Itisallgreek2me

Antonia and I, Hania Harbour

Pleased to be able to report, I have recovered well from my chilled body state and all but ready to set off early tomorrow to walk the 18km through the Samaria Gorge – finally!  Can’t tell you how many years I have wanted to do this, always there has been something to prevent me doing so, this time I’m on my way!  

The last two evenings, Antonia and I have ventured out around 2000 hours to walk (known here as Volta) to the harbour and shops.  Last night through the Old Town and down to look for Antonia’s nephew (another Vassilis) who operates one of the horse and cart’s on the waterfront.  Took us for a ‘stroll’ – very pleasant and informed us well on the current health of Vassilis horse.  The horse is only about 12 months’ old and came from the nephew who brought it into this world.  Apparently the horse has been very unwell, however, not as a result of evil eyes but rather Vassilis being anxious for the horse to grow and be strong, he has been over feeding it, to a point where it could neither eat nor shit and was close to bursting it’s gut.  The two men have kept a 24 hour vigil now for several days, the nephew taking over from Vassilis when he has come home to sleep at nights, until he returns in the morning. 

Friday evening we had taken note of a restaurant which we both felt would be worth checking out and so it was that last night we ended up at Restaurant Bakaliarakia for dinner.  It is not often that you find food in a restaurant in Greece equal to that you become accustomed to in the home, however, at Bakaliarakia we found it.  Feasted on Soupies (cuttlefish cooked with dill, olives, tomato, onion, wine, oil), Bakaliarakia Tiganita (fried cod) with Skordalia (garlic sauce) Salata (salad of mixed fancy lettuce, tomato, caper leaves, caramelised courgette, cheese) and bread.  Finished with complimentary Tsikoudia (grape-based spirit made from the distillation of the pieces of grapes, including stems and seeds, that were pressed for the wine making process).  Served with the spirit were Loukoumades (made from deep fried dough soaked in sugar syrup or honey and cinnamon and sprinkled with sesame seeds).  Total cost 20.80 Euro for 2 persons – very cheap.  On the walk home, stopped at a friend of Antonia’s who offered us fresh apricots from her own tree – delicious, no apricot you could buy in a shop would be worth eating after tasting those we had last night. 

Antonia is at the beach right now and I am hoping to make it there too as soon as I finish my work here.  I received today email confirmation of my room at Hotel Stavris in Chora Sfakion, 27 Euro per night and with Internet connection.  When I have completed my final packing for the walk, I will only be carrying the minimum in my day pack, I hope my Notebook PC will be with me, in which case there will be a new blog posted late our time tomorrow – Monday.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 6th, 2010 at 9:02 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.