Greece: A taste of wine country

About half way between the Athens airport and our Stone House on the Hill, the freeway slices through the northwest corner of the Peloponnese and its wine country. It’s an area so large that its  Greece’s largest geographical wine appellation. As we have zipped through it on a four-lane divided highway at 120 kilometers an hour we’ve caught glimpses of some of the vineyards that have made this area famous but really had no idea of the beauty to be found just a few kilometers beyond this speedway. 

Nemea wine country

Wine country really needs more than a passing glance from a speeding car, we've said time and time again. Just like the wine produced here, it should be savored, siga, siga, as the Greeks would say. Slowly, slowly.

Following Greek wine roads

We decided a couple weeks ago to do just that and spend a night in wine country en route to the Athens airport. We wanted at least a taste of the area that produces some of our favorite wines from Moschofilero (mos-koe-FEE-le-row) white wine grapes and Agiogitik (ah-your-YEE-ti-ko) red wine grapes. Agiogitiko means St. George’s grape and is named for the small St. George’s Church located somewhere within the appellation.

Wine country is an easy two hours from Athens

We weren’t headed to any specific winery, although there are more than 40 within the Nemea appellation. We were off to a village named Kefalari, (not to be confused with another village to the south in this same region of the same name, I might add). The population of our destination, Kefalari, was 380 residents back in 1991 and probably a few less than that now. We had a reservation at the Arhontiko Kefalari Guesthouse.

Arhontiki Guesthouse Kafelonia

While we’ve had a glorious sunny autumn in the Peloponnese we timed our outing for a cloudy misty weekend. The colors weren’t as vibrant as they would have been under a bright blue sky but the weather muted and softened the landscape and darkened the village adding a bit of a mysterious feel to this short sojourn of ours.

Vineyards near Nemea town

The appellation has three sub-zones and traveling from the flat lands surrounding the town of Nemea where we'd left the freeway, we took the local road that wound its way through tiny villages named Dafni, Kastraki and Asprokampos as we climbed in elevation toward our destination. The growing zones stretch from an elevation of 800 feet above sea level to 2,600 feet (250 – 800 meters).

Winding roads loop through Nemea wine region

Past wineries and vineyards we went. At one village we passed a group of hunters congregated in the church parking lot. Dressed in camouflage gear and armed with rifles they were either preparing to set forth or had just gathered after their hunt.  Aside from that group we saw few humans on that early Sunday afternoon.

Directional signs are easily understood - both in English and Greek

Wine grape growing in the Nemea region dates back to at least the 5th Century B.C.
Greek mythology tell of the half god Heracles who was sent to Nemea to slay the Nemean lion.  The ancient Greek wine made here, Fliasion, was known as ‘the blood of Heracles’ after that tale. It is a nick-name still used for Nemean red wines.

Roadways through the wine country

The village of Kefalari, sits  at an elevation of 770 meters, at the foot of a mountain named Ziria. The mountain is said to be the birthplace of Hermes. Its location is near the Killini Mountain range and Lake Stymphalia; both areas offer outdoor recreational activities. Winter mountain snow activities like snow-shoeing are also popular in the village's alpine-feeling surroundings.

The ever-present herd of sheep

Entertainment here was provided by a herd of sheep crossing the road as we entered the village and an enormous mountain dog watching them.

Mountain dog in Kefalari

The village appeared deserted when we arrived. . .as did our guesthouse, which is located just off the main square under the village’s 150-year-old plane tree.

The guesthouse’s front door was locked  but we roused a maid who was cleaning one of its eight rooms.  She summoned the owners daughter, Elena, who spoke English and greeted us warmly.  Our room, for 60-euros a night this season, had a small balcony overlooking the square and an in room fireplace, the wood had been set for us. (It also had modern heating and air conditioning units, an en suite, and wi-fi).

Our room

Built back in the 1880’s as a private home for a man who made his fortune selling agricultural products, it was, according to Elena, burned twice by the Germans during the war and then fell into disrepair.  Her family purchased it and after a two-year renovation opened it as a guesthouse in 2007.

Flowers were still blooming in early November

We explored the village and had cappuccinos at the nearby Kafenion. It was one of two businesses open, the other was a taverna/cafe a block from the square. Later we returned to the kafenion for a glass of wine. After sunset it seemed to become the gathering place for the village’s men who were watching a soccer game on its small television. They paid little mind to having me, the sole female, among them.

Village at night

We’d found the village to be charming in the misty afternoon and it turned downright enchanting at night!



The next morning we stuffed ourselves at the buffet breakfast that included a hot omelet and homemade jams and preserves. The buffet was served in the main lobby/sitting room (included in the room rate). Then it was off to Athens but we will be returning to wine country again and maybe next time we’ll even visit a winery!

Kefalari 

Note: Wine tourism in Nemea isn’t what one finds in California, Oregon, and Washington in the United States.  Here the area still has a very country, agricultural feel to it. Many wineries are open by appointment only. But the countryside is beautiful and worth including if you are planning a trip to the Peloponnese.  Consider staying in a small village as we did or Corinth, a larger city only 20 miles/35 kilometers to the northeast; Nafplio is about an hour’s drive to the south.

The owners of the guesthouse we stayed at also have the Armonia Boutique Hotel, a couple blocks from the guesthouse. Information can be found at: www.xenonasarmonia.gr  Room rates there were 106-euros a night.

That’s it from The Stone House on the Hill this week.  We’ve been in a rush to finish some major projects before it is time to pack up and do the ‘Schengen Shuffle’ again – our 90 days tourist visa limit is soon approaching. Again our thanks for the time you spend with us and thanks much for sharing our posts with others! Look forward to being back next week so until then, safe travels to you and yours!

Linking this week with:
Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration

In Greece: Close Encounters of the Ex Pat Kind

“I want your life” commented a FB friend on a sunset photo I’d posted.

“How do I get your life?” asked another.

“We are coming to visit!” any number of people have told us.

I’ve thought of those comments often the last few weeks – both during those Facebook-photo-moments while soaking up the afternoon sun on the deck AND at other times when having what I’ve termed ‘close encounters of the ex pat kind’. . . the kind that don't make it to my regular updates on Facebook nor have they been discussed -yet - on this blog.

Lazy afternoons spent here at The Stone House on the Hill

For those of you first time visitors to TravelnWrite, we are part-time ex pats from the Seattle suburbs who’ve bought a slice of rural Greece in its Peloponnese to call our home for a part of each year. Our stone home is nestled at the edge of our small olive grove, not far from a picturesque Greek fishing village. City to country. United States to Greece. This new lifestyle if full of new experiences and encounters.

Agios Nikolaos, our village

And since our blog posts have activated the travel bug in so many of you who've been regulars here, that I thought I should, in fairness, tell you about things other than star-gazing and sun-worshipping that make up our ex pat life at The Stone House on the Hill. Take that afternoon shortly after we’d returned this fall. . .

Agios Nikolaos, The Mani

I had decided to rearrange the glassware and cups that share a shelf in our somewhat limited kitchen cupboards. Having cleaned and lined them last spring, I figured this to be about a five minute project. (Stop reading here if you have a delicate stomach and skip to the next tale. . .)

Kitchen at The Stone House on the Hill

Being my height, it wasn’t until I was tip-toeing on a kitchen chair that I had a full scope view of the shelf and what appeared to be -- in polite terms --  mouse ‘droppings’. [ “Dropping’ = excrement, ca-ca, poo-poo, or worse.]  By whatever word you choose, it was there: a layer of it sprinkled across that new previously spot-less shelf lining of mine.

Enough droppings to indicate it could have been the site of a rodent convention, as a matter of fact. Climbing onto the counter and looking a bit further into the cupboard, I found a hole where the cupboard should have been attached to the stone wall -- the entryway for the little critter (or critters from the looks of it). Thankfully the cups and glassware had been upside down. But still . . . thoughts of those roaming rural rodents had turned my stomach. My few minutes had turned into hours as The Scout was called into action and blocked their entryway and I washed and sterilized the cupboard’s contents and shelves.

~~~~~~~

New flower garden - blooming basil, front left

We’ve been renovating two garden plots that were home to over-grown aloe vera plants. The two succulents that look much like cacti, had pointed spikes as painful as a cactus. Removing them was like removing small trees. (We moved them to the olive grove where they can grow as large as they want.)

Last spring after the first aloe vera was moved, we’d planted a Greek basil in its place. Greek basil lives year round and can grow to five feet in height.  Its leaves are tiny in comparison to Italian basil. The September storm had knocked our basil to the ground so on a fine fall day we’d purchased and installed some stakes.  I’d buried my face into that delicious pungent smelling herb to get the twine around it and the stakes . . .

Praying Mantis courtesy Wikipedia photos

As I pulled back I realized I had missed by inches burying my face into the Praying Mantis that had made the plant his home. It was one of my first encounters with the little creature that looks like a small dinosaur or enormous grass hopper, with a triangular head resembling those drawn by animators which depict outer space beings.  This one stared us down and no amount of swiping was convincing him to move. For a bug, their forearms are enormous (they are carnivores and catch and hold their prey). Another close encounter of the ex pat kind. The Scout had to deal with that one.

After my heart quit racing, I thought again about writing this post. BTW, that photo above of a ‘European male’ is courtesy of Wikipedia photos – I chose not to take a close up photo!

~~~~~~

Hauling wood - a regular activity each fall

What is a post about close encounters if I didn’t mention scorpions. . . we’ve had now three encounters with them. Two alive and one dead but even dead scorpions can spark an instantaneous adrenalin surge. And those little stinkers love our wood pile! We wear gloves now – leather, nice thick leather gloves and use a bit of care when hauling wood or working in the garden. Those cute little pink floral cotton garden gloves of mine are history.

Not all our experiences and encounters have fallen into the 'gross-me-out-genre'.  Many are downright charming and are what we love about this place. Many involve learning the ways things are done in a new culture and a country where life is lived differently than one which one might be familiar.

Take getting our mail for example. We have no street address, and we have no post office box- we don't even have a post office here for that matter -  yet we get mail regularly.  It is delivered to our local taverna of course!

Freda's Mail Corner in her son Gregg's Plateia in Agios Nikolaos

:
The one practice here that we’d become used to on our travels so didn’t strike us as peculiar, leaves many first-time visitors shaking their heads: it is dealing with used toilet paper. Here it is not flushed, it is deposited into small garbage bins next to the toilet. When the little bin is full of the stuff, the bag inside is tied up and taken to the community garbage bins.  We’ve seen this TP disposal method used in other European countries and Mexico and it seems quite normal. For many it is an encounter to remember!
  
Speaking of garbage, we make regular garbage runs as it isn’t collected at each home as is the practice where we live in the United States.



We usually tie the garbage run in with the water run. The drinking water comes from one of many public faucets found along the roadside in the villages below us.  (The water out of the tap is far too 'mineral' tasting (much like Arizona). Should you find yourself a guest at our house you’ll undoubtedly get to experience a water/garbage run first hand! Now, how often when you travel do you get to do that??!!

Thanks so much for being with us as we experience life as part time ex pats in Greece. A special thank you to those who noticed our absence last week and wrote to inquire how we were doing. (We were out of the internet world for a bit). But now back at The Stone House on the Hill for a few more weeks, the adventure continues. We’ll be back next week and hope you will be as well. Until then, thanks for joining us and wishes for safe travels to you and yours~

Linking up this week:
Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration

Greece ~ Where Autumn Comes in like a Lion. . .and Lamb

"Listen!  the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!"
-  Humbert Wolfe

The wind which began last evening continued through the night. Its gusts have unrelentingly rattled the window shutters and pummeled our doors. The rain that threatened yesterday has made good on its promise today. I am wrapped in my flannel robe as I write on this dark, chilly October morning.  This time of year the sun doesn't make it over the mountain behind us until after 8 a.m. 

View from the Stone House on the Hill on a stormy day

I suspect we won't see it at all today. And to believe that two days ago I was wearing shorts and basking in the afternoon sun on our deck and later that day we sat outside at the local taverna sipping krasi, wine at sunset.

Sunset sipping wine in Stoupa village

This autumn's weather in the Greek Peloponnese, The Mani specifically,  is proving to be much like last year: both a lion and a lamb.

How are gardens grow in the autumn

Autumn is a time for gardens to flourish. Blooms are no longer punished by the intense Mediterranean summer sun. Garden stores are selling tiny truck garden plants for winter garden harvest – we only wish our time here would be long enough to plant and harvest them. Our flowers are in full bloom, these photos taken within the last week and all but the Lantana (bottom corner) are growing at The Stone House on the Hill.

Autumn leaves begin to fall. . .

Yet, there is no doubt that autumn is preparing the area for winter’s arrival. . .

A cloudy October day

We had two sets of guests last fall, one came in late October and we sat huddled together in The Stone House on the Hill waiting for a break in the wind and rain to go explore the countryside.

A November morning

The second set arrived in early November and we explored the area in our shirt sleeves under sunny, warm skies.

A number of you have told us that you are planning to visit ‘someday’ and some have asked,  “When is the best time to visit, when is the weather the best?” 

Late September Stoupa beach

We prefer -- and recommend -- the spring and fall but I checked a couple of travel sites to see what other travel writers have to say. While they are speaking of Greece in general, it pretty much echoes our thoughts:

September view from our deck at The Stone House on the Hill.

Frommer’s Travel Guides say, “. . . that the best time to visit is Greece is spring and early summer (mid-Apr to mid-June) or autumn (Sept to mid-Oct). This way, you'll avoid the summer high season, with its inflated prices, hordes of tourists and high temperatures (heat waves of 100°F/+40C are routine)."

Another site, greek-travel.gr points out, “December to March are the coldest and least reliable months, though even then there are many crystal-clear, fine days, and the glorious lowland flowers begin to bloom very early in spring.”

Approaching Kalamata airport - Taygetos Mountains

Airfares, like the weather, are usually better on these shoulder season months than in the height of summer tourist season.  But those of you thinking of flying directly to Kalamata should keep in mind, that flights here operate primarily during high season (late spring, summer, and into October). We just managed to catch one of the season’s last on British Air from London in September.

British Air flies from London to Kalamata in the spring and fall

Speaking of travel, regular readers know that travel to other destinations in Europe and beyond, was one of reasons we bought a home here Well, I wrote this post at the end of last week because I knew we'd be on the road this week -- our first such close-to-home trip in Europe. We flew to Rome from Athens on Monday, (two hours and 10 minutes gate to gate)  and we set sail on the Celebrity Constellation on Wednesday.  If you want to take a look at where we are off to, just: click this link. 

Thanks for spending some time with us during these blustery autumn days in Greece’s Mani. It is currently gorgeous weather in Rome, but they are predicting rain showers tomorrow.  Lion and Lamb, it seems, everywhere this fall.  We’ll be back as shipboard internet allows in the next few weeks. Hello to our new followers who wrote us such nice messages about our blog last week (you know who you are)!  To all of you, wishes for safe travels~

Linking up with:

Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration

Greece ~ An Ode to Our Olives and their Oil

Olive harvests have been a part of autumn for thousands of years in this Mediterranean region in which we’ve chosen to make our part-time home.  The importance of olives and their oil to mankind’s rituals and rights have been recorded since ancient times by the likes of Homer, Virgil, Aristophanes and Pliny the Elder.

Kalamata olives

But for us, it is a whole new world – all a part of that daydream, that adventure we’d been seeking -- when we purchased our Stone House on the Hill in the Greek Peloponnese a couple years ago.
So Harvest Day is a big deal at our house. A Very. Big. Deal.  Frankly, we’ve surprised ourselves at how much we love growing olives.

Greece is home to some 520,000 olive growers,

many who use the traditional hand-pick methods.

            --- Bloomberg, 2014

HARVEST DAY

It’s been crazy weather here - sporadic downpours mixed with summer-like-temperatures -- so it shouldn’t have surprised us that Saturday morning dawned with a few clouds, some sun and was so hot and humid that you could work up a sweat with minimal amounts of movement.

It was olive harvest day at the Stone House on the Hill.

A view of our back garden area -ready for harvest

We are among those small growers who use the traditional hand-pick methods. Our steeply-sloped property is a section of a  decades-old olive grove. The terraces are narrow and steep and not conducive to fancy automated harvest equipment. And, truth be told,  there is something about harvesting by hand, as it has been done for centuries, that makes the experience a richer one. That said, it is good we have only 17 trees.

Part of the crew and their harvest tools

In reality, that method of harvest is a hard, back-breaking, sweat-inducing experience. The tools involved are as low-tech as anything made in the world today. Our crew this year included two American couples (both are friends and have moved to this area) who wanted to ‘experience’ olive harvest.  The Scout is joined in this photo with Chuck, our friend from the Pacific Northwest and David who hails from New York. David is holding the rake used to gather twigs from the fallen fruit and the other two tools are used for beating the fruit off the branches.

The harvest begins. . .

We hired a harvest professional, Aris, and his wife, Donika, (wearing blue and red shirts in the photo above), who take care of the property in our absence.  We took our marching orders from them. Some olives are beaten from the tree and others from branches Aris had cut. The process is a mix of harvesting and a first-round pruning in preparation for next year.

Olive harvest is underway in our area of The Mani

Netting covers the ground beneath the tree to catch the harvest. . .

Olives are then put in burlap sacks

The olives collected, raked and large twigs and branches removed (the machine at the processing plant removes the smaller stuff). . .

Larger twigs are removed before bagging the remainder done at the plant

Last year we’d been quite pleased to take almost three bags of olives to the press. It was our first harvest from a previously neglected grove. We were lucky to have any crop. This year was a bit different:

Our friend Yiannis (pictured) hauled the bags for us

FROM OLIVE TO OIL

Then and Now - a striking contrast in olive oil production

While harvest methods are still tied to the past, the processing of olives has gone high tech.  No longer are the olives pressed as much as they are processed.  The two top photos are of equipment used in the olden days and the two lower are at Taki’s processing plant where we take our harvest. (Taki is monitoring a computer screen that is alerting him to the status – in this case – of our oil being processed).

Everyone - not just us rookies - take photos at the plant

Ours was to be the third batch processed Saturday afternoon, we arrived to find our bags ready to dump. . .

There they go. . .

The leaves and twigs are separated in the first step and then those pretty little olives become, for a time, a rather repulsive looking sludge that smells like thick rich olive oil. The scents are so strong that you can smell the oil when you drive by the plant during processing hours.

On the way to olive oil. . .

The sludge is stirred for a time and then is fed into a horizontal extractor that uses centrifugal force to separate the water from the oil. “Siga, Siga!,” (Slowly, Slowly!),” Taki said to me about the third time I asked, “Is that ours going into the extractor??!!”  From olive to oil took an hour and a half but it was at this point the excitement really started building.

Our harvest crew had gathered to watch the ‘fruits of their labors’ be turned into oil and voila’ . . .

Oil to the left, water to the right. . .siga, siga!

Then there was oil. . . .lots and lots of oil. . . 60 kilos, (think liters) or about 20 gallons of oil.

There is such an adrenalin rush when the oil comes out the faucet!

‘If you collect them early and are prepared to stock them,

you won’t have any damage

and the oil will turn out to be green, and the best.’

     

--- Pliney, the Elder, Roman author, AD 23 – AD 79

Less than 24 hours old - a nectar of the Gods

Harvest Day was a long day. . .which resulted in a long blog post. Thanks for hanging in there and making it to the end of this one!! And a big hello and thanks to those of you who've written to tell us that you are now following our blog - it means a lot! Thank you!!

Hope to see you back next week when we’ll have some more Greek tales for you from The Stone House on the Hill. . .

Linking up this week with:

Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration

The Greek Peloponnese ~

The Peloponnese or Peloponnesus is a peninsula and geographic region in southern Greece.

It is separated from the central part of the country by the Gulf of Corinth.

Peloponnese.  Say the word out loud and it seems like a jingle: ‘pell-oh-POE-naize’ or ‘pell-oh-poe-NEE-sos’, depending on your nationality and your pronunciation.

It is the place we’ve called our part-time home since buying our The Stone House on the Hill two years ago. And for as well-known as it seems to be among Northern Europeans who vacation and have homes here, the place seems relatively unknown to a vast majority of Americans.

“Which island?” is the question we are asked in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, by those who’ve learned of our new lifestyle. Their brows wrinkle, hmmmm, they ponder a moment, “No, not quite sure where that is.”

The Stone House on the Hill to the right of the boat mast

My response is a bit of a show-and-tell. “Not an island” and hold my hand up, outstretched fingers pointing down and say, “It is the peninsula that looks like a hand. You cross the Corinth Canal to get there from Athens.”

Peloponnese Peninsula looks like an outstretched hand

I suspect many of you - at least those in the U.S. - will be surprised to learn that Lonely Planet’s Travel Guides named it the number one tourist destination in 2016. That was huge news around here last spring. Since we've returned this fall we are hearing nothing but positive reports from those in the tourist industry (airports, restaurants, car rental agencies):

"Best year since 2007 (for home sales)" - local realtor

"Still have cars coming in and going out daily - best year in a long time" - car rental agency

Arrivals at Kalamata airport up 22% this year over last

Scenes of the Peloponnese

                                                1. The Peloponnese, Greece

Travellers to Greece tend to flock to the myriad islands or marvel at the iconic Acropolis, but one of the country’s most diverse, vibrant regions is often forgotten: the Peloponnese. It remains an affordable enclave of magnificent ancient sights like Olympia, Mycenae and Mystras, which are scattered across a rich landscape of stone villages, teal seas and snow-capped mountains.

-- Lonely Planet Travel Guide  

You history buffs will find so many ancient sites that it will require either an extended stay or many visits to see them all. . .Achaia, the seaside gate to Western Europe, Ancient Messinia, Ancient Olympia (birthplace of the Olympics), Mycenae, and Corinth (you travel over the the Corinth Canal if you come here from Athens). And unless you visit in the height of the summer tourist season, you’ll find most are not over-run by tourists even though tourism is on the upswing. We had the tomb pictured below to ourselves the day we went exploring:

History is there for the asking - usually for no entry fee

While not being history scholars or buffs, we’ve come to appreciate – even be awed by – the amount of history that surrounds us in every day life.  Villages scattered about the hillsides are treasure-troves of antiquity. With far too many to be listed in tourist guides, you simply happen upon them as you travel the narrow roadways that lace the peninsula. The chapel below was open on Easter Sunday at the restaurant where we celebrated the day with our neighbors.

A small church up the road from our house

Churches that have served the faithful for centuries are still used for worship. Church bells still call the faithful to services and remind us all of the importance of the Greek Orthodox religion here.

Through the ages. . .

Reminders of the conflicts that have marred the area’s history are also prevalent in the villages. The building architecture often tells the story of history’s conquerors. Take the Venetians who battled the Ottomans for control of the area. Evidence of their occupation carved into stone – their Winged Lion of St. Mark, a symbol of the Venetian empire spotted on buildings and entries throughout the area.'

The Venetians were here. . .

Many visitors though are drawn to the area – much as we were – by its striking mountains and views of the sea.

A walk along the Sea in The Mani

For others, it is the charm of the stone villages, some still requiring you to park your car and walk into their interiors because their ancient streets are so narrow.

The Main Road in Monemvasia - be prepared to walk

The Peloponnese is divided into regions, much like you think of counties within states in the U.S. Arcadia, Achaia, Ilia, Korinthos, Laconia, Messinia, where our home is located. . .each has a little something different to offer and we have barely touched the surface.

The Peloponnese

During our next few months here, we plan to do some exploring of this vast land and we’ll take you with us, virtually, anyway.  As always, we appreciate the time you spend with us and love reading the comments and emails our tales prompt.  We can’t thank you enough for re-posting and tweeting links to our blog for others to read.  Happy and safe travels to you!

Linking up this week with:

Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration