Kolimbithres in April

Spring on Paros was early this year with plentiful flowers blooming by the field full.  Now Easter Week is well underway kicking off the tourist season.  Of course the weather is mostly warm and sunny (61F/17C) except for a few showers today and tomorrow.

Unless you are already on Paros or on the way there it is too late to enjoy the authentic Greek experiences of Easter for this year.  So I would like to whet your appetite for next year.  Easter in Greece is like no other country. It is the major holiday of the year. While based on the religious calendar it is centered around food and drink.  Read my 2014 article on Opinions Post.

If you want more, here is our account from 2006.  Or search this blog for several other posts on the holiday and the season.  If you would like a personalized package of accommodation, event guide and lamb barbecue with a local Greek family, contact me.

P.S.  I have often preached that it is a crime against humanity to visit Greece without seeing the Parthenon.  For those who have not yet made the trip here is unique interactive helicopter tour:  http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/11/18/the-parthenon-like-you-ve-never-seen-it-before/

For those who would like to know more about all the major antiquity sites of ancient Greece tour my web site www.Visit-Ancient-Greece.com

Cheers

From deTraci Regula of About Greece Travel:

“While financial support for Christmas cheer is nearly absent at the national level, the municipalities are stepping up to fill in the gaps. Athens has a rich slate of Christmas activities, many of them staffed by volunteers. Many decorations will be provided by schoolchildren and art students; empty shop windows near Syntagma Square will be filled with Christmas displays. It should be a bright holiday season in Greece. If you've been deriding the "commercialism" of Christmas elsewhere, maybe a visit to Athens this year will be just the antidote.”

And even more so on Paros!  Yes, I am confident the Greek people and especially the islanders will overcome the difficulties and economic depression to still celebrate Christmas in style as they do all other holidays.

Read about our past Christmases on Paros and in Athens.

This article continues a theme that locally produced food is more healthy than mass produced and that where you eat and drink greatly influences the taste.

Years ago we had a program on Paros for guests to help with the olive oil harvest in exchange for a portion of the oil.  However, the scheme died because not many people want to travel to the Greek islands in November which is harvest time.

Now I see that the prefecture of Grevena in the central mainland of Greece is hosting the 9th Panhellenic Mushroom Festival on November 4 – 5.  They say over 5,000 varieties of mushrooms grow wild in Greece and over half of them can be found in this region.  They probably have nearly as many recipes for the fungus including liquors and candies.  Local as well as international chefs will be attending the festival.  I hope they get a few tourists as well.

More on this theme:  Proven: Greek islanders live longer

                             Island wine: Taste the place

As usual the summer Paros Life is chock-a-block full of music concerts and art events.  One that did not make the listing deadline has an Oregon connection. Also it is coming to Paros at the instigation of our American friends of Scooter Rally fame, Al and Ardy.

The Cappella Romana from our home city of Portland, Oregon is celebrating its 20th Anniversary by singing at the Patmos Sacred Music Festival and on Paros at the Church of Panagia Ekatontapilliani  which is one of the oldest and most important churches in Greece.

The group will sing music ranging from Medieval Byzantine chants to modern choral works by Californian Greek composers, including rhapsodic works by modern Greek composer Michael Adamis.  The Paros concert on 5 September at 8:30 P.M. will be recorded by a Grammy winning record producer.

We are really looking forward to this event.  The first concert that I attended on Paros was held in the courtyard of Ekatontapilliani and I still remember the magic.

Would you want to get married at the same place as you live and work?  If that was the village centre of Aliki, I think you would.

Most of the centre with its various restaurants, tavernas and other businesses is owned by different branches of the same three or four families and they were all turned out in their finest clothes for the wedding celebration of one of the restaurant owners.

My night photos did not turn out well so I lifted this one from Facebook.  Thank you ΣΤΑΥΡΟΥΛΑ ΤΡΙΧΑ

More about planning a wedding in Greece on this page of our Paros Personalized Travel Guide.

We spent a pleasant Easter Sunday. 

It started well with one of our rare sightings of a migratory bird.  Karin took this photo out our lounge window.  I tried to sneak around the corner to get a clear shot but the bird took off immediately.  It easily had a six foot wing span.  I thought it might be a stork but the color appears wrong.  The closest I could find on the internet is a Purple Heron, but the color is wrong there too.  Any ideas?

The weather was warm but there was a strong North wind that I didn’t notice until we were driving our scooters into it.  Even so we battled our way to the farthest point of the island from us to have traditional lamb on a spit with other expat friends.

Afterwards we stopped in Naoussa for coffee and happened to be there in the middle of their traditional commemoration and procession, the main element of which is very loud firecrackers.

Then back home, still in the sun, for a quiet evening recuperating from all the food, drink and noise.

Spring is in the air.  We are finally having some warm weather.  Houses are being aired and our neighbours are starting on all the weeding and painting that has to be done before Easter.

We are anticipating a traditional lamb barbeque on Easter Sunday afternoon at Margaritas, one of our favourite tavernas.  Below is a link to Karin’s photo account of an August afternoon there and elsewhere on Paros.  Note that this was an August afternoon when the island is supposed to be over crowded.

A Sunday Afternoon on Paros

This year we may even go again to the dramatic parastaseis in Marpissa.  The print edition of Paros Life has published some brilliant colour photos by Photo Frank.

We have written several places about Easter Week on Paros but today I want to mention an excellent article by Carol Mason in Canada’s Globe and Mail.  She writes:

The island of Paros does Easter better than anywhere else. It's the third largest in the Cyclades group, where you'll also find Mykonos and Santorini. Picture whitewashed churches with blue domes, orange blossom and bougainvillea tumbling down nearly every wall, mysteriously interlocking streets with no names that are no wider than the expanse of your outstretched arms, sugar-cube houses piled up on hillsides, or dotted sparsely on the windswept edge of a cliff. Paros's charm feels effortless.

And later:

From the minute the tiny Olympic Airways flight circled the island to land, Paros spoke to me, and kept on saying all the right things. On my first venture into town, an elderly man gave me a rose. Someone else tried to offload a kitten (cats run amok on Paros because the Greeks don’t spay and neuter; some people own about 20). The clothing boutique owner couldn’t bear to see me in flip-flops – 26 C being winter for a Greek – so she gave me a free pair of brand-new imported Italian shoes. When I protested that I couldn’t possibly accept her offer, she charged me a token two euros. Then, ironically, I did catch a cold, and the local café owner fed me a bottomless cup of hot souma with honey, and someone else bought me socks. As a tourist, I was hardly a rarity. But Parians take an interest in you. Of the Northern Europeans I met in the month I was there, it was easy to see why they had been coming back for 20-plus years.

Read the whole article  HERE

You can see it is easy to love Paros.

Last week I read in the news that exports from Greece were up this year compared to last year.  Yesterday there was a news item that may help explain that.

Two young American men were stopped at the Athens airport with unusual souvenirs of their visit to Mykonos.  They had purchased six human skulls to use as Halloween decorations.  They had seen the skulls on display in a shop and purchased them for 25 Euro each.

So perhaps the resourceful Greeks have found a new way to boost their economy.  The traditional custom here is to disinter bones from graves after a few years, bless them and store them in a vault known as an ossuary.  So what happens when the ossuary gets full?

Editor’s note:  We are sure most Greeks as well as the Orthodox Church and the Greece government treat all human remains with the utmost respect.

Pyramid of Skulls by Paul Cezanne
c. 1901 Private collection; Venturi no. 753

This is just one example of the type of quality events held on Paros each summer.

“Vassilis Tsabropoulos belongs to the elite of European piano soloists. He has given piano recitals in international centres of Europe and America, participating in important orchestras with renowned conductors.”

However, what makes this concert outstanding is the location:  an open air theatre at the beach!  Its all in the atmosphere of a Greece idyll.

Read more about typical summer events

Read about Taste the Place

Typically we choose to spend our Easter in a very low key manner.  Yesterday we packed a picnic and scootered the length of the island to Monistiri Beach.  We had read several articles in Paros Life indicating this beach and the peninsula behind it were being converted to a nature and conservation park.

So I was quite surprised to see that the beach club there—long noted for wild music and parties—had been enlarged and that the beach umbrella stands were all set up for this season.  One never knows what is actually happening behind high-sounding press releases, I guess.  Maybe it means the music will be more conservative.

Anyway we had an enjoyable time hiking around and eating our lunch to the sound of water lapping on rocks.  We were offered a beer by some young men who were barbecuing a lamb on the shore.  They had come from Athens on the yacht in the photo.  On the way home we noticed a great many family gatherings which is the traditional way the Greeks spend Easter.

++++++

Anyone who will be near Athens this 16-20 June should check out the 2nd Annual Athens Fringe Festival.  In addition to the more traditional music and stage performances the program includes bar poets, concerts in galleries, dance lessons, juggling, photography and film festivals.  Even the shops are getting into the act with White Night in Athens, whatever that is.  Most of the performances are at the Technopolis theatre in Gazi.

The Olympic Flame is in the news again.  I can not think of anything that is more travelled.  It makes a round of the world every two years for both the Winter Olympics and the Summer Games.

Last Thursday there was a handover ceremony in Athens's Olympic Stadium attended by dignitaries of both Greece and Canada.  The flame is headed to Vancouver, Canada for the 2010 Winter Olympiad—and Paralympics.

The flame reached the stadium after a circuit of Greece starting in ancient Olympia where the lighting ceremony was held last week.  It won’t reach Canada until taking a circuit of the world.

In 2004 the flame was on Paros but my photos are of backs of heads of the crowd and the feet of the runners.  So here is a dramatic photo of a statue of ancient Olympia during the 2007 wild fires.

Photograph: Petros Giannakouris/AP

Being from the west coast of the USA, “Chestnuts roasting by an open fire” was never part of our winter traditions.  So I will never forget our first visit to Germany when we stepped out of a train station and there was an open fire with roasted chestnuts.  I immediately bought some and Karin and I tasted them on the spot.  I spit my bite back out; Karin politely swallowed but did not have another.  We found them dry and bitter.

Now fast forward to this week when a friend shared their harvest of walnuts and chestnuts.  We looked askance at the chestnuts and decided to use them as autumn decoration.  Then a few days later I received a news item from the ANA:  “Annual Chestnut Party begins in Kavala”  This inspired me to do a little research.  I found that they can be prepared any number of ways.  Since it is still too warm for a fire and the barbeque is a hassle, I opted to steam a few of the chestnuts.  Twelve minutes later we dipped them in melted salted butter and gingerly took a nibble.  Eureka! they were quite good.

I also learned the chestnut has a long and noble history.  The tree is considered the tree of Zeus and Alexander the Great planted them during his travels as a substitute for grain.  Many cultures have followed suit as they grow well on mountainous terrain.  So in October many northern Greece communities have Chestnut Festivals.  The one in Kavala is said to consume 5 tons of nuts and 1,000 kilos of wine.  I think that may be an exaggeration on the chestnuts but not the wine.

Photo from Eternally Cool Net

Years ago Naoussa was our favourite place to go on a Sunday morning to read the newspaper over a coffee and pastry.  But as it grew more upscale and touristy we went less and less.  It’s often referred to as a Mykonos wannabe for its high prices.  You can count on one hand the number of meals we have had there in nine years.

Now that will change as a friend who has been coming to Naoussa for 30 years introduced us to the Meltemi Taverna.  Its located on the marina pier; just turn left at the bridge.  By the way most of the tavernas as you turn right on the pier have the reputation as tourist traps.  But if you continue to the right around to the old harbour you will find some very good, if high end, restaurants.

I tend to judge a taverna by the quality of its giant beans and its stifado(stew); both were excellent at the Meltemi as was everything else we had.  I can’t comment on the price because I am sure our host got a special Greek price; I know I was shocked at how low the total was for food and drink in Naoussa.

At a quarter to 8 I started talking about a new holiday that I predict will be as big as St. Patrick’s day all over the world.  September 24 is Arthur’s Day and 2009 is the 250th Anniversary of the founding of the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland.  World wide at 17:59 GMT people raised a glass of the dark stuff in a toast to founder, Arthur Guinness.  All heads certainly turned when we did the same in the middle of a traditional Greek taverna.  I don’t know what the proprietor thought of me bringing in my own black cans.  Guinness does go well with Greek food but we can only get draft in few places during high season, so the widget cans have to do when we want to reminisce about Ireland.

P.S.   I had a left over can so the next night I made a Guinness and maple syrup sauce to glaze salmon steaks.  It was quite good but the best part was it only took 1/4 of the can which left the rest for the cook.

Australia has not been high on my list of places to visit but I often hear and see good things about the people of Sydney.  Here is an example.

“To get people excited about the Sydney International Food Festival and celebrate international food, national flags of participating countries were recreated using popular local foods of each nation.”

More eatable flags at Toxel.com

Yesterday was a quiet day; a little on the warm side and humid.  Karin wanted to get out and do something but riding our scooters on the asphalt would be hot during the day.  So we decided to have an early dinner and then in the evening ride over to Prodromos, a small village that I had only passed by in the last eight years on the island.

When we turned off the highway and into the main village square we discovered a sound system and chairs being set up for a concert that evening.  So we decided to kill some time and wait the hour or so before the music started to see if we wanted to stay.  There is a local group that we don’t particularly care for, but a friend had told us they liked this one. 

A Greek village welcome

To start we walked through the narrow footpaths—no cars allowed—admiring the details of the old, traditional Greek village.  Around one corner we were suddenly looking through a large glass window at an open hearth oven as a man and woman were loading several pots of various size and shapes into it.  Karin used a little Greeklish to discover that this was a community oven that would now be sealed for 12 hours until Sunday morning.  The main thing being cooked was Revithia, a bean soup, that is best when baked in this traditional method.

Well used oven

When we finished wandering the streets it was dark so we headed back to the main square and went into the one village taverna for an ouzo.  Just as we finished we heard the music starting so quickly grabbed the free suma and nuts on offer and sat down.  We were surprised to see not only a friend from Aliki who plays the drums, Yannis Paroussis, but also another friend and hotel owner, Ioannis Xydis.  We knew he was an ex-professional singer but had previously only heard about his impromptu performances after the fact.  So this was to be our first time hearing him perform.

Ioannis Xydis in Prodromos

We were shocked.  He is very good!  I won’t give a concert review but this group of about 5 musicians and another 5 singers put on a fantastic show full of Greek themed music without much of the heavy folk music that we usually hear.  The audience was really into it and several gave impromptu dances which were also good.

Feeling the music

This group is good enough to be performing at a night club with a cover charge and expensive drinks.  Here we were in a pleasant village square full of people who knew each other and served free drinks and snacks.  Thank you Paros.

Yesterday August 6th conflicted with the full moon.  I say conflicted because the annual festival for our village of Aliki is held on 6 August; a busy night of music, dancing, food, drink and people watching.  But Karin and I decided that this year we would rather go the Full Moon celebration on Antiparos.
The above photo is before the group “L’anima”  arrived.

We were glad we did; this was one of the best string quartets that we have heard in years of attending concerts in three countries.  There was no program so I can’t tell you about the group or the music they played other than it was obviously very well done.  It seemed their instruments had better tone than others that I have heard.  Their web page


This photo is of the moon rising over the south end of Paros.  Why is it always smaller in photos then in real life?

The location and atmosphere might have had something to do with the enjoyment of the music.  Although I was quite annoyed on a few occasions when some of the crowd to my left and rear, my good ear side, thought it was an audience participation event and proceeded to hum to familiar tunes.  Believe me, their voices were not in good tone.

Not only was this high quality concert free but the committee served free wine—out of glass bottles, not the typical plastic jug.  Then to top it off when we went to the Nautica Cafe to have an ouzo while waiting for the ferry home they served an antipasto plate with it.  This used to be traditional but lately the cafes and bars have cut costs by serving nuts or nothing.

My conclusion:  Everyone who visits Paros should make a jaunt to Antiparos.

It is now Eurovision season—one of our annual highlights.  Last year’s post contains some background so please go here if you are not familiar with this European Song Contest.  It is nothing like American shows such as American Idol. 
http://parosparadise.blogspot.com/2008/05/expat-life-eurovision.html
This year’s broadcast comes from Moscow, which was last year’s winner.  The first round of preliminaries was Tuesday, the second round tonight, Thursday and the finals on Saturday.

We find it quite interesting that Turkey and Norway are running neck and neck with Greece a distant third.  Last years 100% telephone voting was extremely disgusting because of fans voting for their neighbours instead of the music.  So this year 50% of the votes come from a panel of judges.
We look forward a thrilling finale!
Update:  Alexander Rybak charmed the viewing universe and won by the greatest margin ever.  Norway was not our favourite; we liked both Iceland who came in second and Azerbaijan who placed third.  It was gratifying to see results based upon merit although regional voting was still noticeable.

The rain ceased, the clouds parted and we celebrated.  This morning I awoke early due to the sun streaming in our bedroom window.  So I got some work done early and then went out before noon to take photos of people gathering for a parade.

Someone in Aliki must like to organize festivals because they just added a new one to the year's calendar.  This one is obviously strictly local, just a neighborhood gathering.  In the USA it would probably be called a block party.

Anyway we had a good time.  Tomorrow we go fly a kite.

The link is:  http://www.ParosParadise.com/ParosFestivals.htm

Things are heating up around cold Greece.  When I left the coffee shop around noon yesterday they were setting up tables for a private party with a bottle of my favourite Paros red on each table.

Wednesday we received this notice from the Parikia community hall: 

Archilochos Society invites you to a pure fun Carnival Party
this Thursday 19 February, starting at: 21:00 until late!
Carnival mood, dance & songs in Brazilian tunes.

Everybody tries to brighten up the winter and let loose before Lent starts.  Patras in the Peloponnese area of Greece lays claim to the largest celebration in Europe.  These two photos are from there (http://www.patranews.gr)

I saw a news item that church authorities had petitioned the courts to stop a float in the Patras parade that depicted the recent church/government land swap scandal.

The first day of Lent is known as Clean Monday (Kathari Theftera). Read more about the day and other Greek festivals on our web site or see photos in several  blog posts by searching "kite flying".

We have at least two parties this weekend so I am off . . .

Cheers!

Welcome to a new year in paradise--though I do have a bad cold and the weather is unpleasant . . . etc.

All in all 2008 was a good year; I can only hope 2009 will be at least as good.

We had a quiet New Years Eve at home. The lone local taverna that is still open hosted a holiday banquet but we did not feel up to extended partying.

Our highlight was a visit to our door by two kalanda singers. If you don't know what that means, you can research Greece festivals on our full service Paros web site.

Cheers,