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Published: December 17th 2022
Where there is a sea, there are pirates… ~ Greek Proverb
HE SAID... Today we were travelling west from Poros to
Nafplio– by ferry and minibus.
We woke early and prepared for our departure from Poros, the last of four islands on our Saronic Gulf adventure. We were returning to the Greek mainland, which in reality had been visible on the western horizon the whole time we’d been exploring Aegina, Moni, Poros and Hydra.
We made our way down to Hotel Pavlou’s outdoor dining area for breakfast, and while the service was a little slow, the staff were trying hard. I settled for Greek yoghurt, fruit, tea and juice. It was a simple breakfast, but enjoyable all the same. Hotel Pavlou was a little too far from Poros Town, and some of the staff were annoying (to put it mildly), but our room was comfortable and the view from the breakfast area was fantastic. So all in all, it had served its purpose. I would never return to Hotel Pavlou, but I’d most definitely return to Poros.
We donned our packs after breakfast and walked a short distance along the foreshore to a tiny water taxi moored at a wooden jetty. This was to be our transport
across the narrow channel that separates Poros from the Peloponnese peninsula. As we filed onto the jetty, a bloke ran down from a nearby house and helped us load our packs onto the tiny boat as it rocked and swayed in the swell. He was the captain, and he operated the boat single-handedly. You really can’t get any more local than this.
It was a great trip across the choppy channel. This was the type of boat I thought we were going to be travelling on during our Greek adventures. It was very small, and we were sitting at sea level, so I could have let my hand dangle in the water and feel the spray of the ocean on my face (if I’d leant out one of the boarding doors). However, I was more than happy to stay inside the tiny cabin, as the wind was cool on our 15-minute crossing.
When we clambered off the boat at Galatas, a small town on the Peloponnese peninsula, it was the first time we’d been on the Greek mainland since leaving Athens three days earlier. We walked to a nearby bakery and picked up some lunch provisions, then jumped
into a minibus and made our way southward, then westward, along a narrow coastal road. While our final destination was Nafplio, we had a couple of stops on-route – an apiary in Kranidi, and an archaeological site in Epidavros.
The road was steep and the land was parched, but this came as no surprise, because we had been staring at this barren landscape from the Saronic Gulf islands for the past three days. Derelict houses stood alone amidst olive groves and fruit trees. The rural surrounds of the Peloponnese were beginning to feel very familiar.
We arrived at Bairaktaris Apiary, a family-run apiculture business with the brand name ‘Ermionis’, in the mid-morning. The view to the distant Bay of Kilada from the sprawling property was stunning, and I was fascinated by the stone fences that dominated the arid farmland. The apiary sells honey and curates a honey and bee museum, and our first activity was a honey tasting.
We tasted thyme honey, heather honey, carob honey and herb honey with thyme. I doubt I would have been able to isolate the flavours if it had been a blind tasting, but my clear preference was the thyme-flavoured honey.
Following the tasting, we walked to the honey and bee museum (housed in a quaint stone cottage on the property), where our friendly host Elena offered some interesting insights into the psychology of bees.
I’d started to flag somewhat, possibly due to the amount of information on offer, so it was very welcome news to hear we were about to be served some home-made fare. We settled at an outside table and snacked on
spanakopita (spinach and feta phyllo pie) straight from the oven, homemade bread with fresh honey, and Greek yoghurt with walnuts and honey. This remarkable spread was complemented with hot mountain tea. Brewed in a huge teapot, I could not get enough of this refreshing herby beverage.
The apiary was populated with quite a few cats, so Ren was in heaven. However, we couldn’t linger for too long, as we had another stop on-route to Nafplio. We left the apiary just after midday and headed north to Epidavros. As our minibus climbed into the Peloponnese hills, I couldn’t help but smile as majestic wind turbines stood tall on the horizon. We drove through tiny villages, traversed narrow lanes and passed market stalls on the side
of the road. We continued to climb and descend mountain roads, where the arid landscape was dotted with green flora.
We arrived at Epidavros around 2pm. It had been a long drive, but we were looking forward to visiting this archaeological site. We’d seen it featured on
A Greek Odyssey with Bettany Hughes leading up to this trip, and while I’m not a fan of Bettany’s presenting approach, the six episodes of this 2020 television series had some great footage of Greece.
Epidavros is an open and leafy archaeological site that includes a museum, and I immediately loved the atmosphere of the place. While many of the ruins (including the impressive stadium) have been excavated to turn back years and years of neglect, I liked the way the site has been allowed to retain its intended spaciousness and lightness. We immediately embarked on a guided tour of the site and accompanying museum, with the main focus being the Sanctuary of Asclepius (which is also known colloquially as the Wellness Centre or Healing Centre of Ancient Epidavaros).
The standout feature of the site (for me) was the Theatre of Epidavros. This impressive theatre offered incredible views of the
surrounding landscape from its uppermost tiers, where a few healing activists were engaged in meditative practice. Our guide offered an impressive demonstration of the theatre’s acoustics, but then went a step too far by trying to convince us that we could ‘feel’ the vibrations from the sound of our own hands clapping. I couldn’t feel a thing, and neither could Ren.
If I was unwell, the Sanctuary of Asclepius would be the worst place for me to visit. For a start, snake bites were used as a curative practice. Bloody hell! But it gets worse. Patients were required to watch theatrical performances as a healing medium. Oh please! The wellness of the mind was considered integral to – and inseparable from – the wellness of the body, so patients positioned themselves in the theatre’s tiers and watched drama as part of their healing process. As an avowed non-thespian, this would be my idea of hell-on-earth. My general state of health would progressively get worse with every play and monologue I was forced to sit through. To recover completely, I would need to be kept at arm’s length from any type of theatre – especially musical theatre! 😉
All
jokes aside, I felt very relaxed in the Sanctuary of Asclepius. I loved its openness and airiness, and I understood entirely how a person’s general wellbeing would be improved significantly in this type of environment (albeit without the snakes and thespians).
The only downside to our Epidavros visit was the choice of location for lunch. We’d purchased lunch provisions earlier in the day from a small bakery in Galatas, and we’d been looking forward to finding an ideal picnic location to enjoy them. A soft area of ground within the ruins would have been ideal, or maybe the upper tiers of the theatre with the stunning Peloponnese mountains in the distance. But no, our guide decided the best place for lunch was a concrete barrier opposite a couple of food vans near the site entrance, with tourists walking past us as they entered and exited the place. We had just been in the grounds of an ancient wellness centre, one of the most atmospheric places you could possibly imagine, and we stopped for lunch beside a car park. One of the reasons we travel with companies that employ local guides is to avoid situations like this. I had assumed
(wrongly) that our guide had better plans for lunch. As Suzy Kassem so eloquently states: ‘Assumptions are quick exits for lazy minds.’ I need to stop making them!
Anyway, we left Epidavros in the mid-afternoon and headed straight for Nafplio, a short 30-minute drive in the minibus. When we walked into Hotel Agamemnon, our accommodation for the next two days, we loved it immediately. Located on the waterfront with incredible views of Bourtzi (a small island fortress in the middle of Nafplio harbour), it was the ideal base to explore this picturesque coastal city. Our room had a small balcony overlooking the harbour, and we made a conscious decision to enjoy it. Really enjoy it. We often spend so much time out and about that we barely get to appreciate the places where we shower and sleep. This room with a view was extraordinary, so we needed to make time to sit quietly on the balcony and take in the fresh sea air.
We walked around the streets of Nafplio in the late afternoon, getting a sense of where our hotel was in relation to everything else in the old port area. We picked up some birthday gifts
and cakes for a couple of fellow travellers (who coincidentally shared a birthday), then slowly made our way back to the hotel. We’d been in Nafplio for two hours, and we already loved the calm, serene feel of the place.
In the early evening we jumped into a minibus and headed to an
ouzo tasting (an aniseed flavoured Greek spirit) at a local distillery. I couldn’t get there quickly enough. On-route, however, our driver made a quick detour to Palamidi Fortress, a sprawling castle that overlooks the city from a 200+ metre high ridge on the eastern side of the old city area. We stood in the carpark and enjoyed extraordinary views of Nafplio and beyond, barely able to hold our cameras steady in the buffeting wind. We didn’t go into the fortress, but we knew we’d return the following day.
We clambered back into the minibus and travelled a short distance to Karonis Distillery, a family-owned and family-run business located on the road leading to Palamidi Fortress. Yiannis, our host for the evening (and one of the current owners of the business), explained the process of
ouzo distilling with aplomb. I sometimes zone out when procedural details
permeate a conversation, but Yiannis was engaging, so I listened intently. The process seemed to share similarities with gin distilling, but I couldn’t vouch for the accuracy of this. Having filled us in on the business of
ouzo production, Yiannis led us to a small covered area outside the distillery’s museum and shop, where we sampled the following.
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sertiko ouzo > special
ouzo >
tsipouro > aged
tsipouro >
mastika I loved the
sertiko ouzo over ice, and I enjoyed the aged
tsipouro (which had a whiskey-like taste). Thanks to the hospitality of Yiannis and his wife Xenia, this was a very enjoyable experience. Xenia sat with us throughout the tasting, freely sharing stories of their life – including their wedding day. If Yiannis hadn’t gently wound up the tasting, we would happily have stayed a few more hours! If I had to describe the visit in a single sentence, it would be as follows: ‘A fantastic experience in a stunning location with a lovely couple.’ When we purchased a small bottle of
sertiko ouzo, the friendly staff made sure it was double-wrapped and sealed to ensure it would survive the next few weeks in our packs. I’m
already looking forward to sampling it when we return to Australia.
With our
ouzo packed and wrapped, we reluctantly bid farewell to Yiannis and Xenia and headed into the city centre for dinner. We were dining at Pidalio Restaurant, and the place was heaving. There was a queue of people outside, waiting patiently to get a table. Luckily, we had booked. We settled at a long table on the pavement and ordered octopus ravioli and a Greek salad. The ravioli was sensational, and the dining experience was enhanced considerably by the amazing setting and friendly staff. We finished the meal with a complimentary dessert, then slowly ambled back to our hotel in the balmy night air.
We had completely fallen for this atmospheric city, and we were looking forward to exploring it further the following day.
SHE SAID... We woke to our first rainy morning of the trip. We were travelling from Poros to
Nafplio, and we had a very busy schedule along the way. I sincerely hoped the rain wouldn’t ruin our day. The only other time it had rained on this trip had been in the late afternoon in Athens. For some reason,
rainy evenings and nights don’t bother me as much as rainy mornings.
Our breakfast at Hotel Pavlou wasn’t as rushed as our fiasco of a breakfast the morning before, but it was hardly a leisurely start to the day. I had orange juice, scrambled eggs and toast… and multiple cups of tea to make up for being deprived of it the morning before. 😊
I also managed to capture a photo of the very beautiful hotel cat. He looked very much like a well-fed Russian Blue, with startling green eyes that could hypnotise the hotel guests into feeding him. Even the non-cat people in the group admitted he was a gorgeous feline. 😄
Thankfully the rain held off for the few minutes it took us to walk to a tiny pontoon down the road from the hotel. We caught a small water taxi for the short 15-minute trip to Galatas on the Peloponnese mainland.
The oddest thing happened on this boat ride. About half way into the journey, the captain stopped the boat and fished out what looked like a water-logged pillow from the water. He explained that such an item could seriously damage a boat’s
engine. I could see his point, but when Andrew whispered to me that this could be the most brazen drug pick-up ploy ever, that whacky idea really took hold with me. What better cover than to do it in broad daylight and in full sight of a group of tourists? 😉
It was a lovely boat ride, despite the rain and choppy waves. We got another look at the waterfront area of Poros Town, with the town’s blue and white clocktower standing proudly on the hill. It was still beautiful even on such a grey and drizzly day.
The wind had really picked up by the time we docked in Galatas, and it was a bit rough disembarking at the pier. The captain had to hold onto the boat ropes with all his strength to keep it close enough to the pier for us to get off without ending up in the sea.
We were going to use a private minibus for the remaining four days of the Intrepid
Greece Real Food Adventure trip, and we met Spiros who was not only a very good driver, but also the owner of the transport company used by Intrepid
Travel. He was a lovely chap, and even generously let us use his phone as a hot spot to check emails.
Before we left Galatas, we shopped at the town’s famed bakery – La Frianderie – which was directly across the road from the pier. We bought hot drinks and were also instructed to get items for a picnic lunch later that day. Andrew and I picked a
spanakopita (spinach and feta phyllo pie), a
koulouri (a bready sesame encrusted ring), a ham and cheese filled baguette and two
bougatsas (custard phyllo pies).
I had loved our time on the Saronic Gulf islands, but I was now very excited to be on the Peloponnese peninsula. It seems to be a very highly prized area for food production, with particular value placed on its honey, olives, olive oil, fruit and wine. And we would be meeting the producers of most of these products in the next few days.
Spiros drove us from Galatas to Kranidi, a small town about 1.5 hours across the Argolis peninsula. The Peloponnese peninsula is shaped somewhat like a large relaxed hand, and the finger-like land protrusions are peninsulas themselves. It tickled me that
we were on a peninsula on a peninsula. 😊
We were visiting an apiary which sat in the hills above Kranidi town. I’m sure there must have been a more direct landlocked route across the peninsula, but I really appreciated the scenic coastal road we took that closely hugged the gorgeous coastline for some of the journey. At points, the waterline was right up to the road. We passed many olive farms on small hills that stretched as far as the eye could see. There were gnarly old olive trees lining the road, and also demarcating ancient borders between fruit orchards.
Elena, a fourth-generation owner of the Bairaktaris Apiary and Farm, met us as we drove up to the property. I took an instant liking to Elena and her very warm and engaging manner; this good impression was also helped by the fact that there were many cats milling about her feet. They were clearly very much besotted by her. 😊
The property was a vast olive grove, but the focal point of our visit was to hear about their organic apiary and to taste their very regional honey. Elena gave us a brief history of the
farm and an overview of the honey production before walking us to their tasting rooms. We tasted honey that had been produced from carob, heather, thyme and mixed herbs. The different types of honey are produced by what’s in flower at different times of the year, and it’s also determined by the variable climatic conditions. As with our honey tasting in Athens, the thyme honey was my favourite, but the milder and sweeter heather honey (produced in autumn) was also very interesting. Their honey is sold under the brand name Ermionis.
They had a small honey museum onsite to help explain how bee hives work, and to demonstrate the process of honey production and harvest. The museum building was a very charming stone cottage, and I loved the demonstration all the more for it.
They also had another small stone building that housed an ancient olive mill. The stone buildings sat on a gently sloping hill among the green olive trees, with the beautiful blue bay of Kilada in the background… which made for a very picturesque Mediterranean view for a mid-morning cup of tea!
We sat at a picnic table and had a tasting of their
Mountain Herb tea. It was refreshing, and quite delicious with an added teaspoon of thyme honey. Mountain tea is a much-loved Greek beverage that has been drunk since ancient times. It’s also called shepherd’s tea and is valued for its medicinal properties. From what I’ve been able to find out, the dried herb used is called sideritis or ironwart. Although it’s now farmed, it’s apparently at its most potent when grown wild. The tea was lovely and aromatic, but it also had a very distinct savoury note that I had to mask with the honey.
Elena served us some
spanakopita (spinach and feta phyllo pie) and slices of homemade sourdough bread that went perfectly with the thyme honey. We also had small tubs of goat’s yoghurt that were served with honey and walnuts! The yoghurt was seriously delicious, but being slightly lactose intolerant, and facing a few more hours in a confined minibus that afternoon, I put the interests of the group first and kept my goat’s yoghurt intake to a minimum. 😄
All of the farm’s 13 cats materialised when we sat down for morning tea, and try as I might, I can’t remember a word of
what Elena said after the cats appeared. Elana had to interrupt her conversation with us and feed the cats to distract them from our goat’s yoghurt. But clearly the dry cat food wasn’t appealing enough, and we had to physically restrain a few of the bolder ones from trying to sneak their way onto the table via our laps!
We bid Elena farewell and continued our drive to our next stop – the ruins of Epidavros. The passing landscape changed from olive groves to citrus trees to stone fruit trees, and then to vineyards with white grapes that looked ready for harvest.
On arriving at the Epidavros ruins, we met our local guide Katerina who walked us through the site. Epidavros had started as a temple to Apollo, but later morphed into an ancient wellness centre focussed on Apollo’s son Asclepius (the god of healing). According to mythology, Asclepius had found cures for all human illnesses and was consequently killed by Zeus for disturbing the natural order of life and death.
The wellness centre was revolutionary in that it used a holistic approach of treating not just the illness but the whole patient. The basic premise was
that to cure an illness and be healthy, you had to treat the person’s physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects as one system. It was very well regarded, and was probably also the first ‘hospital’ that performed surgery in the world. It attracted thousands of people from around the Mediterranean and as far off as Egypt.
Katerina threw a lot of dates and details at us. I’m not the best at listening to long explanations at the best of times, but being hungry definitely didn’t help my concentration. However, there were a few very interesting points I took away from Katerina – mostly the way she tied the past to the present. One example of this was that the Greeks regarded snakes as sacred and used them in healing rituals to honour Asclepius. Snake venom was thought to be curative and their skin-shedding was seen as a symbol of rebirth. The image of a snake twisted around a staff is still used the symbol of modern medicine.
We’d been in Greece for exactly a week and I’d been astonished and delighted on a daily basis at how many ancient Greek words have been commandeered by the English language.
My favourites (to-date) have been:
>
akro which means ‘high’ or ‘edge’, as in acro-bat;
>
exodus which means ‘exit’ or ‘departure’;
>
demos and
kratos which mean ‘people’ and ‘power’, and were combined to give us ‘democracy’; and
>
koimitirion which directly translates as ‘dormitories of the dead’, and morphed into ‘cemetery’ at some point. Isn’t ‘dormitory of the dead’ a remarkably accurate description of a cemetery? I absolutely loved it.
Katerina added two more words to this list from the Epidavros context:
>
psykhe – which meant ‘soul’, but we’ve distorted psyche to mean the conscious and unconscious mind; and
>
gymnasion – which comes from the word
gymnos (meaning ‘nude’), and was a place they’d undertake physical activity while in the nude. All I can say is thank goodness we added clothing into the mix when we appropriated the word gymnasium for modern usage! 😊
We explored the Epidavros site, most of which was within the vast Sanctuary of Asclepius. The site was active in one form or another for many centuries, so the architecture of the ruins clearly spanned a vast time period. We walked past the rectangular hot and cold baths (from around
300 BC), which was close to the
katagogeion (accommodation structures that housed the many pilgrims and patients seeking treatments at Epidavros), and the
hestiatorion complex. This huge
hestiatorion space held the dining halls, an
odeum (odeon for musical performances) and a temple. There was also a stadium with its gymnasium area, the
stoa of aboton / enkoimesis (the strictly regulated incubation hall for healing and medical procedures), the perfectly circular
tholos (tomb structure) which was sadly in the midst of restoration and shrouded in scaffolding, and various other temples.
The cordoned off areas on the site were in various states of preservation and restoration. While some of the constructions were very apparent, others required a very vivid imagination to conjure up imagery of the structure from a field of rocks. Archaeological digs and restoration works were still ongoing, and I’m sure the explanatory theories we were being offered will evolve further when more of the site is excavated and understood.
The small on-site museum houses original artefacts that have been uncovered on the site. Most were statues of figurines and gods, but there were architectural features too. I enjoyed seeing the original columns – a combination of Doric,
Ionic and Corinthian styles, representing the vast architectural history of the site. I especially loved being able to examine the capital (the top) of an extremely well-preserved Corinthian column. I have never seen one up close before (given they are usually several metres high up in the air by nature). The artisan’s workmanship was mind-blowing, with the marble carved so thin that you could see a light shine through it.
Thankfully we had avoided the rain while walking around the site, but the sky was still thick with heavy rain clouds. We ended the guided tour at the amazingly well-preserved Theatre of Epidavros (built in 4 BC). I had never before considered the distinct difference between an ancient Greek odeon and a Greek theatre; but I suppose I’d never been to an archaeological site that had both. They are both constructed similarly, however, an odeon was much smaller and was a roofed structure used for intimate plays and singing recitals, whereas a Greek theatre was open aired and very much larger (also, the circular Roman amphitheatres developed from the idea of the Greek semi-circular theatres).
Even though the Epidavros theatre was built of limestone, it’s considered one of
the best preserved ancient Greek structures in existence. The theatre has fabulous acoustics which Katerina got us to experience by standing in the centre of the stage area and clapping. We could definitely hear the acoustic effect, but none of us could feel the vibrations in our bodies that Katerina insisted we should. I’m so glad Mariana volunteered first for the vibrations demonstration and was very honest in her reaction. If it had been me, I would have likely felt pressured by Katerina’s big personality and passion, and most probably would have half-heartedly admitted to feeling ‘something’. Groupthink is a very real phenomenon, and thankfully once Mariana had said ‘no’, it was much easier for the rest of us to be honest and agree with her… despite Katerina looking at us as if we were lesser in some way for not feeling the vibrations in our cores! 😄
The theatre was visually outstanding, both for its pleasing architectural symmetry and also for the view from its higher tiers. The view of the stone seats in the foreground with a background of clouds above the serene green valleys and hills created a very lovely picture. I could have sat there
for hours… but the stone seats definitely required some sort of cushioning for prolonged sitting.
As I mentioned earlier, we had bought lunch items from a bakery in Galata that morning, and I had been looking forward to our promised picnic lunch. Therefore, I was majorly disappointed when Georgia (our group leader) pointed to a low stone wall at the dusty entrance of the Epidavros site as our lunch spot. It was definitely not the lovely setting I had been imagining for a picnic lunch on our first day on the scenic Peloponnese peninsula. Luckily the food from La Frianderie bakery was outstanding, and I chose to focus on that rather than the small pile of dog poo on one side of us, and the small clouds of dust that drifted towards us with each passing group. I really need to reign in my expectations, but I thought it was very much a missed opportunity for what could have been a memorable picnic lunch.
Not very much later, we arrived in pretty Nafplio. Nafplio was the first capital of Greece after the Greek War of Independence, and its grandeur is still very apparent. It was visually stunning on
approach, and it only got better. It sits between a hillside covered in old Venetian fortress walls on one side, and waterfront harbour beauty on the other.
It had been a relatively long day of travelling, and the vision of Nafplio was exactly what was needed to reenergise us – a beautiful town with a very welcoming vibe. We felt at home within minutes of being there!
Our Hotel Agamemnon was absolutely gorgeous too. It sat on the western edge of the old town, on a lovely palm lined promenade with lots of lively restaurants and cafes all around it. We were overjoyed to see that our second-storey room had a private balcony which looked out at Bourtzi, the amazing tiny island fort on the Argolic Gulf. The Bourtzi fortress is used as a popular graphical representation of Nafplio, and I felt extremely lucky to have it seemingly floating not far outside our balcony.
As I looked down at the beautiful promenade below our balcony, I wished we’d been able to see into the future an hour or so ago… because the bench seats right outside our hotel that looked out to that gorgeous island fortress would
have made for a picture-perfect picnic lunch spot.
We didn’t have long to admire our room with a view, as we had to sneakily meet Dani in the foyer. We were going hunting for a cake for Kathrin and Mariana (whose birthdays were both on the 5th). On the recommendation of the hotel receptionist, we decided against a cake and made our way to the beautiful L'amande Patisserie to pick a selection of syrupy Greek sweets to share later that evening. We also stopped by a shop that made necklaces and worry beads and bought them each an evil-eye bracelet as presents typical of Greece.
I absolutely loved the old town of Nafplio that we walked through… with its narrow cobblestone streets lined with beautifully colourful venetian buildings, and narrower alleys that ended in small squares or unexpectedly opened into bigger squares with grand stone churches. I couldn’t wait to explore it properly the next day.
We also had a few housekeeping duties, which included finding an ATM for us and a supermarket for Dani. With success on both fronts, we returned to the hotel to get ready for a visit to a family-run
ouzo distillery and
partake in an
ouzo tasting.
Ouzo is undeniably woven deeply through Greek culture, and we’d been drinking this very Greek spirit since arriving in the country. We were eager to get a better understanding of not just the process of making
ouzo, but also getting an insight into its cultural relevance.
On the way to the
ouzo distillery, we pulled into the Palamidi Fortress to have a quick look. This gigantic 19th century Venetian built fortress with eight bastions sits rather majestically on the crest of a hill, guarding the city of Nafplio from invading ships and armies. The fortress was the stronghold of the Turks during their occupation, and Christians were forbidden from setting foot within it. It was later key in the fight for liberation, with Greek rebels seizing the fortress in 1822. On a more peaceful note, the view from the fortress was extremely beautiful. Andrew and I made plans to check it out the next day.
On arriving at the Karonis Distillery, we were met by Yiannis (one of the owners). He led us into a large shed, where we sat among the atmospheric copper distilling stills and listened to a very enjoyable informative
session. Yiannis gave a pitch perfect presentation. It had just enough detail for us to understand the technical process, their business history vs current market practices, and the wider cultural connotations of
ouzo and
tsipouro in Greek society.
Basically
ouzo is a spirit flavoured with anise and other herbs. And not dissimilar to gin, each distiller’s market edge is in the secret choice and recipe of botanicals used. On the other hand,
tsipouro is distilled from grapes and probably started in an effort to use the grape pulp and skins left over from the wine making process. To further complicate the nomenclature, in Crete they flavour their
tsipouro with anise and call it
raki.
When we sat down to taste their products, we met Yiannis’ vivacious wife Xenia. We tasted two
ouzos – their original recipe and a ‘special’ edition, two
tsipouros – an unaged and aged version, a
mastika (liqueur seasoned with resin from the mastic tree) and their
limoncello (lemon liqueur). All this was accompanied by more-ish cheese breadsticks that I could easily have eaten a whole plateful of.
Yiannis and Xenia are 5th generation owners of the business, and they were wonderful hosts. Their
ouzo was definitely one of the better and more beautifully rounded ones I’ve tasted, but more than that, I loved being in the company of sincerely nice people who genuinely wanted to share their home with us. We bought a small bottle of the original
ouzo we both loved, and hoped it would make it home in one piece. Had we not had a dinner booking, I felt that we could have stayed and chatted to Xenia and Yiannis for a few more hours.
Before we left, Xenia helped us to surprise the birthday girls with their birthday treats. I think this personal celebration also helped us all feel like we were in a friend or family member’s home, (rather than people we’d literally met an hour or so ago). I don’t think there is a word in English to describe the multiple attempts at saying goodbye before you actually leave a place. It happens at our extended family gatherings, and it can get so absurd that we usually start saying our goodbyes an hour before we actually have to leave. Leaving Yiannis and Xenia’s place felt very much the same. 😊
Georgia had booked us a table
for dinner at Pidalio Restaurant. It was a very popular restaurant in the new town, with a long queue down the block – which wasn’t too bad, because they were served glasses of wine while they waited! On the recommendation of the waiter, Andrew and I ordered the octopus ravioli. It came in a bisque type sauce, and it was seriously excellent. We also shared our now ubiquitous dish at almost every meal – a Greek salad.
Georgia had mentioned to us that Greeks eat very seasonally, and they only eat Greek salads at this time of year while the tomatoes are at their very best. And she was right, because this simple salad is delicious and such a delight to eat every day. Georgia had also slyly added that restaurants have learnt to keep the salad on the menu all year because tourists want to order it even in winter… 😊
Our dinner gathering wasn’t as convivial as normal. It had been a long day, and half the table was understandably a lot quieter than usual. However, the other half was overly animated. I have a theory that on about the fifth-ish day of a group trip,
you start to see more of people’s true personalities. Obviously, there are some people who let it all hang out from Day 1, but others take a little while longer. Or as a friend once hilariously put it: ‘You can’t hold your tummy in forever’! 😄
After a lovely slice of complimentary
mosaiko (chocolate and biscuit log), we walked back to our hotel. It was a nice walk through the new town, which gradually morphed into the old town. As we neared our hotel, Andrew and I detoured via the waterfront. What a lovely ambiance this city had at night.
This had essentially been a travel day, but we had squeezed in many activities along the way. And I was exhausted. I stood on our balcony, breathed in the fresh sea air and admired the beautifully lit Bourtzi fortress. On closing the balcony door, I barely made it under the blankets before I fell asleep.
We had a full day of more Nafplion activities lined up for the next day, and I couldn’t wait!
See you around Nafplio!
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Chris L.
non-member comment
Marvellous theatre
An archeological and architectural marvel. How lucky you are to experience it.