Where Are You Monte?

Staggered as I am that quite a few of my friends and readers have as yet never visited the Rhodes Acropolis, formerly known as Monte Smith (see previous post "Alas Poor Doric" and some of the comments on it), maybe this will help. 

Monte Smith and the stadium are both clearly marked...

Alas, Poor Doric...

I had occasion to be in Rhodes Town yesterday and so took a walk around the area they used to call Monte Smith, although more recently they've taken to calling it (more correctly too) The Rhodes Acropolis, a rather beautiful and quite spacious park wherein lies the restored 3rd century (before Christ) stadium and the remaining Doric columns (partially restored) of the impressive ancient Temple of Apollo.

It occured to me that most tourists only get to see this area when the vegetation is parched and dry in the summer months and so they miss the beauty of the place when it's green, as it is in mid-March. As the Hoopoes flew this way and that, I snapped away with the iPad and the results are here for your delectation and delight (hopefully!)...

The wild flowers at this time of the year are splendiferous

The 2,300 year old stadium was restored by the Italians between the two world wars. If you click to get the larger view you get a better impression of the scale, since there are lots of people out enjoying the weekend sunshine in shot.

Moody eh? Oh, all right then, I'll settle for "arty".

The columns are Doric, by the way. Thus my rather dubious attempt at a humourous title for this post.

Typical Greeks, never finish a building...

C'mon guys, dead impressive isn't it?

The view down over the town, with the snowy peaks of the Turkish mountains visible to the left.

This one's my new desktop photo.

After shooting that lot I went straight down the road from which the last couple were taken and into the Swedco Café. There's one on the corner with the traffic lights. If you haven't sampled their "Sorbeto" then you haven't lived. You can have either chocolate or caramel flavour and for €2.50 you get something resembling a "triple-thick-shake" that's simply TDF!! You know the kind of thing, they have to use extra thick straws otherwise you wouldn't be able to suck the stuff into your mouth. Glorious!!

The Greek Husbands Club

Dropped in to see our old friend Gilma yesterday morning. We hadn't seen him in a while. As usual he was pottering about in his rather large parcel of land, this time very near to the house. Also as usual he was alone, his wife and grown-up son (someone big in the mechanic-ing section of the Rhodes Bus company) being, as they always are, up at their house in Kritika. 

During our conversation he let on about how his wife is always nagging him to spend more time up there with her. He replies that she ought to spend more time down here with him. The son's needs win out, of course, which is ever the case in a Greek household when such things reach the "push-come-to-shove" stage. Something he said which we found ourselves agreeing with heartily, though, was the fact that he'd read somewhere recently that many consider that Rhodes has not only the best weather in the Mediteranean, but even in the whole world. Not that we'd be biased about such a thing, of course. but it does have some merit.

I mean, there are those who'll champion the cause of the West Indies. Never gets below 25ºC any time of the year. During certain months, though, you can expect to see your car blown away along with the roof of your house in a hurricane. It would be just my luck to be sitting on the loo at the time... Then there's the fact that you never get those long summer evenings 'cos it always gets dark at around six pm. Uh oh.

Then there's the Far East. Hmm, typhoons and all that ridiculously high humidity spring to mind. I have a friend who lived in Calcutta for many years. He told me they can't use toilet paper, it would simply shred to moist pieces in seconds. Eeeeuuaah. You have to wash your bits after going to the loo and then don't bother with a towel 'cos you'd be instantly soaking wet again as soon as you'd finished with it. 

All the tropical areas would freak me out for another reason too, 'cos the insects are the size of your average London bus aren't they (shivers running along spine as I type)? What about further North - nah, too cold in winter.

See, you get the picture. OK, so Rhodes can be a bit too hot in July and August, but at least you can plan outdoor activities safe in the knowledge that you'll be able to actually do them. Yup, we get rain during the winter, but the winters are short ...and I'm often wearing mine in the garden during January too.

I did mention to Gilma that we do get the occasional earthquake though. Well, let's face it, nowhere's perfect after all.

He did tell us though, that he simply has to spend as much time as possible down here in the far south (he lives a lot further south than we do), because when he's at their house in Kritika his main passtime is watching the traffic go past the window. My wife asked him, "What about going down to the kafeneion, isn't that what Greek men are supposed to do?" To which he replied, "Kafeneion? Where all they do is argue about politics and football and play Backgammon while they wait to die?" Not for him it seems. Waving an arm around him to refer our attention to the beauty around us he went on, "How does a Kafeneion compare to this, eh?" He was planting new rose bushes at the time.


He does have a point. So, he is a fully paid-up member of the Greek Husbands Club, which doesn't actually exist, but ought to. 

What does really exist however, is The Greek Wives Club and it's run by the very witty [not to mention easy on the eye - she'd kill me for saying that. Mind you, doesn't matter, 'cos when you're old enough to be someone's father you can get away with that kind of stuff more easily] and erudite Ekaterina Botziou, a Greek girl living in the London area (UK) with her Greek Cypriot hubby and almost-born (only days to go apparently) first child. This girl is sickeningly talented. She writes books, acts, keeps this very entertaining website, a Facebook page for same and a bunch of other stuff, like being a capable Greek wife for starters. Check out her profile shot on the "About" page and you get an idea as to what kind of spirit the girl has. 

The website is a great place to mooch around in if you love all things Greek. As you'll probably know, I recently started a Facebook Group myself, an action borne of my own desire to have a single easy source of Greek-themed reading material. It's called "A Good Greek Read" and that's how I first got wind of Ekaterina. She's a member, I'm quite proud to say, as are a number of other successul authors of Greek fiction and factual books. If you'd like a handy reference point for authors of Greek-themed books, on the "A Good Greek Read" FB page there is a downloadable list, along with easy links to each author's work. You have to join to access it, of course, but I'm the one who has to approve your application, so it's not likely you'll be refused entry, now is it?

Returning to Ekaterina and The Greek Wives Club. if you want to know a bit more about Ekaterina herself, this link will help no end. The girl's got talent, she'd even a Law Graduate. Told you, she makes me sick! I really can't recommend her writing enough, and indeed her website, for absolutely anyone who's a serious Grecophile. She stresses that you don't have to actually be a Greek wife to join the Facebook page, so I scraped in by being a Greek husband. 

Our old friend Gilma wouldn't know one end of a computer from the other, which is quite sad really, because he'd definitely qualify, with senior citizen's discount too!

Surfin' USA? Or Surfin' South Rhodes...

8th March, 23ºC today, a harbinger of what's to come. Yes March can still throw the occasional spanner into the weather-works, but by and large it's downhill into summer from here. I was a bit sad yesterday, it would have been my father's 86th birthday had he survived. We lost him in January 2009, but whenever we're in the garden, he's on our minds, since he loved gardening almost more than anything else, apart from my mum of course. But it was close.

Both yesterday and today we've spent lots of time in the garden. There's always plenty to do at this time of the year. But before we began yesterday we went to visit a few folk along near the seafront in the Gennadi area, which was where I snapped these...

There was a strong, warm wind coming in off of the sea, which here in Kiotari means Southerly, thus the temperature was a very pleasant 21 or so (70F in the old money, or if you're American), but the sea was "up" in a spectacular way. Unfortunately these photos don't do it full justice. How often do we folk who have modest cameras (or, as in this case, modest mobile phones!) snap something with a wild enthusiasm to share it with others, only to be a bit let down when we see the end result. Never mind, if you click a few times to get the largest view it may help. The sound was deafening and all I could do was sing along to old Beach Boys songs all morning!! 

Today, though is a red-letter day and no mistake. Today was the ceremonial hanging of the hosepipe gun on the nail under the car-port. As I've probably said before, most Greek houses don't have swimming pools, but what they always do have is an outdoor shower. Well, ours is a hosepipe hanging from the car-port at just the right angle...

Not exactly a pinnacle of technology, yet amazingly effective.

After a couple of hours toil, I was ready for shower and so today, folks, the first outdoor shower of the season took place amid precious little fanfare - well, apart from me going "ooh, ahh" rather a lot. Got to admit, the water was a little on the parky side, but I went through with it and then the better half did likewise. 

See, it's that time of year now when, although we've enjoyed the winter, we're ready to see a few more people about and ready for the warmer weather to set in at last. It has been by and large a mild winter here, although somewhat more changeable than normal. The last cold snap was probably to coldest we've known in almost 10 years of living here, but that only lasted 3 days and prompted a few to proclaim on Facebook that it was the coldest winter they'd known. Have to disagree there I'm afraid. Lots of people who, like us, have log-burning stoves, are remarking that they've used them much less frequently than normal, which is certainly the case with us.

Returning to today though, once more (after the winter months) the parasol went up over the garden table and we took lunch out there. The better half rustled up some rather tasty aubergine salad, olive oil, tomato and lettuce open sandwiches and we washed them down with a glass of delicious rosé.

Oh, and the sea calmed down markedly today too. Thus I am no longer prompted to sing "Everybody's gone surfin', surfin' USA."

Give It To The Greeks

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned in a post on Facebook (I think it was either the rather excellent group "We're Mad about Greece and the Greek Language" or perhaps it might have been "Living on Rhodes Together", but I think it was the former) that I was a part-time excursion escort during the summer season. [Thinks again: Ah, yes, may also have been Destination Lindos. I'm definitely losing it...]

After I'd answered someone's query about the subject and told them about my work, someone else commented, rather curtly in my view, that the person to whom I was replying ought not to go on excursions, but rather ought to - and I quote "Give your money to the Greeks".

Now, regular readers of my ramblings will know that I usually write in a mildly amusing way (oh, yes I do!!) about life here on Rhodes. This post, however is about what to me is an important subject, so forgive me if it's a bit lacking in smiles. Thanks. I will look for opportunities though, trust me on that one.

See, the thing is, when me and the better half used to take holidays in Greece, we weren't the types to go on excursions, but that's not to say that those who do are in any way lacking in imagination or the independent spirit. It's purely a matter of "horses for courses" [two words that give  Greek who are learning English nightmares, …see why?]. In my experience, which is now pretty extensive in this field, I have met guests on my trips of all different intellectual levels and social backgrounds. The thing they all have in common is the fact that, since they're on holiday, they like to take the stress out of the excursions and let someone else do the worrying for them. Nothing wrong with that, right? I've done this work since the summer of 2007 by the way and I've worked for a number of different companies here in Rhodes, so I can talk from inside knowledge on the subject.

So then, to this person's comment, "give it [your money] to the Greeks." Let me tell you something that I hope will be enlightening. Every company that I've worked for has been staffed entirely by Greeks, the coach drivers have all been Greeks and those running the boats we've used for excursions at sea have all been Greeks. The crews manning the boats have also all been Greeks. Without exception, these Greeks work seven days a week for six months during the season, often doing split shifts too. The boat owners who I can say with gratitude I can now call friends, all depend entirely on their contract with the excursion company for their living. Keeping a boat on the water is a very expensive business, often involving dry-docking during the winter months while the hull is repaired, painted and otherwise maintained, all of which costs a pretty penny.

Some of the owners of the boats have sunk their entire life's savings into the boat and without the excursions would be destitute. When you book an excursion for a day trip whilst on holiday out here in Greece you are most definitely giving your money to those who really need to earn it. Yes, the tour operator takes a cut, of course they do, but they entrust the entire operation of running their excursions to local Greek people, millions of which all across this great country would be very much poorer without such work. The coach drivers here on Rhodes often come from Thessalonika and don't see their wives and children for the entire season, because they're here ferrying folk to and from the airport to their accommodations and also taking them on day trips. OK, if you want to duck out of using the tour operator's transfer that's a personal choice and I don't have any argument with that. All I say is, don't talk out of your…. The coach driver is a Greek who needs the work. Fact.

On board the "Lindos" on last season's Bay to Bay cruise.

Ditto

This is the Magellanos, a boat I worked on a few years back. The owner Adonis is a gent.

The Romantika, tied up in Mandraki. Another boat that depends on excursions for survival.

Another shot from one of last season's bay to bay trips.

Dimitri (front) and his dad Kostas (driving) ferry our guests ashore at Stegna for lunch during the Bay to Bay cruise.

On some excursions too, we also make use of local bars and tavernas, and guess what: …of course! the staff and owners are predominantly Greeks who absolutely depend on our patronage, especially with the growing cancerous threat of the dreaded all-inclusive, which is the real villain of the piece.

So, there you are folks, beef firmly off the chest. Incidentally, the company I work for here on Rhodes is a 100% Greek-run company which organizes excursions for innumerable tour operators, including Olympic Holidays from the UK. So, if you're staying in the South of the island this summer, you may well have the dubious privilege of my company if you come on one of the excursions.

One more point I will make. Many will say, if you're staying down South that is, "Don't take the excursion to Rhodes Town, take the bus." OK, do so by all means and I have no problem with that. But what I will say is this: Those who shell out a little more to come with me most definitely get their money's worth. They get door to door service, a guaranteed seat for the journey (which is shorter anyway), loads of useful info as we travel up and down the island, plus help when we get into town regarding all kinds of stuff that they'd have no idea about if they arrived in town on the bus with no one to ask about anything. Plus, should anything go wrong, they have the added insurance of knowing someone's there to sort it out.

You know what, I'm really looking forward to starting work again this summer. I'll probably be doing what we call the "Bay to Bay" a couple of times each week and "Rhodes Shopping" once. If you do read this and you come out here on holiday with Olympic, book an excursion and find that your escort is wearing a white T-shirt with "Ramblings from Rhodes - Google it!" on the front - it'll be me folks. Say hello won't you. AND, tell me when you get back in the evening that you didn't have a cracking day out!

Oh, and you'll be able to sleep easy knowing that the majority of the cash you shelled out went to help a dozen or more Greeks feed their families and pay their bills.

Rhodes Old Town. Wish you were here?

Nice Piece of Furniture

Mini photo courtesy of: https://www.facebook.com/omilohellas/timeline

I recently came across this photo on Facebook and it reminded me of a funny routine by a Greek-American comedian called Basile, pronounced as any American will tell you, Bay-zil. It seems to me that our American cousins will never use a short vowel when a long one will do instead. Another fine example of this is the name of the most famous village here on Rhodes, Lindos. I've yet to hear an American call it that. They always prefer Lin-dose. I'm sure you know what I mean.

Anyway, no offense intended, just observing. After all, you say tomay-to and we say tomah-to and all that stuff, right? I mean, here's Bazile, a Greek by descent after all, and he knows full well that is real name is Vasilis, yet he calls himself Bay-zil! Ah, well then, best left as it is I suppose. He is very funny though, especially if you "get" the whole Greek culture thing. Try some of these for size…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp4fd0cFMdg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ_5YPxxW_4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMvBvFbN1Ks

I've watched a couple of his DVD's and believe me, you will cry laughing if you know anything at all about Greek culture and customs. I have mentioned him before, but it was a couple of years ago now I think. He has a basic website if you fancy checking him out, it's here (4basile.com).

The routine he did that I recalled was one about Greeks and their furniture. He makes the point that his ya ya would never throw out a piece of furniture, even if it was actually an old TV set. I'm old enough (sadly) to remember when you would buy a TV which was built into a heavy, polished walnut cabinet with two doors on the front that could be kept closed when the TV wasn't being watched, thus concealing the fact that the cabinet was in fact, basically a TV set in disguise. Mind you, the screens in those days were very convex and always a pale grey colour. They weren't much to look at out of their cozy wooden homes.

Something you'll doubtless have deduced is that in a traditional Greek home there are lace doilies all over the place. If there's a horizontal surface larger than a side plate, there'll be a doily on it. For one thing you can work this out from the fact that no self-respecting souvenir shop even today in Greece is complete without its section of "locally hand-crafted" crochet doilies, right? Yeah, you've been there I know. Our old friend Gilma down South even has a doily over his telephone, which is one of those that has a handset in a cradle beside the keypad. When the phone rings he carefully lifts off the doily, folds it up and places it to one side before answering the call. Once he's "hung up" he'll unfold the doily and place it carefully over the phone again.

Doily Photo courtesy - https://www.etsy.com/listing/199262764/white-hand-crocheted-round-doily-parlor?ref=market

I can't have them anywhere near me and it's basically because they so remind me of a bygone era and huge old dark pieces of furniture that clogged up every room in a senior citizens' home. Basile's routine involved the fact that his ya ya had a huge dark wooden cabinet in her lounge for years, with a white crochet doily on top of it, and the cabinet was in fact an old TV set that had long since ceased to work, yet, owing to the fact that it was such an impressive piece of furniture, she wouldn't entertain the idea of throwing it out, oh no. Instead, it stood in a corner of her lounge, with this white doily spread over the top and - sitting on top of the doily - a brand new colour TV!!

Y'know, we have a Greek friend in a village not far from here who has no less than four TV sets in her sitting room. The first time we saw them we were reminded of the wonderful scene from the great classic UK TV comedy "Only Fools and Horses", where Grandad was sitting in his armchair watching two different TVs, the one on the left only had a picture and no sound, while the one on the right only had sound, but no picture. Well, our friend's comment, when we tactfully asked why she needed four TVs was, "Well, you never know, I might be able to get one or two of them fixed some time."

So, the doily on the Mini is a pretty sharp way to observe a classic Greek custom.

Well, I can't sit here blogging all day, I'm off to flose my teeth and trote off to my bed!

Not Quite Mount Kilimanjaro

Reports of our imminent demise from hypothermia grossly exagerrated!
 
Here I go again folks, humbly debunking another myth about Rhodes!! By and large we're having a mild winter but, as usual, we've had one or two cold snaps, although not as many as some other recent winters here on Rhodes. The most recent was last week, when from Wednesday night thru Friday morning the overnight temperatures did drop quite dramatically and Mount Attavyros, the highest peak on the island and not more than 20k from our house, was capped with snow. 

Attavyros is just under 4,000 feet [1215 metres exactly] in height and, purely due to that altitude, very often gets dusted with white at the summit for a few weeks each winter. This past week, owing to the sudden cold snap and a very cold air mass coming down from the area of the Black Sea, much of the Aegean experienced snow the like of which it very rarely sees. Samos and Naxos, as two examples quite far apart, were very snowbound for something like 48 hours, Naxos experiencing arctic conditions for a while. Of course there was the usual clutch of photos on the social media sites showing the snow here on Rhodes, but it was very limited in location and that was more or less the area around the mountain. It seems that the village of Empona [phonetically pronounced: EH'bonna] was white for a while, which, although situated on the northern slopes of the mountain, is nevertheless much, much lower than the peak and rarely sees ice and snow on its streets.

Prompted by the photos I'd seen on Facebook, we took off in the car on Friday afternoon to take a look for ourselves, not 36 hours after several Facebook posts had given non-Rhodes residents the idea that we were all out there shovelling snow for all we were worth to cut a path to the woodstore and thus keep alive!!!  Here in Kiotari we saw nothing whatsoever, just had a couple of chilly nights, so I was somewhat bemused by responses from some UK residents to the effect that they thought we were all gripped by the ice and snow. I wanted to snap a few photos myself, since it would have been quite fun as in almost ten years of living here I've never seen snow. The nearest we've ever been is the occasional hail storm.

So, we set a course for Agios Isidoros, a delightful village on the South slopes of the mountain, from where we then skirted around at least 50% of the mountain's foothills to Embona (alternative English spelling, don't they all have half a dozen versions?), where we took a walking tour of the village. Guess what folks, there wasn't a single snowflake in sight, not even on the mountain's summit!! Talk about a let-down. Mind you, it was a superb drive and thus I shot a few photos and scanned the map so that I could share the route with you if you feel like a dramatic scenic drive next time you're here for a visit.

Here goes then...

The route basically begins in the village of Lardos, from where you take the Laerma road, which leaves the village from between Valantina's Taverna and Il Gelso Italian restaurant. The road soon rises steeply as you leave the village and, once you've crested the first rise the scenery already begins to exhibit the "wow" factor. The quality of the road surface for most of this excursion is excellent by the way. The exceptions being actually in the village of Laerma itself. When you go through Laerma you need to simply follow the road you're on as it snakes through the village and drops down into a valley the other side, where it's signposted for Agios Isidoros and Embona.

Eventually you approach the mountain and it is quite impressive, if, in this case, rather disappointingly completely devoid of snow!! See first photo...

You eventually arrive at a T-junction, where you take a left to visit Ag. Isidoros (highly recommended). It's only 1Km to the village, from where you have to double back to come back around the mountain to get to Embona. This nice little place was right in the village itself.

A lot is made on Rhodes of the village of Seanna, and OK, it is a nice place. But for my money if you're looking for a pretty village relatively untouched by tourism, then Ag. Isidoros wins hands down. The people here are famed fo their hospitality too. This doesn't surprise me, since we only drove up and down the village briefly, stopping only for a couple of photos, yet an old ya ya seated against a sunny wall on an old stool and sporting the regulation headscarf tied tightly under her chin waved and smiled as we crept past. Incidentally, on the weather theme, when we left home in Kiotari it was 15ºC outside, with a real-feel of more like 19 owing to very light winds. Here in Ag. Isidoros it was reading 9.

Another snap in Ag. Isidoros

Same spot as the one above, just a different angle.

Heading back the way we'd come, we passed the turning for Laerma that we'd recently emerged from and continued around the mountain to Embona. Parking up at the edge of the village we took a stroll...

We'd eaten at this taverna some years go with our landlords John and Wendy. It was during a bad bout of Sciatica for me and so I ate kneeling on the floor since it was too painful to sit in a chair. Boy did I get some odd looks.

The beloved with her new boots. She was so looking for an opportunity to wear them, bless her!! Dammit though, still not a snowflake in sight.

On the edge of Embona, that's Mount Attavyros. See, no snow!!

On the way back we decided to snap a few scenic shots. These are taken on the road back down to Laerma, which starts from just outside Agia Isidoros...

In summer  this is a refreshment station that also sells Souma and honey etc.

This is the view from the wooden shack above. The lake in the distance is Gadoura (shown on the map scanned above), where one can visit the fairly new dam, which we did almost precisely a year ago. See this post.

And this is taken from where we were standing in the shot above. This perspective makes the lake look deceptively near to the sea, which in reality it isn't.

Click on this one for the larger view and you'll be able to make out the road as it snakes up the far mountain and through a shallow pass. The road is almost new throughout, albeit extremely "curly" in places.

Well, as you can see from the above photos. we aren't about to be buried up to our goolies in snow any time soon. It does amuse me though how deceptive reports on the internet can be to those not actually here on the island. Take Mount Kilimanjaro as an example. It's only (so I found out by Googling it!) about 300km from the equator, yet owing to its altitude [over 19,000 ft] it is always capped with snow. Here on Rhodes, Mount Attavyros is similar, although not to the same extent obviously, as it's somewhat smaller height-wise. Yet it often has a white dusting in wintertime, which from a distance is very picturesque anyway, yet because for a couple of days last week that dusting crept a bit further down the slopes, there were folk in the UK worrying about our survival!!

Just yesterday, walking the beach road here in Kiotari, which as you'll know we tend to do rather a lot, there was a bloke shovelling cement in the Petalas (formerly the Paralia) Taverna with nothing on from the waist up whatsoever. Can't quite see that happening back in the UK during February eh?