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

Back in Greece – Just Under the Milky Way

My new answer to the question about the location of our Greek Stone House on the Hill is going to be, “Just under the Milky Way.”

As we do seem to be just about mid-point under that filmy, far-away brush-stroke of galaxy that sweeps from left to right above our home.

Sunset over the western point of the Peloponnese as seen from The Stone House on the Hill

On warm clear nights, the type we’ve been having since we arrived two weeks ago, we can sit on our deck, watch dazzling sunsets and then a bit later crane our necks back as far as they will go and ponder the Milky Way’s path across the heavens above us. Relaxing our neck for a front-on view, we gaze at The Big Dipper that sits like a big movie screen showcasing the village. 

The Stone House on the Hill is far right on the row of grey-stone houses mid photo

Our little hillside slice of The Mani is in an area without street lights and few homes and just far enough from the village lights to make for some incredible star-gazing.  We’d pondered last year – along with our neighbors – whether the government would destroy our ‘big screen’ by adding lights along our road as they have in other areas.   Now the government has more to think about than street lights. They need to find money to repair streets damaged by the massive storm that struck our area in late September. 

A section of the road near our home and 'my' car that got away

The narrow black-topped road that leads to our house and on up the hillside to the village of Platsa was severely storm damaged. The little automatic car pictured above, that we were scheduled to rent, is low to the ground and wouldn’t have made it over the sunken surface of the road. The Scout has done a great job ‘ threading a needle’ –  and getting us up and down the hill in the small standard shift we've rented in its place. Ours is just one of so many roads damaged that we suspect repairs/replacement are years away from ever happening.

The Valley from the entryway of The Stone House on the Hill

We are settling in again to this segment of our part-time ex-pat life. Our temperatures have been summer-like and continue to draw European tourists to the beaches and small villages near us. This month – when the sea water is warmer than in the summer, bouquets fill our gardens, and before the shops and restaurants start closing for olive harvest and subsequent winter hibernation – is really one of the best times to be in The Mani.

Stoupa village's beach shortly after our arrival this fall

We were lucky to have little storm damage at our place.  My fledgling vegetable garden was washed away and we lost small sections of two terraces in the olive grove so we’ve spent much of our first two weeks working on restoration and planting in those areas. But now our 'chores' are back to normal and our pace has slowed.

Our crop of olives is good and we are awaiting harvest

We appreciate those of you who’ve inquired about the area and expressed concern after learning of the 100-year storm and the damage it caused. (See my post, about it, here.)  There were many who were hit far more severely - we lucked out. Admittedly, I am being a bit home-focused in this post, but I wanted to provide a bit of an update for all of you who’ve asked for a report after our return. And you know this is both a travel and a lifestyle blog. Today you are getting a bit of the lifestyle.

Our rental car for this portion of our stay - one of our mountain village roads near us

Our travels and life will be Peloponnese-focused for the next few weeks as will the blog. We've got travel tips for exploring the area and we'll tell you more about the ex pat life of living here as well.

Every day street scenes just waiting to be photographed

We appreciate the time you spend with us each week. And we love hearing from you either by email or in the comment section below.  Until the next time, safe and healthy travels to you and your family ~

Linking this week with some wonderful bloggers at:

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