The photo above was taken Tuesday May 28th. It’s the Robinson Taverna at Koutsouras, Lasithi, Crete, not twenty minutes along the coast from where we live. It’s only taken us nearly five years to come across it, but boy was it worth it. We actually intended to eat at the restaurant next door, which is called Kaliotzina, but as we walked down the thirty metres or so of lane between the coast road and the sea front, there was a sign saying ‘Sorry! Closed on Tuesdays.’ The whole expedition could have been a disaster, but fortunately we decided to walk on down to the front anyway, and that was when we spotted the Robinson next door, and there were diners there, so it was obviously open for business, phew.

Here are a few shots of the (closed) Kaliotzina…

We decided to go there after I’d seen a few photos on a local Greek-speaking Facebook group, and it had looked so idyllic a setting that we had to go and investigate. Since the season’s now well under way we didn’t for a moment think that it would be closed, but there you are, it was what it was, I suppose. Frankly, although we’ll surely be going back to give the Kaliotzina a try another day, we were really taken with the Robinson, and even preferred the layout and look of the place. The only thing I couldn’t get my head around was why it was called the ‘Robinson.’ I mean, what kind of name is that for a very traditional Cretan eating place? Curious eh? I meant to ask the lady who served us where the name came from, but didn’t get around to it in the end. Next time I’ll be more diligent.

Here are some more photos taken while we ate a lovely, lazy lunch, while a turtle mooched around in the waters below us, occasionally breaking the surface to take in some air…

When I first set foot in Greece, way back in the 1970’s, island-hopping was dead cheap. Boat/ferry ticket prices were laughably low and you could simply amble on and off whichever ferry you wanted to use. When you found an island that you wanted to stay on for a while, you’d stroll off the ramp on to the quayside to be met by a plethora of locals all touting for business for their ‘village rooms’ or ‘studios.’ We used to love staying in ‘village rooms,’ where you’d have a shared shower room at one end of the hallway and a shared refrigerator at the other end. The daily rates were a pittance and you could spend three weeks drifting around the country, eating for a fiver a night too, and go home with half your spending money still in your back pocket.

Many’s the time that we came across some young person from Ireland, England or Finland who’d arrived on some island, got an unofficial job in a local taverna, and stayed for the summer. They’d go back to the UK to resume their University course in September. In the meantime they’d work in the kitchen, or clearing tables in exchange for room and board, nothing more. I mean, OK, it’s not good for the government to have to chase businesses to get them to pay their taxes, and there ought not to be exploitation of workers who may not have any rights if they work illegally, but still, those days were so good for the likes of us, who went to Greece to spend mere pennies on excellent food, watch impromptu displays of the local dances in any number of small traditional tavernas where they’d either break out the bouzouki from its case on a whim, or simply play a record on an old jukebox, but as the evening wore on and midnight came and went, what began as a quiet meal out turned into a rather good knees-up, where the draught retsina flowed from those little aluminium jugs and Ouzo was in abundance too.

I’m so glad that I got the chance to experience the Greece of the 1970s, but at least tavernas like the Robinson put me in mind of that era, when you could eat beside the sea in a place that, yes, OK, has some tourists in, but is not overrun by them. We actually enjoyed a really interesting conversation with the couple on the next table, who were from a small village near Frankfurt in Germany. They were called Stefan and Alexa (she’s heard all the jokes by now) and it seems that intellectually we had much in common. That’s Alexa in the photos by the way. They were the kinds of tourists that we used to be too, always staying small, concerned about the local economy and the environment in equal measure. And best of all, Stefan liked my kind of music, a double whammy. We talked 70’s prog rock for ages. The conversation only started because the lady serving us remarked on the turtle having put in an appearance and Alexa was “Wow”-ing when it broke the surface with its head. Needless to say we had to ask what was going on and thus the conversation began, they inviting us to share another carafe of house wine before we all paid our bills and retired to our beds for the afternoon (or what was left of it).

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Just before I close this one, I wanted to return briefly to Sitia and its restaurants. If you’re lucky enough to be going there some time, then I can heartily recommend a couple. We tried virtually all of the waterfront restaurants while we were there, and settled on a couple that we easily liked the most. A common general name for a restaurant in this region is a ‘Rakadiko,’ which I believe is a local term. We certainly never came across it in Rhodes or any of the other islands that we’ve visited over the decades, although having now done some Googling I find that there are ‘rakadika‘ as far away as Piraeus. So you’ll notice that quite a few call themselves, for example, ‘To Ρακάδικο του Αντώνη.’

OK, so we don’t eat meat, which means I can’t review the quality of meat dishes in these eateries, but when it comes to portion sizes and prices, there were two that stood out for us, and which we visited numerous times as a result. They were:

To Limani

Rakadiko Inodion (Οινωδείον)

Dishes we particularly enjoyed were the grilled mushrooms (Μανιτάρια Σχαράς) which were usually the Portobello type, sliced, very yummy. The word ‘s’chara‘ basically means ‘grilled’ by the way. The portion at To Limani is legendary. The fava was delicious too, and if you order a green (lettuce) salad it’s usually massive and contains a few other things like spring onions and baby tomatoes, all dressed in Balsamic cream and olive oil. The courgette rissoles were wonderful (kolokithokeftedes). The Limani does the best fasolakia we’ve ever eaten anywhere, and they also do gigantes, which isn’t always easy to find on a menu these days. A few of photos in this vein below…

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This photo (above) was taken at our former home in Kiotari, Rhodes in March of 2019, just a few months before we learned that the house was to be put on the market. It still chills me to the bone to think that the whole place was razed to the ground by fire last summer, and that beautiful garden that we’d spent 14 years developing was reduced to ashes. Wendy (our friend and former landlady) tells me that the valley is slowly turning green again, although it’s still full of charred pillars that once were the trunks of mature pine trees that forested a large part of the valley. Apparently work has begun on rebuilding, but I don’t know if the new house will resemble the old one or not. No doubt she’ll send me some photos as it develops.

On Sunday May 12th we went to the village of Pefkos and that’s where the next gallery of photos were taken. Of course, everyone who knows Greece well will also know that travelling around the islands you come across the same names again and again, and the Pefkos I refer to here is in the hills between Mirtos and Viannou, and not the one that we used to live near back on Rhodes, which is a holiday resort right on the beach. Also, as another example, if you know Kefalonia well, you’ll also know that there’s a famous beach called Mirtos there too, and it featured in the scene where the mine is detonated on a beach. It’s not much like the coastal village here in Lasithi, which, although picturesque, also gets a lot of visitors during the tourist season. Anyway, here are a few views of sleepy Pefkos in Lasithi…

The next few are from a walk we did in the hills around the village on May 10th…

…and the ones below are from the Town beach on Thursday 16th…

Although it looks like a damn fine job that’s being done to renovate the Venetian Fortress at the entrance to the Harbour, it’s getting us down a bit how long it’s taking to complete the work. The sign below is on display beside the wall, and it suggests that the work should have been completed four years ago. OK, so we’ve had a pandemic since, but still, it’s a little disappointing for visitors who have read about the place and who come here with a view to including a visit to it in their itinerary. It seems that the E.U. has coughed up almost €800k to carry out the job too. Flippin’ ‘eck, eh?

Another ‘place of interest’ in Ierapetra that quite a few visitors look for is what’s rather ambitiously called ‘Napoleon’s House.’ I’ve talked about it before, as it’s in the Old Town just one block back from the south beach, not more than a hundred metres from the fortress too. OK, so it looks old, and Napoleon did stay there incognito with a local family when his ship anchored in Crete for one night in 1798 en route to his Egyptian campaign. He apparently left a note revealing his identity, and it was only then (after his fleet had sailed away) that the house owners discovered who their guest had been. That fact aside, it still merits a visit out of curiosity, doesn’t it? After all, it is rather photogenic. The only problem is, since the local authority declared it open to the public last year, and placed a rather exciting-looking graphic outside the door, it’s been kept padlocked – incessantly. Here’s what it looks like from the outside anyway…

Below are three more taken in the Old Town a few days ago…

Finally, this first one (below) is the view from our ‘Xenonas” [guest room] door looking toward the lower garden. I just like it, that’s all! The other one’s the view from the picture window in our bedroom. It’s the view we wake up to every morning. Sorry about that (showing off again)…

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It’s already a fortnight since we got back from our two-week stay in Sitia. The summer’s slipping irrevocably over us here, and we’ve now taken the duvet out of the cover on the bed at home, as it’s just too warm. I wanted just to add one final word about our stay in Sitia, and it has to do with the accommodation that we stayed in.

The studios, one block back from the yellow sandy beach to the south end of the town, are called Emmanouela. I’ve been reading reviews about them, which I also did before we booked to stay there, and I feel that some are rather unfair. I don’t know why I should worry, because the place still ranks quite nicely in the plus/minus columns, but some criticisms are unjustified. Our own impressions? We loved it. OK, so the location isn’t as attractive as some places, as the building sits in an area where the ‘tourist’ part of town merges into the functional, retail and trade area, but it is only fifty metres from that beach…

Emmanouela Studios are run by an elderly ya-ya called Maria, who’s five foot nothing, has a face that betrays years of being outside under a Greek sun and short, frizzy hair dyed a peculiar shade of ginger. She spends most days pottering around in the garden, which consists of a large area of gravel which surrounds the building, and a raised bed that runs the length of the perimeter wall, where basil grows in abundance, along with assorted other herbs and flowering plants. Maria often wears one of those huge peaks to shade her face from the sun, but which isn’t part of a hat, it’s merely attached to an elasticated band that fits around the head. She has a granddaughter, and it’s she who bears the name Emmanouela. She it is who sits behind the desk in the small Reception office and taps away at the keyboard, confirming bookings and generally running the admin side of the business. Emmanouela is a lovely, personable young woman of around 25-30 years of age, maybe younger.

The studio that we stayed in was ridiculously cheap by today’s standards, and so one must always bear that in mind when rating a place. You can’t expect five star luxury when you’re paying what we paid, but for all that, we had precious little to gripe about. OK, so they could have changed the bins a little more often, but we’re well able to take our rubbish to the nearest street dumpster and re-line the bathroom and kitchen bins with new bags. Maybe the floor could have been mopped a tad more often, but we’ve stayed in places over the years where you were lucky to find one toilet roll in the bathroom when you arrived, and from then on you had to buy your own. There were five in the bathroom of our studio apartment when we arrived and another was added during our stay. We had a small kitchen area, a good quality kettle, hot water on demand and reliable wi-fi. The sheets on the beds were spotless and changed once a week, which as far as were concerned was easily often enough.

I’d telephoned a few days before we were due to arrive to ask if there was hair dryer in the room, and was assured that there was. When we got there to find that there wasn’t one, I popped down to Reception, where Maria and Emmanouela were at pains to get one out of the cupboard, again a decent quality product still in its original box, which they gave to us for the duration of our stay. It didn’t take us long to get used to greeting the two women most days as we were either leaving or returning to the room. There was also a cute and fairly timid tiny little dog that would follow Maria around while she pottered and sleep on a chair on the terrace outside the front door of Reception during the nights. He was a sweetie who at first wouldn’t let us near him, but soon got used to us and became accustomed to having his head ruffled when we came by.

The windows and doors were of good quality white-finish aluminium (uPVC is rare here, as it can’t take the high temperatures of a Greek summer) and when they were closed they were very effective in blocking out any noises from outside. While we were in residence there were still fairly extensive works going on to improve the drainage in the downtown and beach front areas, and there were diggers and piles of gravel just across the road from our veranda. It was in October 2022 when a devastating storm wrought havoc in Sitia, filling the town knee-deep in brown mud, much of which flowed over into the fishing harbour too. We had a break there back in May ’23, and were astounded at how they’d cleaned the place up. So much so that if you hadn’t seen the newsreel footage of what happened only months earlier, you wouldn’t have believed it.

Works being carried out now include fitting lots of storm drains to the streets to hopefully allow water to drain away faster if such a storm should ever come again. It seemed to us that they still had a couple of months work to do before the project was completed.

I often harp on about the beauties of ‘staying small,’ and it’s primarily because it’s by far the best way to really experience a country. OK, so we live here anyway, but going to somewhere else for a break still makes us temporary tourists, and we don’t get excited by the idea of being surrounded by either our own compatriots, or a selection of French, Germans or Scandinavians over our breakfast, around a pool, or during the evening meal. No insult is intended to those people, but when we want to experience Finland we’ll book a holiday in Helsinki, not a pretty little seaside town in Greece. Once again I can illustrate the little moments that make staying small special. One day, as we returned from our morning stroll along the waterfront and had spent a pleasant interlude people-watching over our Freddos, as we began to climb the stairs to the door of our apartment, Maria emerged from the rear door of Reception and called to us.

She was excited to give us a small gift of something that she’d made…

Those little beauties aren’t jam tarts or scones, they’re Kalitsounia, and if you want the lowdown on them then click that link for all the gen. It’s very rare that we’ve ever stayed anywhere and not been given something like this. We’ve taken ‘small’ accommodation holidays in Kefallonia, Paxos, Corfu, Poros, Skiathos, Thassos, Samos, Symi, Halki, Leros, Naxos, Patmos and a few others too, and always had the same experience. The landlords want to give you things. It may be something that they’ve cooked or baked, it may be something to drink, but their hospitality traditions demand that they make you feel welcome, and it usually works. If you’ve never taken the plunge and always searched for the luxury of a hotel, take my tip and take the plunge. Try staying ‘small,’ and then compare the experience. At the very least you’ll go home actually knowing what country you’d been staying in.

Here’s one final batch of photos from Sitia…

When we got back home on the weekend of May 4/5, we were soon tasked with rescuing the garden from drought. Everything needed watering. While we were pottering about – me with a hosepipe and Yvonne with some secateurs – in the lower garden, just across the lane from Evangelia’s house, she came out to the end of her lane and caught sight of us.

“Aax, paidia!!” She called out, “Where have you been? We’ve missed you? We wondered why we haven’t seen you. Is everything all right?”

We, of course explained where we’d been. Tell you what though, as Frank Sinatra once sang, “It’s oh so nice to go travelling, but it’s so much nicer, yes it’s so much nicer to come home.”

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There are small things that happen, apparently insignificant things, that often reveal a lot about how much tourism has affected the place you happen to be at any one time. I’ll try to illustrate what I mean. Traditionally, if you’re a Greek and you go to a café or kafeneio for a coffee, it goes without saying that you’ll always also receive a glass of water to go with it. Sometimes you’ll get a bottle of water, so that you can replenish your glass as you like. The bottle may be a plastic one, sealed from the factory, or a refillable one, and you can rest assured that in such cases the water’s usually either from a source that’s perfectly safe and probably less chemically treated than it is in the UK, other European countries or maybe the USA, or the bar has installed a filtration system, removing some of the ‘harder’ salts and minerals before it reaches the bottle.

On the subject of drinking water, if I may digress just a tad here (I never do that, do I? 😛), it’s really not correct to believe the old saying ‘don’t drink the water‘ when you’re here in Greece. OK, there may be some exceptions in urban areas on the mainland or larger islands, but in the less inhabited areas much of the drinking water is right out of the nearest mountain, and filtered by the rocks, making it as fresh as a mountain stream in many cases.

When we lived in the UK we were always conscious of the fact that the drinking water’s treated. It contains fluoride and chlorine, for example. I well remember when I was much younger hearing that they put fluoride in the water to help improve dental health. Yet if you do your research you’ll find that the negative effects of fluoride to the human body far outweigh the positives. The human body accumulates fluoride, and, as it does so, the side effects may become more severe. Does the apparent benefit simply to dental health warrant mass-treating the general public, who have no choice in the matter, with a chemical that’s hotly debated in some circles? That’s for another day and another website to argue about.

Back to the water that comes with your coffee. We’ve noticed, and I’m sure other seasoned Grecophiles have too, that in the more touristy areas they’ve given up bringing water with your coffee. The reason for this is simple, and this is only my humble opinion of course (as is everything I write, after all), in the UK people in general don’t drink water. Oh they’ll drink fruit juice, squash (if you’re not from the UK you’ll get very confused by that word!), beer, wine, fizzy drinks until the cows come home. But water? Nah, too boring. It’s a sad fact that drinking simply water has become unpopular, and those who don’t drink neat water pay the price healthwise with the passing of the years. Again, that subject’s for another time and place, but suffice it to say, where most of the clientele are foreigners, Greek cafés have given up bringing water because no one wants it. Greeks, however, in general, still take a little water with their coffee, and so if you are given water when you receive the coffees you ordered then it’s more likely you’re in an area where the clientele is still predominantly local and tourism hasn’t quite reached saturation point.

Now, all this rambling on about water is the preamble to another point that I wanted to talk about, and that’s the secret that Greeks are well aware of (and probably Italians, Spanish, French [well, those from the Mediterranean coastal areas anyway]) about how to enjoy taking your time. See, we’ve noticed since having lived here for pushing two decades now that when we’re with British people, relatives, friends included, most of them will sit down for a coffee of a morning, probably in a place that’s infinitely more picturesque (not to say warmer!) than where they come from, drink their coffee, then start on about what we’re doing next. They’ll fuss about paying the bill and start throwing their bags over their shoulders and leaning forward in their seats, sending a clear signal that they’re ready to get up and leave. It’s a symptom of the lifestyle I suppose, that people from the north of Europe are used to. They’re always ‘getting on,’ as in moving from one thing to another, and usually at breakneck speed.

Here in Greece, though, it’s all about enjoying the moment, savouring a leisurely conversation (even if it gets heated about politics or money) and not worrying about what time it is until it becomes desperate, which it seldom does anyway. When we were in Sitia (and this applies here in Ierapetra too, in fact all over this wonderful nation) we observed time and again, as we went out for coffee every single morning, that during the time that we were sitting at our table, all the time eavesdropping on Greeks conversing nearby (another bonus from having learnt the language, see previous post), or revelling in a spot of people-watching, we’d witness a familiar scene time and again. Tourists would happen by, choose a table to sit down, order their drinks (so often it would be beer too, which no self-respecting local drinks at that time of the day), drink them, and then get up to rush off to wherever else they thought they needed to be. Sometimes we’d see the same table occupied by two or three different couples, families or groups, while we sat there all the while savouring life, the beautiful surroundings, and a lack of stress. Makes you wonder what holidays are for, when people still feel the need to relentlessly move on, even during their week or two in the sun, doesn’t it.

We’d often exhaust our bottle of water, while very slowly supping our freddos through our reusable metal straws (oh yes, we’re very environmentally aware these days!) and, without our asking, the waiter or waitress would float by, take the bottle away and return a few minutes later with a fresh one. Can you imagine that in the UK? When we first arrived on Rhodes we made the mistake of having our first meal out in Lindos. It was August. Me and the better half have always loved one thing about Greece (many, actually, but I’m going to mention just the one here), and that’s the fact that you can go out to eat, or simply drink, and no one rushes you. You can sit with your meal or drinks all gone and a table full of empties, but never are you given the impression that the owner of the business or his/her staff want you out so that they can get some more bums on the seats and get ‘the coin’ in. That first meal in a Lindos restaurant in 2005 really disappointed us because it was very soon evident that tourism was the be-all-and-end-all to the restaurants there. No sooner had we emptied a plate than it was whisked away from the table. You’d hardly put your empty bottle or glass down when a hand swept it away and, as soon as there was nothing left to eat or drink, the table was completely cleared while we still sat there digesting our meal and thinking about maybe enjoying the rooftop environment with a lovely view of the brightly lit acropolis above for a little longer yet.

The waiter returned in record time with the bill, before we’d asked for it, and then he hovered while we got our wallets out. Lindos in August was NOT in any way the Greece that we knew and loved, sadly. Four of us had sat down at around 8.30pm, and by 9.45pm we were getting up to leave, while the waiters were already re-setting the table for the next set of suckers – sorry – diners, to sit down, even as we were pushing our chairs back under the table. Lindos is truly beautiful to look at, but if you want my humble opinion, go there in winter, when it’s an entirely different place.

Now, I’m sure you know this by now anyway, but the Greeks will venture out, whether it be for a morning coffee or an evening meal, with the understanding that they’ll be able to stay in their seats until they’re good and ready to leave, and that’s usually hours later than when they arrived. When our waiter/waitress in any of the Sitia cafés where we enjoyed our morning Freddos courteously brought us a new bottle of water, even as we supped the dregs from our iced coffees, well that spoke volumes without a word being said. It told us that as long as we chose to sit there, we were welcome, and only when we chose to would we get up to leave.

Now, I know some will say that occupying a table for too long on one or two drinks is depriving the establishment of income, because maybe others could have sat there and spent their money too. But it’s the culture here, pure and simple. I love to see it when the locals sit and chat, oblivious to the passing of time, often too without ordering a second drink. Other relatives or neighbours will happen by and either simply exchange a few ‘Na eiste kalas‘ or whatever, or they’ll wreck the table layout by dragging chairs and tables this way and that in order to accommodate an ever-growing group of friends, and the conversation all the while flows effortlessly. It’s all about the climate I suppose. Because everyone spends most of their waking hours outdoors in this country, even in winter time, it stands to reason that they’ll enjoy hanging out while they’re out there. The ability to take the day as it comes, without constantly looking at one’s watch (or, I suppose nowadays, phone) to see what the time is while mentally running through the day’s itinerary is something that we British have to learn if we spend any time in Greece.

I suppose it’s the art (and it is an art) of knowing how to be busy doing nothing and feeling the benefits, especially in one’s stress levels. Time for some more Sitia snaps…

That shot of the tree and bench on the seafront was taken during the few days when we were stricken with the dreaded ‘Afrikaniki skoni’ or Saharan dust, that is a frequent phenomenon at this time of the year. Fortunately, it occurred during our first week and didn’t last too long.

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The shot above was taken during another one of my midnight strolls. Well, I say midnight, but this one was actually around 4.30am, but it’s just an expression of speech after all. I loved the way I managed (more by luck than judgment) to catch the moody moon behind the clouds, just above the boat’s mast. During our two week stay in Sitia I ended up doing a half a dozen or so nighttime rambles and I have to say that, even though I’d rather have been asleep, I really enjoyed them and got quite enthusiastic about taking photos when the whole town was sleeping.

So, before I start on about why I called this post ‘Mind your language,’ here are some more night time photos that I selected to keep and post here (and don’t forget that you can click to see them in a larger view)…

The first photo in that gallery above really amused me. Let’s admit it, the Greeks are eminently civilised when it comes to café culture, aren’t they? I mean, that street lamp post had two holders for plant pots, which in this instance (an exception, I have to say) weren’t in use, but the extra one? It just had to be made for people to place their coffee in right?

Something else which says a lot about life in this little corner of the world, and once again I know I’ve probably laboured this point before, is the fact that everywhere you go in the dead of night, all the cafés and restaurants have left their tables and chairs in situ outdoors. Come on, let’s be honest, can you imagine anywhere in the UK (and a few other European countries besides) where businesses could do that? Even wandering the narrow shopping streets of Sitia (and this also applies to Ierapetra) you pass stores with large areas of glass, both windows and doors, that are only secured by a small security bolt at the bottom of the door. The store may be an electrical store selling computer accessories, a clothes or shoe shop, or whatever, but in most UK cities there would have to be roller shutters drawn down and closed tight during the night hours, surely. I walked those streets alone and in a complete sense of security, a blessing indeed.

I know I’ve been talking a lot recently about how writing a blog can sometimes sit awkwardly with one if one wants to try and remain modest. It goes with the territory to talk about how great one’s life is, and I fight really hard sometimes to try and write in a manner that doesn’t blow my own trumpet, as it were. But something that I have to confess I do feel quite passionate about is the importance of learning the language if you go to live in another country. OK, so it may be hard, …so? Lots of worthwhile things are hard, but that doesn’t give one the excuse not to make the effort. Something that happened to us a couple of days before we came home well illustrates the value of being able to converse in the language of the country that one’s adopted as home. If I may relate the experience, I do so in the hope that it may give others the incentive to set to it and learn, because it’s a hard fact that speaking Greek here in Greece opens doors to experiences that one would simply never have if they didn’t make the effort. So here goes…

Sitting outside one of the many café/bars which we made use of on a daily basis to enjoy a spot of people-watching, we got into conversation with the bar’s owner and the young girl waiting at tables and exchanged a few comments about various things. Sitting almost alongside us was a young couple with a small child and it soon caught our attention that the wife was paying attention to our conversation. By this time we’d been seen around every day for a week and a half, and so many of the regulars at the waterfront cafés had seen us around. We too had already got to know the locals whom we’d see parading along the front each day before selecting a table at which to sit and enjoy some ‘parea‘ and a delicious iced coffee. The habit that lots of Greeks have of sitting almost daily at a café table with a few friends while enjoying their coffee without hurry is one that has appealed to us for years, and that we adopted long ago now.

Anyway, curiosity eventually got the better of the lovely lady sitting to the left of Yvonne and she couldn’t help it, she had to call to us and ask, “Excuse me, but may I ask where you’re from? I’m sorry but we’re intrigued by how well you speak Greek, and yet we don’t know you, although we’ve seen you every day for the past week and more.”

We assured her that it was no problem whatsoever and that we were only too happy to answer her question and satisfy her curiosity. We learned about her family and its roots, and she about my wife’s Greek heritage and our almost two decades of living in Greece. She and her husband were lovely people (most of them are, of course) and, once her curiosity was satisfied, we happily wished each other ‘kali synexeia‘ and returned to our own conversations.

Sadly, one of the reasons why we had intrigued her was the fact that the vast majority of ex-pat Brits who live in Greece, irrespective of how many years they’ve been here, still can’t converse beyond a basic ‘kalimera,’ ‘euharisto’, and ‘ti kaneis.’ A whole wealth of lovely experiences that come from being able to speak the language are closed off to such people. It’s a shame, but they only have themselves to blame I suppose.

The story doesn’t end there though. The following day we went back to the same café and saw that the same woman with whom we’d enjoyed a rewarding conversation was there, and this time without her hubby, but with about six other people, one of whom was her sister. I have to say that both women were very attractive too, something that Yvonne and I often remark upon. Maybe we’re biased, but Greek women and men always seem to have so much better taste in clothing than we do, but (and maybe the skin hue plays a rôle) they always look so much more beautiful too. Most young Greek women celebrate their beautiful dark hair and precious few chop it into all those weird lopsided and punk-type hairdos that seem to prevail in the UK these days. Most Greek girls and young women have long silky hair that looks marvellous. I know, I know, I’m probably too old fashioned these days, but there you are.

After we’d waved a hello and exchanged a greeting, Maria, the first young woman’s sister, came over to talk to me, as she and her sister had checked out my blog and website (I’d taken the opportunity, as one must, of handing her one of my calling cards) and liked what they saw. Now, when you read what ensued I know what you’re going to say, she was only interested in promoting her own business too, since she told me all about her rentable villa in Stavrochori, the village of their roots, but I don’t have a problem with that. When you run a small business, whether it’s writing books as an independent author, or renting out a house owned by your family in a remote Greek village, you need a spot of mutual back scratching in order to get the word out there. It’s how the world works after all, especially when you don’t have a publicity machine to make people aware of your ‘product’ as it were.

I’ll tell you what too, had I not liked what I saw when I examined her website and Facebook page for the villa, I wouldn’t be talking about it now. But I did, I really did. The villa is in a very quiet village, about half an hour’s drive up in the hills from Sitia, and a similar distance too from the South coast at Makry Gialos. Anyone who’s read my stuff for any length of time will know that I have a strong aversion to all-inclusive hotels, and in fact to any large, faceless hotel where you can spend a week or two without hardly knowing what country you’re in. I’ve been coming to Greece (before moving here in 2005) since the mid 1970’s and always stayed ‘small.‘ It’s by far the better way to truly experience the country and its culture, its people and its cuisine.

So, I take great pleasure and make no apology for giving you some links if you’re maybe thinking about a rewarding Cretan holiday where you’ll experience the ‘real Crete.’ I’ve also add a link on my ‘Small UK tour operators’ page, which I’ve now changed to ‘Stay Small,‘ a more appropriate name for also encompassing other small accommodation for the more independent traveller, not just tour operators.

Villa Maria (Stavrochori) Google page

Villa Maria Facebook

Villa Maria Booking.com

Villa Maria Crete top hotels

Maria is going to place my calling card in the villa, so if you should happen to go there, you’ll hopefully find it. Also, if you do decide to contact Maria, please do tell her how you found out about her, won’t you.

To be honest, we have so many experiences on a continual basis these days that drive home just how rewarding it is to speak the language here. So, if you’re an expat living in Greece, I can only encourage you to have a go, take the bull by the horns and make the effort. You will never regret it.

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