Continuing the Easter weekend…
Saturday night I met Maria and we went to stand at the bottom of the church with everyone else from the district. There were so many people you could hardly move, again dressed in their finest and all bearing candles of various shapes & sizes. Because the local priest has to officiate the same ceremony elsewhere the proceedings started late, but this is Greece and things happen when they happen!
It was at about midnight that the firecrackers started to fly. The local lads gather on the steps outside the church and throw bangers towards the flat areas on the way down from the church, where on this night all the crowds are looking up. It’s a bit dangerous, to say the least, but no one seems phased. It really is like going back to the 70’s when there were very few rules in place & life was lived in a more carefree manner.
The crowds gazed up as the bangers rained down and fortunately there were no rogue sparks, near us at least. Once the bangers had finished, not so many this year as they are illegal, expensive & funded by individuals, not the church, we waited for someone to bring the flame from the church. This is the flame that has been blessed by the priest, carried to the people at the bottom of the steps & from which all candles are lit and carried home. There they are left to burn until they fade, mine lasted about 50 hours so I’m super blessed now.
The church looked beautiful all lit up and Maria was going up to hear liturgy after the crowds had dispersed. I didn’t want to sit in a cold church listening to incomprehensible Greek for hours so I came home and went to bed.
Here are the crowds filing back down towards the square carrying the flame back to their homes.
Sunday was feast day & I didn’t eat anything in anticipation, so by the time we started feasting at 1pm I was bloody starving. Avi (Aris’ Dad) did us a BBQ of lamb & sausages whilst Voula (his Mum) had marinated & roasted lamb in her big oven at home. Maria had made a liver dish with mushrooms from the forest she had dried, there was bread, salad from the garden, local saganaki cheese with chilli oil, tzatziki & booze.
It was all delicious & everyone ate way too much! I was joined at the table by Aris, Maria, his parents, a Belgian lady who comes every year & a group of six Turks who have been coming for thirty years to Easter lunch. The Turks speak no Greek or English, I speak only English, the Belgian lady speaks French, Dutch & English, Aris & Maria speak Greek & English, Avi speaks a little English, Greek & no Turkish & Voula speaks only Greek. To say conversation flowed would be a huge stretch! However food is a universal language, as is the raising of drinks in a salute.
I taught the Turks to say ‘bottoms up’ & they taught me to say…I can’t remember now! It was a lot of fun & everyone seemed to enjoy the day very much. We played music from around the world & of course the egg cracking game, which Aris was very good at.
Maria did a traditional dance, I swayed to a bit of Buble & the Turks played a song about a woman with black eyes. I presume this meant the colour of her iris’ rather than an injury?!?
Note the crosses on the door frame. These are burnt in each Easter using the smoke from the candle & are a symbol of good luck for the year ahead. So that was Greek Orthodox Easter, a week long celebration of religion, food & community. Maria gave me lots of information about what was happening & why certain things were done but I won’t go into details as most of it fell out of my head straight away!
The week after Easter has been a quiet one, although there have been more people around as it’s school holidays & the weather was not bad at the start of the week. It’s bloody cold, overcast, wet & windy here again now but I actually made it to the beach on Tuesday where I sat in the shade with a coffee. There were nutters lying in the full sun but it’s too much for my delicate skin.
On Wednesday Maria & I went to stay in Lampou Myloi at their other house for the night. On the drive down we pulled over so I could take a pic of the poppy field. It’s a riot of red & absolutely beautiful. There was someone with an easel set up painting, which I’m sure would be been better than my pic, I can’t do it justice, but just know this…it’s gorgeous.
Maria took me to the village of Moria where we were able to stand underneath the Roman aqueduct, part of which I showed a couple of weeks ago, further upstream. This structure has been in situ since the late second or early third century & in places is still in its original condition. It rises to 600 metres & has at various times seen some restorations which are ongoing with metal scaffolding & pointing being in evidence.
It’s hard to convey the scale & impressiveness of this structure. Not only is it a feat of architecture but also one of engineering, not just because of the structure itself but because of the purpose of the whole venture. With a carrying capacity of 127,000 cubic metres a day, a distance of 22km & a route that was entirely supported by gravity, its bloody amaze balls. Don’t dare to attribute the genius to the Romans though, even though it’s called a Roman Aqueduct, it’s a Greek structure & shame on anyone who thinks otherwise!
Here I am walking toward it for a scale pic. If you zoom in you might be able to see the incredible brick work across the top. The blocks of grey marble are enormous & the whole thing is so imposing. There is a road running beneath it & there were Ute’s passing under like it was just another thing to navigate, which of course for the locals it is!
From Moria we went further up to Pigi which has a lovely big square & church. We had dinner at a Kafenio on the square which served food of the day. Kafenio’s are dotted everywhere & are traditional restaurants serving what they have cooked that day, booze, coffee & companionship. We ate bread, salad, dip, keftedes (fried meat balls) & pork in red sauce. It was delicious & the beer we washed it down with was perfect.
The following day we went down to Mitilini & I indulged in a little retail therapy 😍 shopping here is interesting because people are wearing quite different things. I just wanted a pair of jeans but it proved to be harder than it should have been. Anyway, shopping done we made our way slowly back to Petra, via the Chapel of Saint George at the abandoned army base up the road. Maria likes to keep the candle lit there & does some maintenance whilst she’s there.
The frescos on the walls are lovely, painted by a man who was in the army & based there. It’s in a spot that no one would visit much, I don’t think, but it’s lovely & I was happy I got the chance to see it. Maria takes the candle lighting seriously & I’m really lucky that I get to see all these little places that others never would & hear all the stories, history & local info.
The remainder of the week has been fairly quiet, with the weather taking a turn for the worse. I have been spending time sitting in cafe’s writing this week & I’m pleased to report that I’m three chapters into the novel. I’m really enjoying writing & it’s like a dream come true sitting in a cafe on a Greek island writing a book. Sorry, not sorry 💋
