Marjory McGinn's Blog, page 4

Why we must keep the spirit of old Greece afloat . . .

Marjory being rowed about Elounda harbour by a kindly local during a long sabbatical in Crete, 1989

AS someone who has been going to Greece all my life, since the 1970s, the political events of the past few months have saddened me. I am wondering, along with everyone else, how Greece’s economic situation and its politics ever got so convoluted.

In recent months the scenario has included punishing negotiations for a new bailout; a referendum called by PM Alexis Tsipras, who then ignored the results, as well as the 65 per cent of Greeks opposing austerity; a new and terrifying agreement signed with the Troika; a mutiny by some Syriza MPs; Tsipras’s resignation; a September election tipped; a new breakaway leftist party. There have been frenetic political twists and turns, like a manic rollercoaster with brake failure. Most Greeks claim to be confused now.

As one of my Twitter followers, a Greek teacher, recently said: “I don’t know which way is up or down any more? Worse, I don’t know which way is right or left.”

Many others are devastated. A female friend in Athens, with a young son, wrote to me recently, saying: “We feel that we are on a boat that’s sinking. We don’t know what comes next and we are trying to live from day to day.”

She also believes, as someone who works as an economist in the city, that the country will change drastically in the coming years after the next bout of austerity and the fire sale of assets.

I too have had a feeling of dread for months that we are witnessing the last carefree days of the Greece that we all used to know and love. I hope my Athens friend is wrong, but in my heart I fear she is right. Change is coming!

A headless statue in the Agora, Athens seems to say more about the troubled present day city that it does about the past

I have been in love with Greece all my life, from the early 1970s on my first trip, not long after high school in Australia, when I arrived in Athens for a short break and ended up staying for a year’s working holiday. Despite the fact Greece was then ruled by a military dictatorship, and it was yet another tragic time in its history, in other ways it was, culturally and socially at least, a time of simplicity, even innocence, compared to now.

All the elements of Greek life and culture that philhellenes still love were there in abundance. I wrote about this time in Athens as a parallel narrative in my book Homer’s Where The Heart Is. When I first arrived in the city and stepped off the overland bus from London it was love at first sight: “It was nothing I could easily define, but more a fusion of disparate things, all maddeningly exotic to my young mind: the incomprehensible street signs, the old people dressed in black, the coffee shops, the bakeries wafting aromas of freshly baked bread and tiropites, and all the other smells even the bad ones – fetid drains and a city still staggering after a long summer heatwave. It all blended into a heady Levantine cocktail.”

I have had many trips to Greece since, some for just a few weeks’ vacation, but many were quite long, from a few months to my recent four-year odyssey in southern Greece.

Jim and Marjory with their friend Artemios on a trip to Santorini in 2002

When I remember the earlier trips, I feel so much nostalgia for that old Greece, whether it was in Athens or places of unique beauty like Santorini, or small unspoilt islands like Serifos, Sifnos, Paxos, Patmos and for a way of life that was simple and charming, where donkeys were more common than cars and you could only buy your yoghurt in ceramic bowls, where there was only one kind of coffee, Nescafe, and where the drachma still reigned. Joining the Eurozone was a futuristic folly. Despite not having much money, most people seemed happier, and were fantastically hospitable.

In 1989, I took a sabbatical from my newspaper job in Sydney and went to Crete for two months. It was totally unplanned, no itinerary, no rooms booked in advance. I took a boat from Piraeus to Irakleion and travelled to the Venetian town of Hania. I hadn’t planned getting sick either, but a stomach bug left me stranded in a harbourside hotel for days, where a doctor had to be summoned.

The harbour at Elounda in Crete, some years after Marjory’s first trip. Picture courtesy of www.dilos.com

Later on, a chance recommendation from a fellow Aussie made me seek out a convalescence of sorts in Elounda, a small undeveloped fishing village then on the north-eastern coast of the island. Too weak to bother with buses, I got in a taxi and asked the driver to take me to Elounda. It didn’t seem strange to the driver that when we got there, I hadn’t anything booked. Don’t worry, he said kindly, we’ll find you something. It was October after all and not bursting with tourists, not back then anyway.

Near the harbour he stopped the car, but before he started scouting for rooms, a small rotund woman rushed out of her house, towards the taxi. Did I want a room, she asked me.

The taxi driver waited patiently while I followed her inside to see the small apartment (a bedroom, bathroom and tiny kitchen) on the ground floor. It was simple and clean. I took it on the spot, the taxi driver was dispatched, happy with his healthy fare and tip. That was the start of a wonderful stay in Elounda, and a friendship with the couple upstairs, Poppy and George, with whom I practically lived for the rest of my stay, watching their TV,  sharing meals, helping Poppy to prepare some of them. I would often sit on her upstairs balcony with a few neighbouring women, chattering and cleaning mountains of horta (greens) just collected from the hills.

The couple also took me out on their small boat, the Peristeri, for local excursions. Once they took me fishing at 5am to the nearby island of Spinalonga, before Victoria Hislop had been inspired to set her book The Island there, about the former leper colony. When I went it was just a rather ruined and forlorn outpost.

The rest of the time in Elounda, I rambled the hills behind the village, often with Poppy, often alone, and everywhere I went people invited me in for drinks, coffee, meals, parea, company. When I finally left, Poppy and George hugged me and told me I must stay in touch as if I were a long-lost relative.

Greeks were like that then. And they still are in many parts of the country, especially in the islands and rural places like the southern Peloponnese, where we spent four years from 2010, living the first year in a remote hillside village in the Mani and later in Koroni, at the tip of the Messinian peninsula. In these areas we were shown the same warmth and familiarity by locals, as Poppy and George.

Some of the regulars in one of Koroni’s surviving old kafeneia in the main square

An old traditional shop in Koroni, a pantopoleio, on Karapavlou St, selling everything from wine to organic food and owned by the charming Tasos Sipsas

But Greece as a country has been slowly changing, of course. How could it not? It’s not a folk museum, after all. It has become more modern, European, apart from the plumbing, which remains antique! And inevitably, many of the old cultural elements are changing or disappearing. Fewer rural Greeks wear traditional clothing now. There are fewer kafeneia and ouzeries in villages than there used to be; there are fewer working villages. In the Mani we found that many wonderful hillside villages that were once full of life, shops and schools, were now inhabited by only a dozen or so locals. In many it was hard to find even one kafeneio or local store.

A folky and humorous sign for the local barbers, the Golden Scissors, in Koroni

With the drastic economic changes and cuts that are coming, will too much of Greece’s traditional life and customs change irrevocably, to squeeze Greece into a rule-bound northern Europe template? Trouncing all the features that, ironically, tourists go to Greece to experience?

I think that’s something that everyone with any ounce of love for Greece should fight against. We must save the spirit of old Greece, its personality, its old customs and crafts, and its ideals of friendship and hospitality because, as so many other countries have found, once you dismantle a country’s soul and the uniqueness of its past, you can never really get it back again. No-one who has travelled to Greece from the 1960s onwards could come to terms with that loss. Not least the inimitable Greeks themselves.

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

TO read more about living in Greece during the crisis in the southern Peloponnese, read my new travel memoir Homer’s Where The Heart Is. This is the sequel to the first, Things Can Only Get Feta (first published in 2013) about the start of our long odyssey in the rural Mani.

To those who have already read the latest book, thanks for your kind comments and Amazon reviews, which are always appreciated.

Both books are available on all Amazon’s international sites and also on the Book Depository www.bookdepository.com (with free overseas postage). If you are in Greece you can inquire about having the book ordered at your branch of the Public store www.public.gr

If any readers have queries about availability for both books, please contact me via the contact page on our website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com where you will also find a ‘books’ page with other information about the books.

To buy either of my books please click on the Amazon links below:

Things Can Only Get Feta

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

You can also find me on Twitter @fatgreekodyssey

And Facebook www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

www.facebook.com/HomersWhereTheHeartIs

Thanks for calling by.

 

© All rights reserved. All text and photographs copyright of the authors 2015. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

Why the EU must embrace the Zorba philosophy

Anthony Quinn as Zorba, with Alan Bates, dancing the sirtaki in the 1964 movie

THE events of the last few weeks, as Greece has fought for a new bailout deal, have left us all in shock. They have shown us how oppressive and vindictive the EU can be and, in contrast, how spirited and stoical the Greeks are when under attack and fighting for their lives.

I don’t want to add any more to the voluminous public discussions. Greater minds than mine have debated all the political/economic issues of the crisis. As someone who loves Greece, I can only pray there will be a good outcome for the country, despite more austerity piling up against it.

What I have gathered from watching recent events unfold – the June referendum and then EU leaders, particularly Germany, acting like schoolyard bullies – is this: most Europeans don’t really understand Greeks, or their culture. It’s as if few of them have ever been to Greece.

What EU leaders have tried to do is shoehorn the Greek character into a northern European template. It won’t go; it never will go. It’s ham-fisted and almost laughable. Greeks have a different story, a different history and cultural influences. Greece is still the least European country in Europe, still leaning gently towards its old Levantine influences, which makes it the exotic, appealing, often chaotic and, sometimes, maddeningly different place that it is. But we wouldn’t have it any other way.

A favourite old friend, Artemis, from Santorini typifies the Greek character: generous, maverick and an expert at skinning prickly pears

Wonderful, vibrant villagers from Megali Mantineia, where we lived in the Mani from 2010

Greeks will never be cool-headed, flinty, northern European clock-watchers, which is why generations of foreigners have flocked to Greece for respite. Apart from its physical beauty, Greece still has the human touch, which is something that has been lost in many parts of Europe, and the UK as well, to a degree.

Greeks have not been blameless in the way they have handled their economy, but I believe that it’s basically because they are different from their northern partners, their character has come in for a battering. They have been labelled as lazy, work-shy and corrupt, and these clichés have been echoed unfairly throughout much of the international media.

There is corruption, of course, as there is in every country, and there are complex reasons for it, but I believe that due to a weaker and not very independent media, the corruption and excesses of past governments have not been exposed as they might have been in western countries. Only now are we seeing more transparency in Greece, and the internet and social media has helped to expose wrongdoing where some of the press has not.

We forget that Greece has only recently emerged from a devastating series of occupations and political upheavals: 400 years of Turkish occupation; the punitive  German occupation of the Second World War and the Greek civil war it spawned, and a disastrous military takeover in 1967 with a regime that lasted until 1974.

Four decades of relative calm since the 1970s is but a drop in the ocean for a country to re-invent itself. Until recent weeks, at least, the economic crisis was just another upheaval that Greeks have had to cope with.

During my time in Greece, I have found Greeks are among the hardest working people in Europe. In the last five years I met countless people, especially in the restaurant trade, who work more than 12 hours a day, seven days a week from May to October and in many areas like the Peloponnese will then do a long olive harvest in the winter.

Greeks are bred tough like Foteini, a ‘traditional woman’ from the Mani

Foteini, one of my farming friends in the Mani, who features prominently in both my books, is an unforgettable character and the toughest woman (a pensioner!) I’ve ever met anywhere. She harvests olives from her 200 trees, alone, every year, without fail, and rears a few goats to supplement her paltry farmer’s pension of 300 euros a month, which has been cut back since 2011. No pensioner in the UK would live like Foteini.

Not only have the Eurocrats tried to reinvent the Greek personality but they have also asked for the impossible, for a country to change its system overnight.

Andreas, one of our Greek friends in the Mani, who I wrote about in my second memoir Homer’s Where The Heart Is, put it this way during a discussion about the crisis in 2012, and I quote from the book (chapter 20): “The Troika moans at us… they say we don’t make changes fast enough in the government, and with taxes… but they want us to change centuries of customs and business in a few months. We cannot do it! Impossible!”

The recent events have proved him right. Impossible, and heartbreaking!

After a lifetime of visiting Greece and after four years living in the southern Peloponnese, most recently Koroni, in Messinia, I do not recognise many of the criticisms and cliches levelled at the Greeks. And nor do I feel they deserve the excruciating contempt and hatred that has been slung at them during the crisis.

Perhaps the main fault of ordinary Greeks (and not the dynastic elites or the shipping magnates) is not just making a mess of their fiscal spreadsheets, but in not putting money first in the way that other societies in the west do. In my opinion, this is a country that has put life to the fore, and people, with a belief in leventia (generosity of heart), parea (company), kefi (high spirits) filotimo (sense of honour).

I have found Greeks to be the kindest people I have ever met. When we lived in Koroni for a year, we befriended a couple who had a small holding (with a few goats and chickens) near to where we lived. Tasos and Eleni are warm-hearted and interesting people, whom we saw regularly and became fond of, along with their lovely family.

Gifts to strangers and hospitality, filoxenia, is alive and well in Greece

One day, after their long olive harvest, they arrived at our house with a big basket full of gifts from their farm: olive oil, olives, capers, goat cheese, herbs, and a bottle of their homemade wine (above). They simply wanted to show us hospitality, filoxenia, and make our stay more pleasant. We were overwhelmed by this gesture of friendship. It’s not the first time I’ve experienced this in Greece. Whether Greeks are in crisis or not, they never lose this generosity, or their indomitable spirit. The Zorba factor.

I believe it’s not Greeks who need to change radically, it’s the ‘other’ Europeans. They need to thaw and become more like the Greeks; get in touch with their inner Zorba. Perhaps then they’ll understand Greeks a bit better, offer a more reasonable fiscal blueprint for the future. And create a more compassionate EU.

As Nikos Kazantzakis, author of Zorba the Greek, wrote: “A man needs a little madness in his life!”

The Eurocrats need to kick off their shoes, find a beach and dance on it. Opa!

 

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

TO read more about living in Greece during the crisis in the southern Peloponnese, read my new travel memoir Homer’s Where The Heart Is. This is the sequel to my first memoir, Things Can Only Get Feta (first published in 2013) about the start of our three-year adventure living in the rural Mani.

To those who have already read the latest book, thanks for your kind comments and Amazon reviews, which are always appreciated.

Both books are available on all Amazon’s international sites and also on the Book Depository www.bookdepository.com (with free overseas postage). If you are in Greece you can inquire about having the book ordered at your branch of the Public store www.public.gr

If any readers have queries about availability for both books, please contact me via the contact page on our website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com where you will also find a ‘books’ page with other information about the books.

To buy either of my books please click on the Amazon links below:

Things Can Only Get Feta

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

You can also find me on Twitter @fatgreekodyssey

And Facebook www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

www.facebook.com/HomersWhereTheHeartIs

Thanks for calling by.

 

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2015. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

You’re never a lost soul in Greece . . .

 

Marjory in one of the old doorways of Mistraki

WE were recently invited to a village church on a Sunday morning by a local papas (priest), who promised there would be a lovely service. The church of Ayia Triada was celebrating the national feast day of the Holy Spirit (To Ayio Pnevma), which is part of the important Pentecost period in the Greek Orthodox Church.

We’d never visited the old and rather remote village of Mistraki, though we knew roughly where it was, and planned to get there by 8.45am for the last hour of the service. It was a pleasant drive on a sunny day up through the hills, where there are only a few scattered villages, with views down to the Messinian Gulf.

The splendid house of well-known, 19th-century resident Martha Kypriopoulou-Boziki 

When we got to Mistraki, however, the village seemed deserted. Not a soul about, apart from two huge dogs lying across the dusty road. All the houses were shuttered and there was no church in sight, or even a kafeneio. No signs of life.

We parked the car and walked about from one end of the village to the other. It’s a tiny place with lovely old houses, mostly dating from the early 18th century. Many have been restored to their original glory but a few others lie in ruins. But where was the church?

It was past 8.45 when we began to walk up dirt tracks out of the village, looking for signs of a church dome peeking up from the trees, listening for the sound of chanting, but every path yielded nothing but more houses and goat farms. This was curious. Had we got the name of the village wrong? Was the church hidden deep in the fold of a hill?

After nine o’clock, we were still wandering about, convinced that having come all this way we would miss the service, and the small yiorti (festivity) we anticipated afterwards. We were disappointed.

“Let’s hope the Holy Spirit’s looking out for us and we’ll get a sign,” said Jim, more in a jokey, bantering way, as on our long odysseys in Greece we’ve always tried to make light of most difficulties we’ve encountered along the way, big and small. We trudged around a bit more. It was getting hot and we decided we’d have to give up soon and retreat.

Jim suddenly stopped and cocked his head slightly. “I can hear a tractor in the distance.”

There was a dog-tired, High Noon feel to the hillside settlement of Mistraki 

He started running through the village, waking up dozing dogs and scattering dust, with me trotting on behind, trying to keep my best sandals from disappearing down potholes. Sure enough, I could hear it too and we sprinted up to the ‘main’ road just as a tractor with two men on board was rumbling by. We shouted and waved our arms, and thankfully the tractor stopped. The two men looked amused when we asked where the church was.

“It’s just through there,” said one guy in overalls, “Five minutes’ walk away.”

The church of Ayia Triada celebrating the feast of the Holy Spirit (Ayio Pnevma)

They directed us to the one dirt road we hadn’t tried yet, unsignposted, but with the remains of an old spring water outlet on the corner, which should have alerted us to a church nearby.

We thanked them and rushed along the track until the church appeared, in a clearing amid tall trees. The faintest sounds of chanting reached us now. We were late, but all was far from lost.

“Well Marj!” said Jim. “Did the Holy Spirit come to the rescue or what?”

I laughed. “Probably! It was a nice touch though, wasn’t it, sweeping in on a tractor. Very appropriate.”

One of the icons of Ayia Triada, depicting the presentation of Christ at the Temple 

We burst into the church, a bit out of breath. Heads swivelled our way, and we were surprised to find a big turnout of locals in this old, restored church, with some lovely icons. And Papa Theodoros, dressed in his ornamental robe, was in fine voice, particularly at the end of the service, offering a spine-tingling crescendo to the chanting.

Genial Papa Theodoros, the main priest for the large rural community north-west of Koroni

This is an important service and celebration, coming on Monday, June 1, the day after the Pentakosti, the Pentecost, which falls 50 days after Easter Sunday and commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit on Christ’s disciples.

After the service, the congregation gathered in the forecourt. These were locals, from several outlying villages too, who were among some of the friendliest people we had met in this part of Greece, near Koroni. They wished us ‘chronia polla’ (many years) and a good month, ‘kalo mina’. They were chatty and keen to know where we were from and what our impressions were of Greece. They were at least able to explain why Mistraki seemed deserted. There are now, sadly, only seven permanent residents left in this village, and they were all at the service.

Spit roasted pork is traditional for local celebrations in this part of southern Greece 

At the edge of the forecourt, two men had set up a trestle table, with a whole roast pig on top, complete with head, and carved into chunks, and a set of scales nearby. The meat was not all destined for this venue, however, as the pair with their ‘roaming roasts’ would visit other locations that day for other yiortes.

The air was full of the succulent aroma of spit-roasted meat, yet there were no other signs in the forecourt of a yiorti – chairs, tables, or drinks – until the papas came rushing out of the church, dressed down in his black robe and, curiously, carrying a bulging plastic bag.

“Elate,” he called to us, with a wave, herding us towards a low stone wall under the trees. Perhaps because we were foreigners, ‘guests’, we were asked to sit down first and the papas unscrewed a large plastic bottle filled with local,  honey-coloured wine and put a liberal dash in our plastic cups.

There was a lot of banter and laughter from the rest of the congregation behind him, watching as he pulled things from his bag: chunks of bread, sweet tomatoes, and goat cheese, paper plates, serviettes. Someone was summoned to collect a huge chunk of roast pork, wrapped in thick paper. It was placed on the wall and opened up for everyone to help themselves, and the wine was shared around.

It was an impromtu feast, and one of the nicest yiortes we had been to for its spontaneity and warmth, and its Biblical simplicity. Papa Theodoros is like no other priest we have met in Greece, and we were introduced to him months earlier while trying to find the key holder for a local Byzantine monastery. He is warm and approachable and has a nice sense of humour.

Although in his late 60s, I would guess, he would also be one of the hardest working priests in this area, with three or four churches to preside over, as well as a nearby monastery. Due to cutbacks during the economic crisis, few retiring priests are ever replaced in villages.

One of the colourful touches in the village

The time had passed all too quickly and people left with kind wishes for the rest of our stay in Koroni.

“Tou chronou, next year,” they said, a common expression meaning that we would hopefully all do the same again next year.

Indeed, I think we will. Next time, we may be less in need of the Holy Spirit, at least on church-finding missions.

Homer’s Where the Heart Is

To read more about village life in the southern Peloponnese and how the economic crisis has impacted on Greece, read my new travel memoir Homer’s Where the Heart Is. This is the sequel to my first memoir, Things Can Only Get Feta (first published in 2013) about the start of our three-year adventure living in the rural Mani.

To those who have already read the latest book, thanks for your kind comments and Amazon reviews, which are always appreciated.

Both books are available on all Amazon’s international sites. However, several Greek friends and readers have asked about buying the latest book in Greece. Apart from Amazon and the Book Depository www.bookdepository.com (with free overseas postage), Homer’s Where the Heart Is is not currently in bookshops in Greece.

However, if you inquire at any Public bookstore www.public.gr (some of which stock Things Can Only Get Feta), you may be able to arrange for the store to order the paperback from Amazon. And some independent bookstores will also do the same for you. I will offer more advice on this in the months to come.

If any readers have queries about availability for both books, please contact me via the contact page on our website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com where you will also find a ‘books’ page with other information about the books.

I have had some very favourable comments also about the design and layout of Homer’s Where the Heart Is and for that I would like to thank the expert skills of ex-journalist Jim Bruce. Jim’s book editing and formatting operation, called ebooklover www.ebooklover.co.uk can help both indie authors and those seeking publishers. Jim can get your manuscript ready and in perfect shape for presenting to publishers, which is a great help in this highly competitive publishing market right now.

To buy either of my books please click on the Amazon link below:

Things Can Only Get Feta

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

You can also find me on Twitter @fatgreekodyssey

And Facebook www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

www.facebook.com/HomersWhereTheHeartIs

Thanks for calling by.

 

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2015. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

 

New book – Homer’s Where The Heart Is

 

FOR all blog readers who have read and enjoyed my Greek travel memoir, Things Can Only Get Feta, I am very pleased to announce that the sequel is now available as a Kindle on Amazon. The paperback will follow in May.

Called Homer’s Where the Heart Is, the story takes up where Feta left off, as we decide to stay longer in the Mani in southern Greece after our first amazing year, despite the economic crisis becoming more severe.

A quiet cove near Paleohora with Mount Kalathio in the distance. 

We rent a house in a slightly different location, but nearby the first village of Megali Mantineia. In Paleohora, we share an olive grove with our Greek landlords and their crazy collection of animals, including a she-wolf with a shady past.

It’s a fabulous new chapter in our odyssey but, typically for Greece, not everything goes to plan, although there’s plenty of entertainment as we deal with Greeks on the edge, gun-toting farmers and Wallace, our much loved Jack Russell dog, is up to a few of his tricks as usual. But he also faces one of his most challenging problems yet.

Wallace our Jack Russell can’t help getting up to a bit of mischief in the sequel. 

I hope readers of the first book will be pleased to find that some of the original Greek characters from the hillside village of Megali Mantineia are very much part of this book, as we keep in close contact with them and take part in more of their village activities. Foteini the goat farmer, who charmed readers in Feta, is still one of the stars of this book, with her endearing and eccentric rural ways and her sense of fun.

We also explore more of the southern Peloponnese, and visit new locations, including ‘Little Australia’, the charming island of Kythera, and the wonderful house of the late Patrick Leigh Fermor in Kardamili, while researching a feature article on the famous travel writer’s home.

The famous stone arcade in the late Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Greek home.

There is also a grittier side to this book as the economic crisis intensifies and Greece edges closer to bankruptcy. Interwoven with the narrative of the book is my own back story from another troubling era in Greece’s history, which provides an interesting parallel to current events.

In the early 1970s, as a young woman fresh from high school, I travelled to Greece and spent a year in Athens during the military dictatorship. This was an edgy and fascinating time that I have never written about before. It will reveal as much about Greece as it does about my own personal journey and my continuing love affair with this country.

I hope you enjoy this book, and in the coming months I will share with blog readers some pictures and stories from behind the scenes that might help you to get a broader idea of what life has been like in Greece during the crisis.

Lastly, I must thank the very talented English artist Tony Hannaford for his absolutely gorgeous illustration for this book. Tony has a great love of Greece and has the ability to capture the vibrancy and beauty of this country to perfection, as he also did with the cover of Things Can Only Get Feta. To see more of his work on Greece and the Mediterranean in general, please visit his website www.anthonyhannaford.co.uk

The editing and formatting for the Kindle was done by ex-journalist Jim Bruce and I can’t praise his work enough. For more information on his service please visit www.ebooklover.co.uk

Please let me know how you like the book, and if you do, please think about leaving a review on Amazon. Writers are always very appreciative of this. And comments to the blog are also very welcome.

As always, I thank you for your ongoing interest in our Greek odyssey and for support of Things Can Only Get Feta and all your very kind messages to the blog.

* To buy the new book Homer’s Where The Heart Is in Kindle form in Britain or the US, please click on one of these links: amazon.co.uk or amazon.com The Kindle is also available on European and most other international sites as well.

 

 

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2015. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

 

 

 

 

Don’t drive yourself mad in Greece …

 

Driving in Greece can really get your goat

I HAVE come to the conclusion that the only way to deal with the nervy business of driving in Greece, with poor roads and maverick drivers, is to treat it as a metaphor for life itself.

Focus on the scary, I’m-about-to-die moments as they come up and don’t obsess over the whole, long journey, or you’ll never set out.

Take it all one deep, crumbling pothole at a time.

Koroni harbour with the Taygetos mountains in the background

I thought of this the other day when I had a long 50km drive from Koroni, at the tip of the Messinian peninsula to Kalamata, for a few early appointments. The road from picturesque Koroni is long and narrow, twisty in parts and used by tractors, pick-up trucks, buses, and all kinds of crazy drivers. It has poor edges in places, where the road sheers off on to deep drops, with no guard rails.

No driving through on market day at Petalidi

It also winds through two large villages with bottlenecks at intersections and is a nightmare on the laiki, market, days, and in summer, where the narrow roads are log-jammed with tour buses, camper vans, tractors and gypsy hawkers in pick-up trucks crammed with fruit and veg, the watermelons regularly bouncing off and splattering on the road.

A typical sight from the road that winds along the coast from Koroni to Petalidi in the Messinian peninsula

Of course, it isn’t always hell. There are a few calm days, and if you can ever relax for a moment, the views along this road are gorgeous, looking across the Messinian gulf towards the Mani and the Taygetos mountains, with Kalamata city spread along the head of the Messinian gulf. There are moments when you glance at this beautiful region and remember why you’re in Greece to start with, but you can never take your eyes off the road for more than a second. Around every corner is the outrageously unexpected, and the close shave, of which we’ve had many.

This is what I saw on that one morning driving to Kalamata: drivers overtaking on blind bends and coming straight for you (very normal); pick-up trucks loaded with goats in the back (normal, though sometimes its donkeys and horses); one driver hogging a whole busy stretch of road while a police car desperately needed to overtake. The driver wouldn’t budge (Greek rebel, very normal). Luckily for him, he wasn’t later pulled over by the cops. I’ve seen similar with ambulances trying to overtake on life-saving missions.

That morning I also saw a motorbike rider with no helmet (very normal) weaving about and awkwardly carrying a large wrapped package under one arm; a couple on another motorbike with two children sandwiched on the seat between them (no helmets) and at least one farmer walking along the road trailing four skittery goats on ropes. There are animal hazards aplenty on Greek roads, including runaway chickens, and once I had to dodge a horse cantering down the road with no rider or escort.

Spectacular view from the road down to Kardamili

For British drivers, the roads here can be terrifying. I know expats who refuse to drive, or will only drive around their own village. I sympathise with their anxieties, especially in the Mani, where the roads through the Taygetos mountains are full of hairpin bends and sheer drops.

So when I set off on a long journey alone, I psyche myself up and say, “I’ll just take it one hazard at a time”. If you think of the whole journey, you’re doomed. It’s all you can do.

It’s also while driving that the mystifying nature of Greeks always occurs to me. I mean no offence, of course, to the Greeks because as a race I think they are wonderful, generous, unique, and I love them. But why oh why do they go bonkers on the road, breaking every rule in the book, playing with the equivalent of a loaded gun? Ordinarily, I love the maverick, non-conformist attitude of Greeks. I love the way they can think for themselves and not rely on the nannying attitude we suffer in Britain, for example, but behind the wheel of a car, this attitude goes to a lethal extreme.

In the rural Mani villagers prefer donkeys to tractors

Sometimes it is comical, too, like the guy I once saw in Kalamata, driving with his knees while he rolled up a cigarette. A guy on a motorbike with a trombone in his lap. A motorbike rider on a busy city street ferrying a tray in one hand with frappes on top. A motorbike pulling a small, two-wheel trailer, in which a man sat – holding a ladder. And the parking is also crazy: cars parked at the head of one-way streets, across corners, on pavements. Sometimes you laugh at all this eccentric behaviour. But other times you live in fear.

If you were expecting any advice about driving in Greece, I haven’t got any, other than the one I stick resolutely to. Give way to everything, always, even when you have the right of way. And get a good insurance broker because if, God forbid, you do have an accident, sorting it out in Greece can be complicated, with so many drivers uninsured, driving old wrecks with no MOT, bald tyres and dodgy brakes.

Wallace trying out his advanced driving techniques

Our Kalamatan broker Panayiotis is a star, who will let you speed-dial his number any time, if you have any incident on the road.

When we first came to live in the Mani in 2010 we went to see him to get comprehensive insurance for our Greek car. Initially there was a setback, which was typically Greek and amusing. I included the anecdote in my book Things Can Only Get Feta and I quote it here:

“We had to wait about 10 days for the paperwork to arrive, during which time we only had third-party cover, and drove the car around as if it were a Ming vase on wheels.

“When we returned to pick up the paperwork, the broker told us there was a hitch. We had been knocked back by the preferred insurance company and another would have to be arranged. When we asked why we had been rejected he told us the first company was no longer insuring foreign drivers in Greece as they were a high risk.

“Do you mean they think we are poor drivers?” I asked.

“No. The company says foreigners don’t know how Greeks drive,” he told us. When we burst out laughing, he offered a wry smile. By then we knew exactly how Greeks drive – at high speed, on the wrong side of the road, while rolling up cigarettes, eating souvlaki, slurping coffee, talking loudly on the mobile. Doing anything, in fact, but driving.”

On the way home that particular day at the quiet siesta time, the nicest time to drive, I had to smile when I saw the nonchalant farmer again leading his goats along the road, going home this time. Happily, we had all survived another day on Greek roads.

Book news – Things Can Only Get Feta

AFTER being out of print for several months, the paperback edition of Things Can Only Get Feta: Two journalists and their crazy dog living through the Greek crisis has been republished and is now available on Amazon sites:

 Amazon UK

Amazon US

It is also available on Kindle as well.

The book explores our first year of living in the Mani, in southern Greece, with our dog Wallace, trying to live as authentic a life as possible with sad and funny consequences. The sequel to this book, covering our last two years in the Mani, will be available in the summer.

For more information on Things Can Only Get Feta, visit the book page on this site www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com

Thanks for stopping by.

 

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2015. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

 

Interview with writer Effrosyni Moschoudi

 

Effrosyni Moschoudi

This week I am delighted to welcome Effrosyni Moschoudi to my blog to talk about her writing and her unusual spin on myths and mystery, and her life in Greece during the crisis.

Thanks for joining us, Effrosyni. Tell us a little bit about yourself and when you started writing. 

I was born and raised in Athens, though my mother’s family come from Corfu, an island I still have strong links with and which has been an inspiration in my writing. Having studied computer science, I worked for 20 years in IT in the hotel and airline industries. In my early 30s I spent two-and-a-half years working in England. After losing my full-time job in Greece due to the crisis, I decided to start writing full-time.

I have been writing all my life! I have vivid memories as a child, sitting on a stool before my open bedroom window, looking up at the starry sky with a notepad and pencil in hand, writing poems about the beauty of the sight. In my 20s I started writing love poems and I also set the foundations for much later, when I finally wrote my debut novel, The Necklace of Goddess Athena, published in 2014.

This is a novel with an intoxicating mix of Greek mythology, time travel and romance, set in Athens, which became an Amazon #1 best seller in the Greek and Roman category. What is the book about and what was its inspiration?  

The story is about two young time travellers from Ancient Greece, Phevos and his sister Daphne. They arrive in modern-day Athens, not knowing why their mysterious father Efimios, an unsung hero of the ancient world, has sent them to the city. They only know they are there in the service of the goddess Athena and they will be guided by certain signs. It is only when the pair become involved with two orphaned siblings who live in the foothills of the Acropolis, that the reason for their time travelling becomes clear, as they set out to uncover some ancient family secrets.

I think the book derived from my desire to explain to others the essence of ‘Greekness’. I can imagine that Greeks may seem insanely quirky to the rest of the world, seeing how loud we can be, how huge our food culture is and how devoted we are towards our parents and children. I sought to write a fantasy that bares the Greek soul. My story’s backbone is the Greek triptych, ‘Country, God, Family’. This is what defines us as a people and has saved us in difficult times. My main character Efimios, from ancient Greece, is a symbol of this triptych.

An old photo of the popular West Pier in Brighton

 

Ayios Gordios beach, a typically idyllic location in Corfu

Your second novel, The Lady of the Pier (The Ebb), is set in England and Greece. Why did you choose these two different locations?

This book combines my love for both Corfu and England. It is set in Brighton in the 1930s and in Corfu in the 1980s. The part of the story concerning one of the heroines, Sofia, who adores her grandparents and their village in Corfu, brims over with autobiographical elements as I used to spend my summers there. As for Brighton, I became fascinated with the West Pier and its history during my time in England. I felt it was a shame that this magnificent landmark no longer existed and I wanted to bring it back to life through my story.

You obviously have a great love for Britain and a superb grasp of the language, but as a native Greek what makes you want to write in English?

Ever since I was little, I had a huge affinity for the English language. I watched a lot of English and American TV series and wanted badly to speak it. I started private English classes in Athens when I was 10 and from the beginning the language mesmerised me. I started writing poetry in English in my teens and when I finally started writing my first novel, it made sense to write it in English. Besides, the book market is miniscule in Greece right now, so writing in English as an indie author has given me more creative opportunities.

Greece has recently experienced a disastrous five-year economic crisis. How has it affected your life and work?

The crisis has seriously affected my life, as it has everyone’s. Five years ago I lost my job at Athens Airport, where I was purchasing Airbus parts for an airline. Although the home budget for my husband and I has now shrunk, and with it our social life, travel and fun outings, we lead a comfortable life and still enjoy the simple pleasures in life.

We have not been blameless as a nation, however. There has been a huge amount of corruption in this country and ineffectiveness in the political system and the public sector, which has to be fixed. In a way it’s as if the country has suffered from a serious disease and the current situation (with austerity and reforms) resembles a painful healing process. I think the country will come out of the crisis stronger than before.

Most foreigners adore Greece and many have come here to live, and to retire. What do you think it is about Greece that still attracts them? 

Actually, I have first-hand experience of this! My husband Andy is British and has lived in Athens since 1999. It only took him a couple of years to decide that he feels like a Greek, even before he learnt enough Greek to communicate properly. His family visit us occasionally and they all adore Greek food, the beauty of our islands and the open-heartedness of the people. We have many foreign friends who feel that way about Greece as well and plan to retire here. When I was living in England in my thirties, I loved the place and the people but I missed the summer heat and the landscape here. I couldn’t live outside of Greece again.

The unspoilt local beach near Athens where Effrosyni often swims in the summer

Where do you currently live in Greece and what makes it special for you? 

I live in a quiet, picturesque town with a tall mountain range on one side and the seafront on the other, about 20 miles from Athens city centre. I spent time here with my family as a child, so when I married it made sense to live here. It’s idyllic. I can look out my kitchen window and see the places where I used to play as a child back in the 1970s. That is precious to me beyond words. The other benefits are of course that the beach is close by, which is wonderful in the summer.

Tell us a bit more about your latest book?

My latest book The Lady of the Pier – The Ebb is part of a trilogy and was published in 2014. It’s a historic tale and also a tragic love story set in two time frames, in England and Corfu, with two very different heroines, Laura and Sofia. Laura has ambitions to become an actress in Brighton’s West Pier theatre and is drawn to two very different kinds of men. Sofia is also searching for love and is lured by the charms of a flirtatious British tourist on holiday in Corfu. Although the women are separated by time and place, they are connected in mysterious and, occasionally, paranormal ways. I am currently working on the second and third parts of the trilogy which I plan to publish this year.

You have a new website. What will readers find there? 

In my new website, http://www.effrosyniwrites.com, readers will find information about my books, including downloadable free excerpts. It also has a blog, with author interviews, book reviews and tips for indie author.

Where to buy Effrosyni’s books:

The Necklace of the Goddess Athena

Amazon (US): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I5GXHCO

Amazon (UK) : https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I5GXHCO

The Lady of the Pier – The Ebb 

Amazon (US): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LGNYEPC

Amazon (UK): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LGNYEPC

Connect with Effrosyni  

Blog: http://www.effrosinimoss.wordpress.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authoreffrosyni

Twitter: https://twitter.com/frostiemoss

Thanks for spending time with us Effrosyni and I wish you great success with your writing career.

Things Can Only Get Feta

For details about my travel memoir book, recounting our adventures in the Mani, and for reviews and articles, please visit our Big Fat Greek Odyssey website, book page

Visit Amazon to buy the book 

If you like the book please think about leaving a review on Amazon. It will be very much appreciated.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2015. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

 

 

 

What’s Greece in winter really like?

 

Fishing caiques in Koroni harbour at the start of winter

MY work desk is currently a blue metal kafeneion-style table parked in front of the balcony windows. The view from here is always glorious, across the olive orchards to the Messinian Gulf, but now it’s a winter scene. Dark clouds scud over the vast expanse of water. There are snowcaps on the Taygetos mountains opposite. In the olive groves some stoical harvesters have spread their nets and are working in the rain and cold. We were swimming just a few days ago – but there will be little chance of that now as winter deepens.

The view across the Messinian gulf towards the Taygetos mountains in the Mani peninsula

Everyone adores Greece in summer – the endless hot days, the warm clear sea, the tavernas brimming with happy holidaymakers – but what’s it really like living in Greece in the winter? Well, it’s very different, of course. And while it’s hard to imagine in the punishing heat of August, it does get pretty cold in winter, especially in January and February, when an icy wind blows down from the mountains, or here in Koroni (at the tip of the Messinian peninsula), across from the Ionian Sea.

The highest peak of the Taygetos mountains is snow-capped until June

It can rain for days on end, powerful, heavy rain. A few weeks ago we had something like a mini-hurricane in Koroni, with heavy winds and hailstones. There were mudslides on the hillside where we live and stone walls collapsed along the narrow road between the olive groves. On the Mani peninsula, opposite, there was a twister one day and then a storm that caused havoc to the small villages along the coast. But by the spring, the damage will be sorted, the beachside terraces renewed and tourists will never know we even had a winter.

 

Wallace our cheeky Jack Russell keeping himself warm during the winter

Some days in December there were flashes of hot weather, with the temperature around 18 to 20 degrees C, and we’ve been seized by the crazy desire to grab our swimming gear and pile down to the beach for a bracing swim. We’ve usually been the only ones there but the experience has been worth it, even swimming with the snow- capped Taygetos mountains mocking us from across the gulf.

Now it seems property winter with cooler temperatures and days of rain and even Wallace our Jack Russell has been reluctant to get out of his bed in the morning. But there are compensations too: no summer pests … mosquitoes, hornets, snakes or scorpions now, apart from the huge beige one we found one morning sitting by the front door. It put us all into a tailspin, especially Wallace, who, true to his crazy breed, wanted to bark the critter into a swift retreat, as if it were a pesky Jehovah’s Witness with a pitch fork. He gave up eventually and scarpered – Wallace that is, not the scorpion, which Jim despatched with a sweepy brush.

Koroni is a popular harbour town. In summer, the narrow streets by the harbour are thronging with holidaymakers, the waterside tavernas buzzing with life. Now the road along the paralia is almost deserted. The outside terraces have their scuffed plastic sides rolled up, the tables and chairs have gone and cars park in the spaces now – at least when it isn’t stormy and huge waves roll across the road. It’s hard to remember now what it was all like in summer. For some people, this side of Greece is much less appealing, but if you love Greece, as we do, you won’t ever be bored.

In a working town like Koroni, there are always Greeks about and they have more time to talk now. There are only one or two tavernas still open, a few old-fashioned ouzeries and several cafes, as well as regular shops. When the sun’s out, the harbour still bustles but it’s different. The locals have reclaimed their town and the atmosphere is most definitely Greek. It’s now about everyday life and having a gossip over a Greek coffee and for many of the taverna owners who have survived their seven-day working week, all summer, it’s a blessed relief to have a normal life again. But with most of our favourite haunts now shut, we’re already missing the tables set by the waterside, the plates of sizzling kalamari, slabs of moussaka and the familiar bowls of Greek salad with a doorstopper wedge of Feta on top.

The olive harvest is a familiar and comforting scene all over the southern Peloponnese, famed for its oil

In this part of Greece, for now, all life revolves around the olive harvest, particularly with the bumper crop this year and with the higher price of oil. It has lifted morale in rural areas and brought hope where there has been little for the past five years. The roads outside the town are full of trucks stacked high with bulging sacks of olives, heading to the local presses. If you want to see how Greeks really live, winter’s the best time to be here.

There’s plenty of winter seating for the strip of road outside the castle with its gulf view. But you might need to form an orderly queue in summer

If you look hard enough there’s still plenty to do. Even if you’re not particularly religious you can also take part in one of the many Orthodox services at this time of year, just out of sheer curiosity for its history and Byzantine ritual. A few days before Christmas we went to an intriguing service called the Iero Evhelaio, in Koroni’s main church of Ayios Dimitrios. It involved a blessing with holy oil. It was a small congregation and a long service, for which we were all given lighted candles to hold, which seemed to mark the duration of this service because by the time the candles had burnt down to waxy stubs in our fingers, it was close to the end.

It was a rather solemn service, apart from the moment when one of the chanters collapsed in a chair in a coughing fit with a case of incense overdose. Yet it felt rather Christmassy at the end when we all lined up in front of a small table, a bowl of warmed oil in the centre, and the Papas blessed each of us in turn, marking our faces and hands with small oily crosses. With good wishes from friends and neighbours, we left and wandered out into the cold night.

One of the old-style ouzeries in Koroni

Some nights it’s pleasant just to go into Koroni and sit in one of the zaharoplasteia (pastry shops) and share a slab of rich, custardy galaktoboureko, for which this town is apparently famous. One Saturday night we discovered a small ouzerie by the harbour, where we had a simple meal of souvlaki, Greek salad and local wine. It’s an old building, with rickety chairs and tables, where mementoes on the walls remind you of an older, probably happier era in Greece.

The tables slowly filled up with locals, mostly drinking ouzo. One man called Andreas told us that in the past there would probably have been a few bouzouki players here and a singer or two for an impromptu night of music, but this is rarer now. But the next best thing for many Greeks on a Saturday night is the live TV music show called Cheers, Friends (Stin Iyeia Mas). Watching it is almost mandatory and in the ouzerie, a TV propped up on one wall was tuned into the show with its popular songs and vivacious bouzouki riffs, obviously delighting this assembled audience. Had we stayed to the very end I felt sure someone would eventually have got up and danced unselfconsciously around the tables. As we left, Andreas told us he played the bouzouki and he’d bring it there one night for a music session. What night, we asked? He shrugged. “When the mood takes me.” Okay, this is Greece. No rules. Take it or leave it!

Jim is jealously guarding his crop of grapefruits, a mere fraction of what we have gathered already this winter

Winter in Greece is what you want to make it. If you don’t live here permanently, and we don’t, then you want every day to count, whatever the season. When the weather is fine we go out and explore the countryside or fuss over our new vegetable plot, with its crop of cabbages and broccoli and pick sweet winter oranges and grapefruits from the abundance of fruit trees we have around the house.

With fewer distractions in autumn and winter we have been lucky to have time to spend on projects. I have had plenty of time for writing and have finished a second book on our adventures in Greece, a task eased by an inspiring view and peaceful surroundings.

My partner Jim has been working hard on his new ebook editing and formatting business (www.ebooklover.co.uk) and twice a week he is attending government-run Greek classes in Koroni, aimed at beginners, and held in a local primary school. He’s finding it challenging since, as Greek is a hard language, but the class has not been without humour.

One night the charming teacher Panayiotis was explaining the possessive case with the sentence “to panteloni mas”, (our trousers) but one of the more advanced students was quick to correct him. “Surely it should be ta pantelonia (trousers, plural) rather than one pair?” which is what the teacher had written on the board, illustrating the fact that even Greeks can slip up sometimes.

Panayiotis covered his mistake quickly by saying: “No, this is Greece in crisis. We all have to share one pair of trousers now.” The class erupted in laughter, and even Panayiotis joined in. I doubt that anyone there will ever forget the plural for trousers at least, or the word for crisis, a Greek word after all.

 

Marjory wishes you all Happy New Year after her last blissful swim of the year 

 

Happy New Year, Kali Xronia

WE’VE had a wonderful 2014, with quite a lot of it spent in southern Greece. It hasn’t all gone to plan because, in crisis-ridden Greece, things never do. We have had our adventures, frustrations and our moments of anxiety. But every day has been blessed with new experiences and we hope that next year will be as good. Wishing all our loyal blog readers a very happy New Year and a joyous 2015. I hope many of you will spend some of your holidays at least in Greece – even in winter!

Things Can Only Get Feta

For details about my book, recounting our adventures in the Mani, and for reviews and articles, please visit our Big Fat Greek Odyssey website, book page

Visit Amazon to buy the book 

If you like the book please think about leaving a review on Amazon. It will be very much appreciated.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2014. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

 

Mani happy returns …

Foteini holds a copy of the book in which she is one of the starring characters, along with donkey Riko

RECENTLY we returned to the village of Megali Mantineia, in the Mani, where we spent the first year of our Greek Odyssey from 2010. It was also the place that inspired me to write the book Things Can Only Get Feta about our decision to live in the southern Peloponnese for a while.

Megali Mantineia is situated on a hillside, just south of Kalamata city, and beneath the towering Taygetos mountains. It hasn’t changed much in centuries and continues its rural traditions with olive harvesting and farming. As we turned off the main road with its big blue sign pointing to the village, I felt the same flutter of excitement I had on the first day of our original adventure because everything was just the way it was five years ago.

Megali Mantineia sits on the edge of the deep Rindomo gorge, with the Taygetos mountains behind

When we drove up to see our farming friend Foteini at her ktima, farm compound, we weren’t sure if she’d be there and she doesn’t carry anything as modern as a mobile phone. But straight away we saw her small donkey Riko, tied up under an olive tree beside his old feta tin, filled with water. Moments later, Foteini came bounding up to the front gates, looking much as she always did in a big plaid shirt, an apron and wellies. She threw her arms around us in turn, wanting to know how long we’d be staying and eager to catch up on our news.

Foteini is often described as a ‘traditional woman’ because few older Greeks live her kind of rural life any more

We followed her down to her ‘kafeneio’, the ramshackle spot I often described in the book, a place with an old shed, a shaky table and chairs, and trees patrolled by hornets and wasps. Though in winter there’s not too many of them, fortunately. We sat in the sun and drank Greek coffee from small white cups and again I felt as if the intervening year we had spent back in Scotland hadn’t happened at all, and that we had always been here.

When I gave her a copy of Things Can Only Get Feta she sat with it in her hands, admiring the cover illustration of her riding Riko, with Wallace our Jack Russell trailing behind on a dusty village road. It’s a lovely image by London artist Tony Hannaford (see note below) and Foteini is very recognisable on the cover. She had seen the cover last year when a story about the book appeared in one of Kalamata’s newspapers, the Tharros, and it delighted all the other villagers as well to suddenly have a rural ‘personality’ in their midst.

The village road where our Greek odyssey began

The view from the edge of Megali Mantineia towards the city of Kalamata, spread along the gulf of Messinia

Foteini is a unique character and with the help of my rusty Greek I’d had an unusual friendship with her from the beginning. It was one of cultural differences that challenged all my assumptions about life but I was drawn to her stoical character and her story, as I was to many of the other villagers. I never thought, however, when we first met the irrepressible Foteini, riding her donkey along the village road, that five years later we would still be in touch with her and that I would have exchanged letters, cards and even called her from Scotland on several occasions to see how things were going. “When are you coming back?” was her usual question.

Now that we were finally back on her farm I asked her how it felt to know that so many people around the world had now read about her and were interested in her rural life? Her pale blue eyes simply looked at me uncomprehending. “Really?” she finally said, but I knew my question meant little to her and it made me smile.

How rare a thing it is, in this slick internet world, to meet someone who knows nothing about the customs and taste of people beyond this southern region of Greece. Although she had a village education and can read and write and is wise to rural life, she has read few books and has no concept of the media, the publishing industry or publicity.

I told her that in a very small way, she was kind of ‘famous’. I don’t think she really understood this concept either. But her eyes danced with mirth as she gazed at the book cover, and that was good enough for me. I almost envied the monastic simplicity of her life in this glorious setting, which is something that won’t last forever, and one of the reasons our time in this region was so precious to us.

We didn’t have much time to spend with her, as we are staying in a different part of the southern Peloponnese, and we only had a few hours in the village, and other friends to see, but we will be heading back to the Mani again before too long.

We also visited the delightful Eftihia and her brother Yiorgos, who also featured in the book and were amongst the warmest people in the village. Eftihia (meaning happiness) is not her real name and most names were changed for the book, but it suits her big personality exactly. She bear-hugged us and took us inside for a big plate of delicious, home-made olive oil biscuits and we spent a long time in her cosy kitchen catching up on village gossip. Yiorgos was away for the day with a harvesting gang working on his olive groves.

Eftihia told me that while nothing very obvious had changed in the village since we left, sadly, everyone had felt the effects of the crisis with all the new farming and property taxes, and there was a general complaint that their earnings, however small, go straight to the government with little left to spend which is the same all over the country and one reason the economy has stalled in the past few years.

The main church and a Byzantine church behind which was once the village school

People are now living off the land, she told me, growing their own food and keeping animals. There is no light at the end of the tunnel for many of these hard-working people and many villagers who had earned money previously doing building, painting or gardening work in the area now have no jobs. The Greek clients have tightened their belts and many of the expats, who had built houses here and employed Greek workers, are selling up and returning to the UK.

But the price of olive oil has gone up this year from 2 euros a litre to around 4 euros, partly due to a bumper crop and the fact that the harvests in Spain and Italy have been disastrous. As one taverna owner told me: “Just for once Greece is claiming a small victory over other Mediterranean countries.” It couldn’t have come soon enough.

The bumper price for oil this year is good news for most of the villagers in Megali Mantineia who all have olive orchards on the edge of the village, and many earn the bulk of their income from the harvest.

Yiorgos and his gang returned in good spirits in the afternoon and sat in the sun eating a late lunch and toasting the results of the day’s labours with small glasses of home-made wine. There was family here, villagers and friends, and that’s the most heart-warming thing about Greece that when things get tough, people pitch in and help each other. It has always been this way, and that fact of life is never likely to change.

A detail of the book cover by artist Tony Hannaford, showing Foteini

 

Greece at a stroke

MANY people have commented on the lovely cover of Things Can Only Get Feta and thanks must go to the publisher, Bene Factum Publishing www.bene-factum.co.uk for its dedication to outstanding designs, but mostly to the artist who created it, London-based Tony Hannaford who has a particular love for Greece and its islands. You can see his collection of Mediterranean-inspired artwork on his website www.anthonyhannaford.co.uk

For details about the book and where to buy it and for reviews and articles, please visit our Big Fat Greek Odyssey website, book page

Visit Amazon to buy the book 

If you like the book please think about leaving a review on Amazon. It will be very much appreciated.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2014. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

Searching for the real Arcadia …

 

Stemnitsa nestles on the edge of the Lousios Gorge. 

ARCADIA! The word suggest images of pastoral bliss and goat-legged Pan, the god of shepherds, twirling around olive trees, playing his pan-pipes. It was a place that inspired the European poets and painters of the 18th and 19th centuries and suggested an innocent, golden age. It sometimes seems more of a mythical place than a real province.

So, on a cool autumn day, we set off from the tip of the Messinian peninsula and drove north to discover what Arcadia is all about, and if it still has mythical charm.

The excellent Cadogen guidebook, Peloponnese and Athens, describes Arcadia as “one of the best kept secrets of the Peloponnese … a place that seemed ancient even in ancient times”. I know just what that means now as Arcadia has a certain timelessness, sitting snug amid mountains and ravines in the centre of the Peloponnese.

Gerousia kafeneio, a little piece of traditional Greece

We were heading for the mountain eyrie of Stemnitsa, west of Tripolis. It is one of several mountain outposts in this region, including Dimitsana and Karitaina, but Stemnitsa is also claimed to be one of the 15 most beautiful villages in Greece.

Dating back to the Middle Ages, Stemnitsa is built in giddy tiers up a precipice on the western slopes of Mount Menalo, at 1,100 metres, with a view down the long, deep Lousios Gorge.

Gerousia promises to be cosy in winter with its wood-burning stove

On the day of our visit it had a wintry feel so high up, despite being a warm day elsewhere. The main square is the heart of this old village, with tables and chairs under the walnut and cherry trees, an old church nearby, and a few tavernas and kafeneia. The Gerousia is an elegant old kafeneio with outdoor seating, but it wasn’t hard to imagine how, in deep winter, villagers would be huddled around the central wood-burning stove inside.

It has a feel of how kafeneia used to be in Greece, and in case you can’t imagine it, there is a wonderful collection of old photos around the walls showing groups of villagers from last century sitting outside the main door.

Sophia, the owner’s mother, is very friendly and obviously proud of the establishment, as it featured not long ago in a travel story in a popular Greek magazine. Along with coffee she serves some of the local sweets like skaltsounia, pastry shells filled with walnuts and honey.

She was very taken with our Jack Russell dog Wallace hiding under the table. “He’s very quiet,” she said. I knew she was tempting fate and the minute her back was turned he sprang to life, like Pan chasing a woodland nymph and barked loudly, scattering a group of passers-by. Just another day in Arcadia!

Before we left, Sophia gave us a small container of cherry tomatoes from her garden to take away, and insisted we try a couple first. They were sweet and delicious and it was a nice gesture of hospitality. But coffee followed by tomatoes? Don’t try it at home!

One of the arty village gates

The village is full of old-world charm with some quirky rural corners – great stacks of olive wood for the winter, donkeys tethered in gardens, gates and fences seemingly fashioned by crafty elves from sticks. It could have been a setting for a Brothers Grimm fairytale, without all the scary stuff. The village is best appreciated by walking up the narrow streets bordered by solid stone houses with heavy wooden shutters built for winter weather.

Cute donkey with a fringe on the top, and a traditional wooden saddle still favoured by villagers

The village is also renowned for its gold and silver smithery and there is school here in an old renovated building that teaches the craft. Several shops selling items made there and also a range of other traditional and modern jewellery, and at least one with more folky designs called the Politimes Dimiourgies.

Politimes Dimiourgies, one of several jewellery shops in the village near the silversmithery school

There are 18 churches here, from the 12th century to 17th century, though you will need to ask around or the keyholders. The church in the main square, Ayios Yiorgos, is open most mornings and has a nice collection of frescos and an intriguing relic in a silver box which is a piece of bone from the 13-century Peloponnesian saint Leontios.

Most of the village is open in the winter and has some nice boutique hotels.

The spectacular Prodromou monastery hanging onto a rockface on the Lousios Gorge

 

 

One of the more curious attractions of this area are the three amazing monasteries built along the side of the Lousios Gorge, particularly the monastery of the saint Ioannis Prodromou. You can’t see the monastery from its parking area at the top of the gorge and a sign sends you on to a cobbled path that leads down the side of the gorge.

Just when you think it can’t possibly be here, because there’s nothing but a steep-sided ravine, and trees, you look up and there it is, above you, a long mass of buildings clinging like limpets to the rockface, with some tiny, box-like structures with wooden buttresses underneath. It’s eerily quiet in the afternoon, hours before the monastery opens for visitors, and all you can hear are the sounds of birds and the Lousios river gushing way below, and maybe even Pan pipes when the vibes are right.

The bullet-scarred door of the monastery church hints at turbulent times 

The Prodromou monastery was established in the 12th century and its church is also built into the rockface, with frescos from the 16th century. It hasn’t always been as quiet though. This area was the haunt of hero and clan chief Theodoros Kolokotronis, who was one of the leaders of the Messinian uprising against the Ottoman Turks that kicked off the War of Independence in 1821.

During the war, he took refuge in this area and in the Promdromou church, securely locked by an impenetrable thick wooden door which was repeatedly shot at by the invading Turks and still bears the bullet holes to this day (see photo above).

Marjory and her woodland sprite Wallace at the ancient site of Gortys

A trip to this region wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the site of Ancient Gortys, further down the gorge from Stemnitsa. The site was established in 335 BC and was once an important shrine and centre of healing.

In the river Lousios below, Zeus, the father of the Gods, was said to have been bathed as a child. Alexander the Great was so impressed with the site he offered his breast plate and shield as a tribute.

Some of the ruins of Ancient Gortys with the Lousios Gorge behind

There’s not much to see here now apart from fallen columns and crumbling walls amid ancient olive trees and clumps of wild sage. The original ‘spa’ and bathing area is still visible, with a curious wall of ‘cublicles’, each with a small stone depression in front, which may have been for foot bathing, and I can only assume the ancient Gortyians had tiny feet.

Bathing cubicles of ancient Greece?

Arcadia is an enchanting place that does feel rather ancient, a small corner of Greece that probably won’t change much because of its mountainous terrain. Perhaps the minxy nymphs and sprites that inhabit this blissful zone had taken control of our sense of direction but when we left late in the afternoon, with a long drive back to Koroni, we ended up driving west past the equally alluring town of Karitaina, with its massive castle atop a craggy hill, instead of heading south, and added another hour on to our journey.

For more information about Arcadia and what to see, visit the Greek government website www.mythicalpeloponnese.gr

 

Wallace goes large in his backpack

He ain’t heavy, he’s a Jack Russell!

AFTER my book about living in the Peloponnese, Things Can Only Get Feta, came out last year, a few readers contacted me about one of the chapters. They doubted that you could get a Jack Russell terrier to sit still in a rucksack. Readers might recall that we smuggled Wallace into an archaeological site near Kalamata after being told dogs were not allowed in. So, here’s a picture that shows it’s possible. But how did we keep him quiet for a while once he was inside? Well, you’ll just have to read the book …

For details about the book and where to buy it and for reviews and articles, please visit our Big Fat Greek Odyssey website, book page

Visit Amazon to buy the book Please remember that reviews on Amazon are always much appreciated however small they are.

Thanks for stopping by and your comments on the blog are always welcome too.

 

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2014. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

 

How does Wallace handle 15 minutes of fame? Madly, of course …

Wallace’s surfing antics always draw an audience. 

IT was supposed to be a relaxing few hours at a long sandy beach near Koroni, in the Messinian peninsula.  It was around 32 degrees and steaming.

We picked the quiet end of the beach and couldn’t wait to jump in the water. Wallace wasn’t interested in trying out hang-five manoeuvres on his small red surfboard today but more intent on grabbing the board by its side handle and trying to swim to shore with it.

While we were engaged in a game of tug-of-war with Wallace and the board, two guys strolled along the sand and stared at our watery antics. They looked Greek and I assumed they’d probably never seen a Jack Russell terrier before.

Then one of them shouted in a London accent: “Hey, didn’t you write that book? Isn’t that Wallace?”

“You mean the Feta book?” I shouted back. Okay, I had to be sure.

They nodded. “We recognised Wallace straight away.”

Is Wallace so recognisably crazy, I thought? Obviously, yes! It gave us a good laugh anyway.

“We loved the book, by the way.” That bit was good at least.

The two boys were from the UK, staying at a nearby holiday villa, and had read the book a few months earlier.

“He’s so cute!” said the other guy. “We’ve got a Jack Russell as well.”

“Is he mad like Wallace?” I asked.

“He’s… em, quieter than Wallace.” Very diplomatic!

With impeccable timing Wallace decided to demonstrate crazy for a bit and ran up and down the shoreline with the surfboard clamped in his teeth. Kids were giggling and sunbathers running for cover. It’s exhausting for everyone really which is why we don’t take him to the beach very often. Wallace has always loved the beach and is a tireless swimmer. I suspect he also likes the attention.

A Jack Russell terrier like Wallace is equally eccentric in the sea and on dry land

I think he always has. It’s in his genes! His Edinburgh breeder, Anne, told us recently that Wallace is related to Moose, the first Jack Russell to play Eddie in the US sitcom Frasier, after an American bought one of her dogs and took it over the pond. I used to watch Frasier regularly and fell in love with the dog. That’s why I always wanted one. What was I thinking?

Eddie the JRT terrier in Frasier 

“He’s just like he is in the book, isn’t he?” said one of the lads, chortling.

“Oh yes,” I sighed. “You bet.”

It’s always heartwarming to meet readers of Things Can Only Get Feta wherever they crop up and one of the great joys of being a writer. Wallace in particular has won quite a few hearts due to his appearance in the book. We recently met a lovely couple from Surrey who have a Jack Russell of their own and while on holiday in the southern Peloponnese, drove all the way from Kalamata to Koroni (over an hour’s drive) just to see Wallace. Overshadowed by a Jack Russell? It’s okay, I’ll get over it!!

The easy charm of Koroni

 

Wallace and Marjory looking at the world from a Greek window

 

We are currently based just outside Koroni in a small Greek house for the summer. It’s around 200 years old, with an archetypical style: white with blue shutters and shady balconies everywhere. It’s in a lovely location in an olive grove with distant views of the sea. In the garden we are growing tomatoes, peppers and aubergines. There are also clumps of oregano, mint and marathos, fennel growing nearby.

When the owner comes to strim the grounds, the air is full of fresh herby aromas. There are fig, lemon, orange, apricot and almond trees as well and several grapevines already drooping with fruit.

Grapevines and roses in our Koroni garden

There are old rose bushes growing as well, planted by the owner’s grandmother, and it’s not hard to imagine how pleasant it would have once been here with the whole family gathered on the balcony enjoying one of the many light breezes that sweep up from the sea most afternoons and cool the tip of this peninsula.

As with most of rural Greece, there have been critters as well. Jim has already found two large scorpions in the garden and pulverised them, I’m afraid, with a breeze block. We also saw a snake slither under a metal baking tray beside the old fournos (woodfired oven) in the garden, while we were tidying up. Not sure what kind of snake it was (a deadly ochia, horn-nosed viper perhaps?) we made a hasty few calls to the owner who came along her brother, who was equipped with a long bamboo pole (snake sorting implement). He threw back the tray to reveal … well, a rather tiny snake, and not worthy of all the fuss we made about it. The family were very gracious about calling them out and we even got a short snake handling/despatching lesson, which I hope we’ll never need.

A view of Koroni town with its old castle and harbour through the olive groves

Koroni has proved to be a very friendly and laid-back town. This lower part of the peninsula (left hand one of the three southern prongs), facing the Ionian sea on one side and the Gulf of Messinia on the other, feels more like a Greek island at times rather than the mainland. It has a casual charm about it: a row of tavernas along the waterfront, as well as bars and cafes, while tucked away in the narrow backstreets that ascend to the old castle are traditional kafeneia, ouzeries, bread shops, general stores, and some nice churches as well. In my next blog I will feature some of our favourite places in Koroni.

Wallace showing a more demure side to his personality 

Wallakos 

Wallace has been given a new name while we’ve been in Koroni. In the Mani, where we stayed for three years, he was called Vassie. But one of our lovely friends here, Stavroula, who is fond of dogs, decided to call him Wallakos, ‘little Wallace’, which is cute and we have started using it as well. But sometimes Big Wally seems more appropriate!

GREEK BOOK IN NORTH AMERICA

My book about living in the Mani, Things Can Only Get Feta (Bene Factum Publishing), is available in North America, paperback and Kindle. It’s available on Amazon.com and through Barnes & Noble and Longitude Books. Longitude kindly featured it last month in its June Newsletter and on its blog page called A Favourite Spot. If you read the book and like it, please think about putting a small review on Amazon. It will be much appreciated. Thanks to all the North American readers for your support.

For details about the book and other places to buy it and for reviews and articles, please visit our Big Fat Greek Odyssey website, book page

Visit Amazon to buy the book 

Thanks for stopping by and your comments on the blog are always appreciated.

 

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2014. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.