Blessing the Water ~ in Greece

Theophany ~ the ‘showing forth of God’ or the ‘manifestation of God’

We were lucky to have our recent time in Greece encompass holidays. While Christmas and New Year’s Day were both were celebrated, neither came close though to the festivities in our village of Agios Nikolaos for January 6th’s Feast of Theophany, or Epiphany.

Agios Nickolas fishing port and main road

In the Christian world, Epiphany, 12 days after Christmas, pays tribute to the baptism of Christ when for the the first time the Holy Trinity appeared before mankind. Here the Orthodox Church celebrates the day, with Megas Agiamor, one of three types of Blessing of the Water that is done throughout the year by the church.

The season’s unusual cold spell that brought temperatures to all-time low’s and blanketed parts of the country with snow, had threatened to drive the religious celebration indoors. “If the weather is good enough it will likely take place at 10 in the morning,” we were told, ‘if it is bad it will take place in the church.”

The procession from the church to the waterfront in Ag. Nikolaos

The previous day’s storm winds died and clouds disappeared during the night. We woke to a cold, but blue sky day. The processional from the church to the water’s edge, took place around 10:30.

The processional - Jan. 6, 2015

The Priests were keepers of the Gospel and the Cross that would be blessed and tossed into the water a total of three times before the ceremony ended. The first two tosses, all part of the  service, seemed like practice runs to those of us less well-versed in the tradition.

The crowd gathered around the priests and the young robed assistants took their place at the water’s edge.

 

A blessing and a toss. . .while across the harbor, young men – members of the congregation readied themselves for the bone-chilling water . . .

 

The Cross is tossed. . .the race was on. . .

One of the three would be the first to reach the Cross.  That young man received a cash prize from the church. Then as tradition dictates, he added more to his ‘catch’ by taking it house-to-house and person-to-person blessing places and people who in turn made small donations – that he would get to keep.

This year's cross-bearer conducted blessings of homes and people

While he went to work delivering blessings, the gathered villagers celebrated, greeting each other and sipping a bit of Greek brandy, Mextaca, which had been served in plastic cups to the assembled. Some of us, like my friend Sue and I, returned to the café to finish our coffee and tea we’d been sipping while waiting for the processional to appear – we’d dashed off to watch the ceremony like everyone else. Our cups were where we’d left them . . .no one worried whether we’d return to pay or not. . .that’s the way it is in this village.

 

Thanks for stopping by – we always appreciate the time you spend with us.  Hope you’ll take a moment to comment, we love hearing from you! In our next post, we'll tell you how to get to this wonderful little village and our Stone House on the Hill.

This week’s link ups are with:
Travel Photo Thursday – Budget Traveler’s Sandbox  
Travel Inspiration – Reflections En Route  
Mosaic Monday – Lavender Cottage Gardening

Greece ~ Discovering Our “Secret” Garden

Having lived our entire lives in the US Pacific Northwest – where gardens are folded up and put away between October and May – it sounded idyllic to be able to ‘garden’ in December and January in Greece.

Our bedroom window

We were realists, though. We’d seen that garden: it needed work in the spring, it needed more work in the summer and when we walked through it the week before purchasing The Stone House on the Hill, it appeared it might take the rest of our lives to ‘garden’ this place back to its one-time beauty. Still, we thought, it had potential. . .

And that’s not to say there weren’t beautiful spots tucked away in this Mediterranean challenge, like the bougainvillea blooming outside our bedroom window.

View frrom our parking area

The garden makes up most of the grounds of our Stone House. It cascades down a slope from its parking area, loops to the side of the house and then leads into our small terracd olive grove (if you missed that post, click the link).

Our home is one of four built on the edge of a century-old olive grove on a hillside above the small villages of Agios Dimitrios and Agios Nikolaos (St. Dimitri and St. Nicholas) in The Mani area of the Peloponnese.


Come Take Stroll through the Garden  . . .

We had bouts of cold wind and rain, so our gardening efforts were somewhat limited during our 28-days, but as I did last week with the interior of the house, I want to show you some before and after photos of this still-a-work-in-progress-potential-oasis:

Let’s start at the side of the house where it appeared the previous owners had a small un-used, and definitely unloved patio that sat forlornly near the garden’s sole lemon tree. “This will be the Wine (tea or coffee) Patio,” I said so many times that it became a mantra.

Before photos on left, patio revealed on the right

After a morning spent cutting and yanking vines and old growth we discovered that ‘tiny’ patio was huge! It will be loved and used. Not only will we sip wine there, we just might dine there as well!  And for you gardeners reading this, the lemon tree is one that produces year-round so no matter when we visit we should have – or at least their fragrant blossoms  – lemons, like these growing in December.

Our lemon tree in December

As we removed layers of vines from the patio we began discovering our ‘secret garden’ hidden away under the growth.  We opened up planting areas (for the Christmas poinsettias), and found a number of plants including a French Lavender and wonderful bits of stonework. . .all just waiting to be discovered.

Discovering parts of our secret garden

There is still work to be done on the side garden, as evidenced by the photos below. The previous owners were apparently content to use the ladder pictured to get from the upper garden to the lower one at the side of the house; the one that leads to the wine patio. We are having stairs built next month and we will focus on this area during our next stay:

The challenge area - we did plant iris along the wall to get something pretty there

Then there was the matter of the garden behind the house.

A sloping hillside, we thought, without much definition. 

First step was to cut, pull, dig and clean out.

Ground cover is a good thing, but there is such as thing as too much of a good thing.

So we went to work and after several days, guess what we found?

Work begins in the left photo - and revealed many surprises underneath the olive tree

Hidden beneath the growth were some of the original terraced stone walls of the olive grove. We also unearthed granite stones, iris beds and a carpet of nasturtiums.

Morning sun highlights the iris we discovered

“The secret to being a bore is to tell everything.”

-- Voltaire

With those wise words in mind, I will end this week’s tour.  But not before I show you some of the garden blooms and colors -- in December and January mind you!!

Our garden blooms

Hope to see you back again soon. Come experience the special celebration in the village on January 6th and in a later post I'll take you through the neighborhood and village. By the way, if you have ideas for the side garden, do let us know!

Thanks – as always -- for the time you’ve spent with us in Greece. It means a lot to have you with us.
Happy Travels~

Linking up this week:
Travel Photo Thursday – Budget Traveler’s Sandbox  
Travel Inspiration – Reflections En Route  
Mosaic Monday – Lavender Cottage Gardening

Greece ~ Our first 28 days. . .

And so it began, our new chapter in Greece.  We’d caught that daydream we’d been chasing for nearly a year.  There we were – finally - in that Stone House on the Hill on a chilly December afternoon, ten days before Christmas – the purchase completed only hours before.

From Agios Dimitrios village our house on the hill is the one on the right

Despite having visited it so many times during the ‘purchase dance’ we did with the sellers, it was still a bit odd walking into the house that first time as its owners. The dancing was over; reality hit. It was time to get to work on all those, ‘we could do. . .’ and ‘what that place needs is . . .’ challenges we’d given ourselves.

And we had only 28 days before our flight back to the States.

This was the furnishing we bought with the house.

As part of the deal we’d purchased the place ‘furnished’. . .a house that had a hospital white interior (floor tile, walls and ceiling) and its main level crammed with well-worn, out-dated, over-sized furniture.

It’s downstairs was filled with boxes of belongings of the sellers – they would be stored with us the first week of ownership waiting for shipment to England.

Step One: Out with the old. (Not a lot of takers for the old stuff – but we did get rid of it!)





Step Two: Give some life to the sterile interior. (Painters arrived the first week!)

Testing colors and prepping the walls

What happened during those 28 days . . .

Then and now. . .

We used red for accent on the stairway to the bedrooms and on the fireplace. Softening the wall colors with a ‘meadow yellow’ or ‘biscotto’ color.

Then and now. . .

We bought smaller furniture.

Then and now. . .

And have opted for a country-style décor in this country home set in an olive grove.

Then and now. . .

We paid tribute to the lemon trees in our garden, with bedding printed with lemons and our bed and bedding  colors, are blue, yellow and green.

Then and now. . .

As soon as the boxes were moved out, we turned our attention to the downstairs, an area we call the guest suite, or The Garden Suite. Here we gave a nod to the plant, Lavender, by painting the sitting area a pale green and the bedroom lavender.

Top photos from July and December, bottom photos 'after'. . .

Again, we warmed it up a bit with garden/country flavor:

And we were at the end of our stay by the time we got the walls finished in the bedroom, but we'd made a start! There’s a lot more to do to decorate this place, but that will come in due time. We look forward to the scouting trips for accent furniture, wall décor and other adornments that are out there waiting to be found.



Sorry for the length of this one, but so many of you have asked to see the interior that I had to do a bit of ‘show and tell’ today.  Next week, I’ll show you what we got accomplished in the garden when the weather permitted as well!  Thanks for being with us today!

Now that I am back in the land of internet, I am linking this week with:
Travel Photo Thursday – Budget Traveler’s Sandbox  
Travel Inspiration – Reflections En Route  
Mosaic Monday – Lavender Cottage Gardening

Greece: Trash Talk and Socrates

“All I know is that I know nothing.”

-- Socrates

Truer words were never spoken, than those of Socrates, the ancient philosopher, I’ve concluded after being in Greece for three weeks. Our time here has spanned both an old and new year – the time it seems that people get introspective and think deeper, philosophical thoughts. I have been thinking with such introspection it seemed the best way to tell you about them was with some ‘trash talk’:  garbage collection, quite literally.

 

Maybe it is the atmosphere or something in the water, but we’ve become a bit philosophical after spending time in Greece.

 

On this visit, we’ve cut ourselves off from television and have significantly reduced computer time, mainly because the house doesn’t have either. We’ve tapped into another’s w-ifi (with his permission) and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

 

 

 

We’ve spent a lot of time outdoors – working with our hands and thinking with our heads; not relying on a Google search for a definition to answer questions. Our time and our ‘being’ has allowed for pondering. A gift of time in a manner of thinking. (When’s the last time you gave yourself unlimited time to just ‘pondered’ something?)

 

Back in the Northwest I’ve been involved with an organization that is focused on developing cultural competencies. I’ve thought a great deal about that concept as I have thought about our garbage and yes garbage and cultural competencies do go hand-in-hand for the purpose of this writing: 

 

 During one of our first visits to this area - the southern Peloponnese region of Greece - I had exclaimed in what I call ‘ignorant tourist’ disgust, “OMG! Those people are throwing their garbage in the public bins!” 

 

Two years later we bought a house here:

 

The Scout on a garbage run

And quickly learned that is the way garbage is collected!

We have become “those people” who at first impression left me so aghast. In fact, I chuckled at my change in this particular activity when on New Year’s Day The Scout asked, “Shall we take a garbage run and check out what’s happening in the village?” Would this be trash talkin’ or trash travel? It certainly is a step towards making me a bit more culturally competent and less quick to judge.

The road to our house - a road that connects two villages

And as I’ve had time to ponder the concept, it does make perfect sense.  The roads here –like this one in the photo that leads to our house – in many cases are small.  Not so very long ago they were dirt tracks through olive groves. Ours, a bumpy little asphalted ribbon up the hill connects two villages, but certainly is not a road that could accommodate a garbage truck!

Trash bins – and they include recycle bins as well – are located throughout the towns, on larger roads and along the highway, which in this area is a two-lane road.

My list of logical but distinctly different cultural nuances doesn’t stop with garbage collection, it continues to grow with each passing day.

For example: collecting used toilet paper in a trash can aside the toilet and not the throne itself with its small plumbing pipes, makes perfect sense as it would plug them and fill the septic tanks); or heating water as needed when the solar power isn’t enough to do so. It is a matter of flipping a switch to heat water and then turning it off after a period of time to cut the electric use and bill. . .

Different countries, different cultures, and different ways of doing things. When it comes to travel it is good to remember the words of Socrates – All I know is that I know nothing -- before making those quick cultural judgments. 

How about you? What have you concluded about people and places before knowing their full story. . .the one that explains actions and behaviors?

We do wish you a Happy New Year and hope that you’ll spend time exploring the world with us in 2015! See you soon~

Hopefully I am linking up today with Nancie’s Travel Photo Thursday at Budget Travelers Sandbox.

Greece: Trimming the trees on Christmas Day

While many of you were gathered around your gaily trimmed Christmas trees unwrapping gifts on Christmas morning, we were busy ‘unwrapping’ the gift we had given ourselves this year.  We were trimming, quite literally, our olive trees in Greece. (Still can’t quite believe they are ours, but they are!)

I ’ve had fantasies about owning an olive grove since Frances Mayes in her “Under the Tuscan Sun” book planted such a notion a couple decades ago.

It sounded so Mediterranean. . .so exotic. . .so just. . .well, . . . just plain wonderful!

The 15-tree olive grove that terraces down the slope in front of this stone house were a selling point.


 I get to experience that ‘Frances Mayes’ life’ and Boy-of-the-Chelan (Washington State)-apple-orchard gets a return to his roots in a manner of speaking.

We knew it was an unloved, untended olive grove even way back last summer. What we didn’t know but have learned in the 10 days we’ve owned the place, is that our lovely trees are sick from their recent neglect.

Our grove

“Cancer.” The diagnosis no one ever wants to hear, even when it is a tree. “We call it olive cancer.” explained our friend, Yiannis, somberly as he looked closely at one tree.

“This will have to be taken to here”, he said of the cutting necessary on my favorite old tree at the corner of the house.



Prior to Christmas Day our friend, Vagelis, had done an inspection of the trees in the grove and in a similar grave tone, told us the trees needed sunlight, they were too dense. And as a result a fungus-like growth was growing on large trunks and small branches. The growths are as large as the olives.


Olive harvest and pruning runs from late November to February in this part of the world so we are here at the right time to supervise such an activity. And Christmas Day, turned out to be the time the workers were available so our ‘tree trimming’ was rather unconventional and quite literal this year:

Trimming the trees Christmas Morning

With agility that defies comprehension the two workers climbed into the trees, cutting, sawing and cleaning out old growth.

The trimmed tree, we were told, should look like an upturned baseball glove – waiting to catch the sunlight.

In six hours the trees were trimmed

The two workers came with a ladder between them and in six hours had trimmed our trees and burned the branches they had removed. We decided not to harvest this year’s crop of olives.

Branches are cut and burned during the season such burns are allowed

Our ‘tree trimming’ made for a most memorable Christmas and has enticed us to return for another Christmas here next year: we might actually be harvesting our olives!

Thanks for stopping by today and to our many friends and followers we wish you a Happy New Year! Your comments, emails and messages mean a lot – especially as we embark on this new adventure in Greece. 

We really do appreciate having you join us at TravelnWrite and hope you’ll continue traveling with us in the coming year!

And to those of you who’ve requested more garden and house photos. . .they are coming, we just have a bit more work to do before the Phase I unveiling.