek of course, meaning double writing.

In English a digraph is 2 letters that make one sound.

Take gn

At the beginner of a word

Gnome

Gnash

Gnaw

It is pronounced as N.

At the end of a word 

Reign

Sign 

It is pronounced as N

However in the middle of a word

Recognise

Signal

Each letter is pronounced separately N G

This is just the tip of a slippery iceberg, the opening of a deep and convoluted  rabbit hole. 

All I can say is 'thank goodness ' I was born in an English speaking country and didn't have to learn it as a foreign language 

This fine gnome means something more to my long suffering family.

When I was going through my 'new-age stage' I used to chant at them

I am fine 

And my mind is fine

I am fine 

And my body is fine

I am fine

All around is fine

And drove them round the bend. It had a few more 'I am fines' and I had it on tape too.

Now I can laugh at myself. 

Clever Elli for finding this 'gnome of remembrance'.