Kalymnos Trip 2

Some decades ago, it was not at all unusual to go out to a regular taverna for an evening and find a bit of dance action. Very often during the seventies and eighties, we'd be on some island somewhere and there'd be more than one taverna nearby where, at least a few times a week, they'd have a bouzouki player sitting in a corner, sometimes with accompaniment, sometimes on his own. He'd be playing all evening and occasionally the staff would spontaneously break out into a Sirtaki or something whilst on their way back to the kitchen from serving a table or three. They'd throw their white towel over their shoulder and pretty soon have the entire place clapping as they ducked and dived to the audience's delight. Cameras would flash and, in fairly short order, my wife would  be up there with him, or her.

The beauty of this situation was that if you were married to someone who had Greek dancing in their blood and had been doing it since she was a wee child, you didn't have to put up with a fortnight of investigation, looking for a venue where your better half could get her fix for the year. How often in more recent years did we spend holidays forever asking where there might be a bit of a Greek Night, not the kind laid on for a huge herd of tourists, but the kind referred to above, where the staff at a taverna would simply put on an impromptu show whenever the fancy took them. These days, sadly, it's become very rare indeed. I was just talking to my friend Ray in Gennadi this morning, who works at a hotel in Pefkos, and he was making the same point. He told me that all season long his guests would be asking where they could see a bit of Greek culture. Most of the bars and restaurants there are playing modern American or British music these days. Some of Ray's guests even said that, although they liked Pefkos, it could almost be anywhere in Europe, since there wasn't enough "essential Greece" there any more. If anyone who runs a taverna or bar in Pefkos reads this, here's a suggestion that I reckon would work wonders for your business. Bite the bullet and pay a bouzouki player a few Euros a night and clear a modest area among your tables. Now and again just dance. Don't plan anything, just do it when the mood takes you. You'll be amazed at how quickly word will get around and people will be flocking to "that taverna where the staff dance when the mood takes them."

I speak from long years of experience. Tavernas where this kind of thing goes on would make a killing nowadays simply because it's getting so rare. It needn't even be a live musician. Still the best taverna I ever visited for this kind of thing was Taverna Lucas almost 40 years ago on Poros Island (see the new "Ideas" page). George Lucas would simply wheel an old Wurlitzer jukebox out on an extended cable to the taverna's front door (there's a story about this in Feta Compli!) and dance to a scratchy old 45 on the "Minos" label.

So, why am I going off on this one? Well, it's funny how things work out sometimes. There we were, on our first evening in Pothia, "capital" of Kalymnos, and we were just trotting down the several flights of stairs from our room to the harbourside below at around 9.00pm. Next-door-but-one to our right there was a nice traditional fish taverna with the required blue check tablecloths, but we wanted a bit of a walk before deciding where to eat. Before leaving reception, we'd asked our host, Kyrio Kariotis, where we could get a good meal and he'd mentioned the name of a taverna some ten minutes walk to our left as we left the building. So, we'd eventually eaten at the taverna that he'd recommended and, although it had been OK, we'd not found as much home cooking on the starter menu as we'd have liked. Never mind, it had been a nice meal and now we were strolling back along the harbour front late on the evening of Wednesday October 17th, looking at all the lights and thinking how wonderful it was that we only needed t-shirts at this time of the evening as it approached midnight.

My wife raised the subject of whether we'd find anywhere where she might be able to dance and I'd been quick to tell her not to get her hopes up and be too disappointed. 

As we drew nearer to our hotel, however, there came drifting on the evening breeze the definite sound of some live bouzouki music. The closer we came to our destination, the louder grew the music. We eventually arrived at the bar outside the hotel to see that the taverna just two doors to the right of the hotel (as you exited the front door) did indeed have something going on. There was a four-piece band playing, consisting of keyboards, fiddle, mini-bouzouki and regular bouzouki and they were in full swing. What a result!!

Having thrown ourselves into a couple of chairs outside the bar, where we were afforded a good view of the action, we ordered a couple of drinks and within seconds my wife had both arms waving this way and that in the air as she chair-danced to the tzifteteli that the band were riproaring through. It didn't take long for one of the men at the taverna to look around and spot her and pretty soon (though she didn't need much persuasion) she was up and among the other dancers...

That's my better half, in the black dress. Once she gets up, I'm alone for ages...

Episode 3 to follow.