Up, up and away

Heading for the hills has a meaning all of its own in Crete. While staying with our friends in Ierapetra, we were invited as a foursome to go up to the village where the parents of our friends' friends have their ancestral home, their καταγωγή, roots or origin. Only one of the parents in question now remains, and she is so old that she cannot any more make the ascent back to her home village, but must live with family way down in the town, about an hour away by road. So the house is kept for weekend retreats, where the family can relax up in the cooler mountain air during the oppressive summer months as and when they can get away.

We've been up some twisty-turny mountain roads in our time, and we've been to villages perched at some pretty high altitudes, but I'd hazard the guess that this one is up there with the highest we've been to. One such 'climb' was the road to the village of Manolates on Samos. In chapter 11 of "Moussaka to My Ears" I talked about this village and the night we danced with a group of Turkish tourists in the tiny taverna that's perched outside of the village at its highest point above sea level.

About half an hour along the coast road, heading east from Ierapetra town, one takes a small left turn and immediately the narrow road begins to climb. Then it climbs some more. And more. And then some. Along with the ascent, you also have to negotiate the regulation hairpins, plus sections of road where, were you to run your tyres over the edge, you'd very soon become a passenger as your vehicle plummeted several hundred feet through steeply-sloped wooded hillsides. Meeting something coming the other way is always 'fun.' And it happened a couple of times. I was so glad our host had smeared vaseline all along the side of his car (I'm lying about that bit).

The views as we ascended were beautiful. It was late in the day and sunset was not far off...

This is looking back the way we'd come, during a brief stretch of road that had almost levelled out, merely to lull us into a false sense of security. Somewhere down that gorge at the beach would be Makrygialos.

Our destination sits in that 'saddle' way beyond the two rock faces. By the way, the armco wasn't there for every occasion when there was a fairly alarming drop to one side of the road.

It took us probably 40 minutes, from leaving the main road far below, to enter the village, a small strung-out selection of old houses clinging to an impressively high mountainside.

As we drove into the village, the sun having now gone down, dusk was settling as children played in the road and ya yas sat on steps, fanning themselves with little bunches of herbs. Everyone greeted us, at the very least with a wave or a nod, but quite often with a word that meant our friend who was driving had to stop the car to show respect and decorum. It was that all-too-short half an hour between the sun going behind the mountain to one's west and that time when darkness descends completely.

The outside temperature was reading 28ºC in the car, whereas it had been reading 34 when we'd turned into the lane way, way below. Small wonder that, even though the number of residents left in the village is now very low, and the percentage of houses that have permanent residents is only about 30 or so, the place is vibrant on a weekend evening when all the scattered offspring of the village's original inhabitants make their way up here to experience relief from the summer temperatures that prevail more than half an hour below.

We pulled up at the bottom of some stone steps, which led up through fulsome jasmine, basil and lemon geraniums to a terrace, from where the smoke of a charcoal barbecue could not only be seen emanating, but the delicious smell of fishes being cooked over the coals drifted to tantalise my nostrils. Following our hosts up to the terrace, we were warmly greeted by the residents, a couple of similar age to our friends, together with their eight-year-old son, who was vigorously pushing a toy car with big fat wheels along a stretch of wall that was just the right height for the purpose.

All the cheek-kissing and warm hugging dispensed with, the food very soon began to appear as the women placed huge bowls on the tables that had been laid end-to end to accommodate six adults and a little one. It was simple fare, but perfect. A ginormous potato salad took centre stage, together with plates of home-made hummus. There were freshly cut chunks of lemon, village bread and also a green salad with red onions. A bottle of wine, some cans of beer and the ubiquitous bottle of water were shoehorned into position among the plates of meze that also peppered the table top. Sliced (lengthwise) Cretan cucumber were also presented, to be eaten by hand. If you've never seen a Cretan cucumber, it rather resembles a cross between a courgette and a traditional cucumber, and it's delicious.

When Akis, our host for the evening, had finished cooking the fish over the charcoal, he climbed the few steps from the lower terrace where he'd been tending the barbecue and passed around a huge plate laden with Tsipoura (Sea bream), all complete with their heads and tails and smelling divine. Each fish was about 20 - 25 cm in length. We were bade take a whole one each and we all set about the serious business of demolishing the spread that lay before us. At the far end of the terrace where we were sitting, was a grape vine trained over a tubular frame, the grapes on which looked almost ready. I felt green with envy at just how laden that vine was...

Eventually, as the darkness beyond the lamps which burned on the terrace and in the street below became complete, the table beginning to look like a war zone, we all pushed our chairs back, stretched our legs further beneath the table and tucked into huge chunks of water melon, while putting the world to rights. Shame that political negotiations can't be carried out in such circumstances, the world's problems would be sorted out in no time. Bouzouki music drifted over the rooftops as we talked.

As midnight approached it was time for us to bid goodnight to our hosts, who wouldn't hear of us washing up. They only allowed us to clear the table and take the empty plates and glasses into the kitchen because we all threatened to fall out with them in a big way if they didn't. By the time we'd turned the car around and begun to head back down through the village and onwards down the massive gorge and valley which the road negotiates on its way back to civilisation, it was past midnight and the street was still full of children playing games and knots of people sitting on small terraces or talking on doorsteps. Our friends had to stop the car every few metres to greet yet another friend or acquaintance, and at one point we all got out while the car was shoehorned into an impossibly small side driveway and we paraded into the house of another friend's aged mother, right to her bedside, in fact, where the dear old lady was sitting watching some fifty-year-old Greek movie on an ancient TV which sat on a doily on the top of a cupboard at the foot of the bed. It simply isn't done to pass the house of an acquaintance or friend without going inside to pay one's respects. If she was irritated at being made to miss part of the movie, she didn't show it. Mind you, I'd be surprised if she hadn't already seen that movie a dozen times before.

By the time we got back to our friends' apartment in Ierapetra town it must have been about 2.00am. Even then, Soula, our hostess, insisted on making us a cup of herbal sleep tea each with a generous spoonful of Cretan honey in it to help ensure us a good night's rest.

We awoke at around 10.00am to a silent apartment, our two hardworking hosts having got up at the crack of dawn to go off to their job of work. They run their own cleaning business as a husband and wife team. Respect, eh?

All in all another superlative memory to add to our sack of reminiscences, one of the best, in fact.

Falling in Love Again?

I've had a relationship with the country of Greece since I first went out with the girl that eventually became my wife. Anyone who's read my lighthearted "Ramblings From Rhodes" series of books will know a little about how I first met my wife and discovered that her mother was Greek, resulting in my first ever visit in the summer of 1977. In "Feta Compli!" I mentioned how I first fell in love with Greece when the airplane doors opened on the tarmac at Athens Glyfada airport back then, and this visit that we're currently enjoying with close friends in the south of the island of Crete is kind of taking me back to the excitement that I very first felt back in those very early days.

For a very young not-very-well-travelled English lad to suddenly experience the joys of eating out with one's feet just inches from the crystal waters of a sea that never goes away and comes back again, as it does in the British Isles, owing to our tides there, chucking pieces of bread to the fishes and almost going into a rapture over the aroma of charcoal sizzling fresh fish just a few feet away, while also tasting for the very first time such delights as Tzatziki, Skordalia, Revithokeftedes, Retsina, Metaxa, Ouzo, Feta, kalamari and bougatsa (not all at the same time, granted!), it was almost a given that I'd very soon fall in love with the country that was my wife's heritage.

This visit to Ierapetra has rekindled my excitement, making me fall in love with Greece all over again. Two nights ago, as we strolled the delightful 'promenade' that graces the seafront at Ierapetra, before sitting in a waterside bar full of Greeks and very few tourists and enjoying 'parea' with truly close friends over a couple of beers, accompanied by some savoury nibbles, I again experienced the goose bumps that my very first visit had given me. As we all talked (and you know when you're with really good friends when the conversation simply never lapses and you all laugh a lot) and dipped savoury crackers into a delicious guacamole (OK, not very Greek, but nowhere's completely perfect - and anyway, I love guacamole!) before crunching them enthusiastically between our teeth, I found myself gazing around and thinking, "You just can't do this in the UK. For starters it's maybe once in a whole summer when the temperature will be 28ºC at 11.00pm, and for another thing, the sea doesn't stay where it is for long enough. Plus, the simple joie de vie that the local Greeks display isn't to be found among the sulky, moody Brits."

OK, so I'll probably have upset some UK readers with that last remark but, be honest, national characteristics do exist and when you're out and about in Britain, maybe it's the climate, I don't know, but people just aren't as relaxed, as civil, as content with the simple pleasures, as they seem to be in the south of Europe. They're just not as happy. Everywhere here friends and neighbours 'volta' during the late evening, stopping frequently to bear-hug a neighbour, back-slap and double cheek-kiss a relative or work colleague, all the while talking excitedly and enthusiastically with no hint of aggression or swagger. The other night was made particularly special by the still almost full moon creeping above the far headland in a blaze of crimson, throwing shimmering red fluid flashes all across the surface of a flat sea while we all turned to gaze in humble appreciation for the show that Creation puts on.

Yup, got to admit it, I'm smitten. Here are a few more shots from the past few days. See whether you don't get infected by what I'm 'suffering' from...

This was taken in a village up in the hills on Sunday morning. I couldn't now tell you the name of the village, but this old ya ya struggling up the steep 'street' - although living her pretty hard life - nevertheless presented me with a scene that's been played out in this part of the world for millenia, no doubt.

Sorry Frappé, but I've deserted you in favour of the much more healthy, not to say tasty, Freddo espresso these days.

This and the last few below are actually taken at Makry Yialos, a tiny resort about half an hour to the east of Ierapetra. We holidayed here twice back around 2002-2004 and wanted to just come back and see how much it had changed. Happily, not much, certainly development has not taken place at anything like the pace that it has on Rhodes over the past decade and a half.

Amazingly they actually do have railings here, but they're still quite rare on water-side walkways it seems to me. As far as I'm concerned, it's a good thing in general. As far as we hear, someone falling off the 'quay' is a very rare occurrence indeed.

•

Next post will be about a visit to the tiny village of Oreino, way, way up in the mountains above Makry Gialos, where we spent an Elysian evening with some friends of our friends the other day.

Girl From Kritsa

For members of the Facebook group "A Good Greek Read" that I'm quite proud to have started a few years ago, I'd hazard a well-educated guess that the name Yvonne Payne is not going to be new. Yvonne is, of course, one of the four 'Admins" currently ensuring the smooth running of the page. Yvonne wrote her first novel, the epic and true tale of Kritsotopoula, a young girl whose heroics resulted in her going down in history as a heroine of the island of Crete, back in 2018, and its reception among readers has been very warm indeed, with 96% of its reviewers giving it four or five stars on its Amazon UK page.

Yvonne has since gone on to write a second novel, Rodanthe's Gift, plus a very good guide to Kritsa, her adopted home village on the island of Crete, which includes much more than simply information on what to find where. As its Amazon page says, "Explore Kritsa" is a book in which, "in an informal and lively style, Yvonne shares her month by month insights into Kritsa life and the local customs, food, history and culture. Yvonne also shares 15 of her favourite walks around the area, ranging from a gentle stroll to steep, uphill hikes.Whether your stay is a brief visit to the village, a holiday in the area, or you plan on making a home in Kritsa." ...this book will delight.

Thus, Yvonne well is qualified to be the next 'victim' in my occasional series of interviews with fellow writers on a Greek Theme. And so, I'm proud to produce what follows, an interview with fellow author and Grecophile, Yvonne Payne:

Where do you live?
Along with my husband, I spend my life between two small homes. One is an apartment in Swindon, Wiltshire in the UK, where we have easy access to family and walks in rolling green countryside.  The other, our favourite, is a house in the traditional hillside village of Kritsa on the island of Crete. 

Kritsa scene

Here we appreciate being part of the community and our walks are in rugged mountains and countryside, often with views of the sea. People say we’re lucky, but it took a lot of planning and compromise to achieve our preferred balance. Where we are lucky is to have the health to enjoy our chosen way of splitting the year. 

What do you write about?

I write historical fiction based around my village of Kritsa. Bear with me and I’ll explain how this came about… Kritsa has a famous heroine called Rodanthe. Back in the time of Ottoman oppression a local Turk ruler had her abducted from her home in cruel circumstances. Somehow Rodanthe killed the man and escaped to the mountains wearing his clothes where she joined a group of rebels led by Captain Kazanis. She maintained her disguise as a young man and fought alongside her fellow rebels in a huge 1823 battle just outside of Kritsa. Severe battle wounds led to the discovery of Rodanthe’s true identity. 

Rodanthe’s family home in Kritsa is close to my house and as local villagers still hold an annual memorial for their ‘Kritsotopoula’, meaning Girl of Kritsa, I soon learnt her story. As with many folktales, local people share the legend of Kritsotopoula via an epic poem. I set about researching the life and times of Rodanthe to write a leaflet for village tourists. Then two questions kept turning over in my mind: 1.  How did she maintain her disguise? 2. What equipped the daughter of a local priest to fight so bravely? When my research failed to find answers, my leaflet turned into a novel, "Kritsotopoula, Girl of Kritsa." 

This period in Cretan/Greek history was very turbulent and when I found out that Captain Kazanis, a key figure in my first book, had fought in the siege of Missolonghi on mainland Greece the result was my second novel, "Rodanthe’s Gift."

Now I’m hooked! My future novels will continue to have a basis of historical fact with the key action centred in Kritsa – I’ve discovered a wealth of information that will keep me busy for years. 

Oh, and I should mention that I’ve recently published a non-fiction book, "Explore Kritsa," featuring 15 local walks.

How long does it take you to write a book?
"Kritsotopoula, Girl of Kritsa" evolved over several years as it grew into a novel needing several rewrites as I learnt more. By the time I wrote "Rodanthe’s Gift" I had a much clearer idea of what I wanted to achieve so it only took two years. I completed "Explore Kritsa" in less than a year using accumulated knowledge and walking routes that we’ve been enjoying for over eighteen years. 

What do you enjoy most about writing?
As I write historical novels, the research is both essential and enjoyable. I strive to gain a good grasp of facts before weaving them into a story. This takes conversations, visiting sites, reading books and internet searches. I try to corroborate facts from at least two sources–then the inconsistencies and unanswered questions leave room for my imagination to take over. This phase can be fun for my husband too as it involves visits to new places, museums, walks to check feasible routes and, for "Rodanthe’s Gift," a holiday in Missolonghi, Greece. 

I also relish the second rewrite as this phase brings characters to life and I also add in details like smells and taste. 

How do you go about writing, that is to say, are you organised, do your research, disciplined, are you a messy sort who gets it done one way or another?
I guess you’d say messy as I flit about collecting a wide range of information as I never know what will be useful. 

Look at this photo of a painting that I took during a visit to the museum in Missolonghi as an example. 

Wikipedia informed me of a battle on a nearby island but this painting gave me a whole chapter for "Rodanthe’s Gift" and that couldn’t have happened without going to Missolonghi. My description of clothes worn by Lord Byron and a general are all taken from paintings in the museum. If I make it as real as possible for me then I think it adds to the reader’s experience too.

Where I am organised is in my use of a tool called Scrivener as it means I don’t have several notebooks on the go making it difficult to find information when required. It is as easy to use as Word but a quick click and drag alters the order or even which manuscript a piece is in. Once the draft is complete, it takes seconds to produce a Word document for editing. This allows me to have complete flexibility over how I store the information i.e. a screenshot of a webpage, photos, or a written scene between evolving characters that may or may not prove to be useful.  At present I’ve got three story outlines on my Scrivener. No matter how much research I do before I start I always need to look up specific pieces of information while writing. For example, when writing "Rodanthe’s Gift" I had to look up limb amputation techniques in the 1820s – very gory!

By the time I’m ready to get on with the writing I know the characters and plot so well that I can write at any opportunity, I don’t work office hours or need to sit at a desk. However, that’s not as mechanical as it sounds, as characters, who are of course real to me, can take me in unexpected directions. I remember my husband being bemused to find me in tears when a much-loved character in Kritsotopoula died unexpectedly in horrible circumstances.

Which other authors do you read?
I have always chosen action and adventure stories where the setting is a key part of the inspiration behind them – Wilbur Smith and Ken Follett are two that spring to mind. I’ve read several of the books by Nikos Kazantzakis and my favourites are Christ Recrucified (the setting for much of the 1957 film was in Kritsa) and Captain Michalis (known as Freedom or Death in the UK). A book that seems to have less notice than it deserves is Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières set in a small community in south-west Anatolia at the end of the Ottoman Empire. The Carpet Weaver of Uşak by Kathryn Gauci is another great read in the same era.

I read many of the books featured in your Facebook group, A Good Greek Read. I knew I’d like your recent wartime book, Panayiota as you based it on fact and took me to an era I knew less about. 

Apart from research, what do you enjoy most about the internet? 
I love how it makes the world a smaller place. As a child I had pen friends in Australia, France and Canada. A grown-up version of this is blogging and social media sites like Facebook. It is possible to develop friendships and gain insights to life all around the world from the comfort of your armchair. Some people spend time reading magazines and flick through until they find an article that interests them and I do the same with blogs about travel, cooking, writing, and lifestyles. I’ve been fortunate to meet up with several bloggers and, as we’ve already something in common, it makes the basis of a good friendship.


Favourite Greek dish?

Traditional cooking methods turn a few humble vegetables into a feast. This is great for me as I chose not to eat meat and I’ve yet to find vegetable dish I dislike. If pushed to choose a favourite, I’d say vegetarian moussaka made with green lentils and aubergines. As well as eating out, I enjoy shopping for seasonal produce in the weekly Agios Nikolaos farmer’s market to recreate tasty dishes myself.

The memorial to Rodanthe, which stands in the village of Kritsa today.

•

So, there you have it, Yvonne Payne's answers to my questions, giving quite an insight to the background behind the two interconnected novels that she's written so far, and a definite hint that there will be more where they came from. If you want to explore Yvonne's writings further, here are a few live links:

Website - https://kritsayvonne.com/
Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yvonne-Payne/e/B00TSBPYSK
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/kritsayvonne/

•

For the next post I shall be returning to a photo-heavy travelogue about our continuing stay in Ierapetra, in Southern Crete, not much more than a stone's throw, in fact, from Kritsa.

Southern Cretan Scenes

Here are a few shots from around the Ierapetra district taken this past few days. Hope you like them...

This and the next four are taken in the tiny village of Kavousi (I keep calling it Karpouzi!). It's a village that's half-lived in and half deserted, but boasts what they claim is the oldest living olive tree in Crete, reputed to be over 3,200 years old. This photo is taken at the point where the inhabited part of the village has a stand-off with the old ruined part.

If walls could talk, eh?

We're staying with good friends in Ierapetra, which is one of our favourite towns in all of Greece. It has tourism, but on a small scale, quite different from Rhodes. It's in a largely agricultural area, so that tends to hold back too much development.

Here are some photos from in and around Ierapetra...

This is the beach at Gra Lygia, about seven km west of the town. The village is rather drab, and the road is lined mainly with businesses and agricultural traders' premises, but the beach is lovely and, as you can see, not particularly busy for August.

Our favourite stop for coffee in the town is the Veterano Bakery café. They do a homemade bougatsa that easily rivals the delicious one we usually succumb to at the Aktaion in Mandraki. Their Freddo espresso is brilliant too.

The 'promenade' in downtown Ierapetra is a delight to stroll along, lined as it is with cafés and restaurants, sandwiched in amongst which are a few tourists shops selling the usual stuff like plastic sandals, sunglasses and souvenirs. They're nowhere near packed with 'lobtser' bodies though.

The plateia in the tiny village of Episkopi.

This building is recently restored and stands beside an old mosque in a quiet square to the west end of town. Once again, it reminds one of parts of the Old Town in Rhodes, and, of course, of the many centuries of Ottoman occupation.

In amongst the low-key action along the town's sea front. You can't get much closer to the sea than this for a meal or a drink, can you?

There's this rather odd and weirdly unused harbour for small craft at the western limit of the town. It's been finished for quite a few years, yet has never yet been put to use. Except, that is, for this lonely chap. 

I'll post lots more yet, so I hope you'll come back for more.

I'll Just Sitia and Wait then...

Took the ferry boat from Rhodes to Crete on Sunday. At rather the last minute we changed our plans to visit our very close friends in the delightful town of Ierapatra. Just out of interest, Ierapetra holds the distinct position of being the most far south town in the whole of Europe.

Last time we went, we took the plane, and yes, OK, it is  much quicker, but if you have the time to go by boat (and we do these days) you get to see scenes like these en route from Rhodes Commercial Harbour to Sitia, eastern Crete...

1st Stop out of Rhodes is Halki, the 2nd is Diafani (above), toward the north of the island of Karpathos.

Diafani again.

After Diafani, next stop is Karpathos, the main town, which put me a little in mind of Kalymnos.

Karpathos detail.

After Karpathos, you stop in at Kasos, which, despite being a great deal smaller than its northern neighbour, nevertheless boasts a much grander quay for the ferries to tie up at. Karpathos has a population of just over six and a half thousand, whereas Kasos has a mere thousand or so.

The rest of the photos, below, aren't in any particular order...

The old ya ya centre shot, was waiting beside the pickup with what appeared to be her husband, here in conversation with someone else. When we'd tied up and dropped the ramp, the ya ya heaved a huge sack on to her shoulders from the pickup's flatbed and walked aboard to drop it on the ship's vehicle deck for delivery somewhere else.

The ya ya referred to above-plus-one can be seen half-way aboard, sack across her shoulder, negotiating her way among the vehicles that were disembarking. All the while her hubby remained manfully in conversation with his friend.

There's something deeply relaxing about standing on the rear deck as the ferry arrives at a quayside, swings itself around and drops the ramp for vehicles and foot-passengers to disembark or come aboard. To me, it's one of the earliest experiences of Greece I ever had, back in the 1970's, and I suppose that's why it makes me feel not only truly privileged to live here, but grateful to have the time to enjoy such experiences. Going from island to island is something one must do at some time, to truly enjoy what the Greek islands are all about.