When it comes to taking pictures I like doors, statues, balconies and washing lines, Kim on the other hand likes people pictures so I thought I might share a few of them with you.
This one was taken on the Greek Island of Folegandros. The woman seems to have drifted out of the conversation, maybe the men were talking football?
Posted in Arts and Crafts, backpacking, Beaches, Cyclades, Food, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Literature, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Folegandros, Greek Beaches, Greek Food, Greek islands, Life, Photography, Travel
When it comes to taking pictures I like doors, statues, balconies and washing lines, Kim on the other hand likes people pictures so I thought I might share a few of them with you.
This one was taken on the Greek Island of Folegandros…
What a fabulous island Folegandros is and completely relaxing and charming and in my top five list of personal favourites.
We first visited in 2007 and the village squares were colourful, vibrant and bursting with an eclectic energy that spilled into the streets from the balconies and terraces of the bars and restaurants.
It was an enchanting place with picturesque settings plucked straight from the pages of a travel book, pretty squares with restaurants under trees where visitors were struggling to make menu selections next to local people just sitting and talking and passing the evening away.
The streets were alive with friendly people and there was an unspoilt ambience that drew us down twisting side streets and through narrow alleys that led always to even more clusters of inviting tavernas that made choosing a dining venue very difficult indeed. Eventually we selected a table at the side of the main square and we enjoyed excellent food and amused ourselves people watching as there was a constant stream of local people and holiday makers moving continuously through the pretty square.
Posted in back packing, Cyclades, Food, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, island hopping, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Folegandros, Greek Ferries, Greek Island Hopping, Greek islands, Milos, Photography, Travel
Just in case anyone was interested it was this one…
Posted in Arts and Crafts, Beaches, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Natural Environment, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Corfu. Mevagissey. Anchors, Cornwall
When it comes to taking pictures I like doors, statues, balconies and washing lines, Kim on the other hand likes people pictures so I thought I might share a few of them with you.
This one was taken on the Greek Island of Amorgos…
I imagine this woman was taking a well earned break after a morning of hard graft housework.
We took a ride out to the Chora which cannot be seen from the sea or from the harbour but as we got closer we could see it above us like a fresh snow fall on top of a mountain. From the outside it doesn’t look especially promising but once inside the walls of the town it is a different matter altogether. The town turns in on itself in an introspective sort of way and inside there were narrow shady streets and lots of traditional cafés and tavernas where getting disorientated and lost is a certainty.
It was a lazy place where time goes by slowly and no one is in a particular hurry about anything. If this was Naxos or Ios the Chora would have been teeming with shops and fast food places but this was a local town for local people and completely unspoilt by the retinue of tourist shops that can be found on more popular islands.
We explored the streets and in a very stiff breeze climbed to the very top to the redundant windmills that overlook the town and the Venetian castle that is built on top of a rocky outcrop that soars above it and its mass of dazzling white buildings.
On the way back we were ready for a second stroll through the Chora where we ambled through the corkscrew of twisting streets returning several times to exactly the same place passing by several churches, the castle, blue doors, blue sky, shady vines and friendly cafés and I knew that this was my kind of town.
The Chora is rather like a hippie time-warp, slow, lazy, faded and bleached, pot plants struggling in the midday sun and appropriately slow mood music in the tavernas and bars – it reminded me of a favourite pair of old denim jeans and my battered blue t-shirt that I am reluctant to throw away.
Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…
The ambience is compounded by cultural traditions. Village life retains a centuries old pace thanks in large part to the absence of motorised vehicles. Old men while away the afternoons sitting in the summer shade chatting. The labyrinthine, narrow lanes are the province of donkeys and wooden carts. Displays of ripe fruit – tomatoes, figs, golden apples – stand outside the little stores, the local catch is brought into the harbour daily, the wine and the raki is plentiful, good and cheap.
As we wandered around an old lady dressed all in black asked for help negotiating some difficult steps and we naturally obliged and in return for our assistance she treated us to her life story and tales of Amorgian life. Her name was Limonique and she told us that after sixty-five years of marriage she was now a widow so I guessed her age to be somewhere around eighty-five or so.
Posted in Arts and Crafts, Beaches, Cyclades, Europe, Food, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Literature, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Amorgos, Chor Amorgos, Culture, Cyclades, Greek Car Hire, Leonard Cohen Hydra, Life
When it comes to taking pictures I like doors, statues, balconies and washing lines, Kim on the other hand likes people pictures so I thought I might share a few of them with you.
This one was taken on the Greek Island of Amorgos….
“I would stare out the window at these telephone wires and think, how civilisation had caught up with me and I wasn’t going to be able to escape after all. I wasn’t going to be able to live this eleventh-century life that I had thought I had found for myself.” – Leonard Cohen
As we climbed we passed through what might be loosely described as fields with rows of derelict terraces and dry stonewalls that separated the hillside into equally measured individual plots of land. Amorgos is mostly inhospitable rock that has been baked hard in the sun for thousands of years but as recently as only fifty years ago people here were scraping away at the thin soil and removing the stones to try and make a living or to feed the family by growing fruit and vegetables.
Amorgians have a history of preserving the past and resisting progress. There is a sense of collective defiance perhaps explained by the fact that during the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas (1936-41) the island was used as a remote place of exile for political prisoners.
Fifty years ago the island didn’t have electricity, the tarmac roads that link the villages weren’t constructed until the 1990s and the modern ports which today welcome the large ferries are relatively recent additions. The island has a desalination plant now to provide fresh water but up until 2015 fresh water was shipped in and delivered by tankers.
Go to a bar today in Amorgos and they will serve you a glass of fresh water because they are proud of progress…
Click on an Image to scroll through the Gallery…
Posted in back packing, Beaches, Cyclades, Europe, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Natural Environment, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Aegiali Amorgos, Amorgos, Cyclades, Life Culture, Tholária Amorgos, Walking holidays
I am coming to the end of this project now. This one is from Corfu in the Greek Islands…
Posted in Age of Innocence, back packing, Cyprus, Europe, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Literature, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Corfu, Gerald Durell, Kalami, Laurence Durrell, Life, Photography, Travel, Washing Day, Washing Line Challenge
When it comes to taking pictures I like doors, statues, balconies and washing lines, Kim on the other hand likes people pictures so I thought I might share a few of them with you.
Kim it seems has a fascination with Greek Orthodox Priests especially when they are on the telephone. I wonder who they were calling?
Posted in Cathedrals, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Literature, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Amorgos, Folegandros, Greek islands, Greek Priests, Milos, People Pictures, Talking to God
“The sea’s curious workmanship: bottle green glass sucked smooth and porous by the waves: wood stripped and cleaned and bark swollen with salt…gnawed and rubbed: amber: bone: the sea” – Lawrence Durrell – Propero’s Cell
After a gap of about five years, maybe even more, this week I returned to the Driftwood Boat project, found my old sticks at the back of the shed and set to to build a boat.
This is a box of driftwood and other bits and pieces that I collected on various holidays to the Greek Islands and brought home in my hand luggage. Interestingly I never once was stopped at airport security or UK customs and asked to explain my unusual cargo.
So, it has been carefully assembled but now comes the tricky bit – negotiating with Kim on a place in the house to display it.
A year or so ago and two thousand miles from the Greek Islands I was in a seaside fishing village in Northumberland called Seaton Sluice.
Not an especially attractive name I agree but it turned out to be a delightful place with a working port full of fishing boats, wonderful rugged coastal scenery and a curious gaily painted blue shed.
A timber treasure house full of riches washed up from the sea and fashioned into wood carvings, trinkets and what you might generously describe as exclusive souvenirs by the hippie owner/artist with grizzled beard and wild hair. He might easily have been washed up from the sea himself. I thought immediately of Hemingway’s ‘Old Man and the Sea’ and Norman Lewis’ ‘Voices of the Old Sea’.
Here I am looking for inspiration…
Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…
“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach—waiting for a gift from the sea.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Posted in Arts and Crafts, back packing, Beaches, Europe, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Literature, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Amorgos, Greek Boats, Life, Model Making, Northumberland, Photography, Seaton Sluice, Travel
When it comes to taking pictures I like doors, statues, balconies and washing lines, Kim on the other hand likes people pictures so I thought I might share a few of them with you.
This one was taken whilst on an early morning walk on the Greek island of Rhodes…
We woke early and went to the Street of the Knights because this is one of the best preserved/restored medieval streets in Europe and we wanted to get there before the crowds. As soon as the cruise ships arrive and discharge their guests onto the quayside hundreds of people make straight for this place and it immediately loses its atmosphere and its charm.
The man in the picture had set the tables and was waiting for the tourists to arrive.
When it comes to taking pictures I like doors, statues, balconies and washing lines, Kim on the other hand likes people pictures so I thought I might share a few of them with you.
This one was taken in the village of Omodos in the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus…
I imagine people used to do this in the UK but not any more.
Posted in Cyprus, Europe, Greece, Greek islands, Greek Taverna, History, Literature, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Archbishop Makarios, Cyprus, Kykkos Monastery, Omodos, Paphos, Troodos Mountains
