Bad Tourism, Bracelets, Bears and Booze

Autumn in Greece is a lovely season when the sun transforms itself  from white-hot to a much more comfortable,mellow yellow. H and I took ourselves off to a sea-side resort in the south-west, to Prevesa Beach Hotel. We lucked out as we were right next to the stairwell and so our ‘room’ was actually a suite : we had a nicely decorated room and bathroom ….. and a lovely spacious sitting room as well – no complaints from us! 

     

 

  

                      

I remember years ago, while I was orally examining an IELTS candidate from Halkidiki, being surprised to hear her talk about ‘bad tourists’.  How could foreign visitors bringing cash into Greece possibly be bad? She was referring to those who came on pre-paid all-in package tours and who, to her mind, were bad since their cash was channeled almost exclusively into the host hotel rather than spread out across the other catering or retail outlets in the area. Seems to me if the hotel management has shown the initiative and made the effort to offer such packages and attract such tourists in the first place, then they are entitled to as much of that income pie as they wish!  

  Anyway, in her eyes we were there as ‘bad tourists’ – the minute we checked in at reception we were presented with red plastic bracelets to indicate we were guests there on full board.

 At the Pizza Hut in Kuwait, I used to suppose some of the locals could be up for Guinness Book of Records entry for how much food they could pack into the single, smallish bowls each customer could fill from the salad bar. And there was a real art involved in stashing as much in there as you could:

The trick was to fill the base with any ‘loose’ ingredients – rice, kidney beans, sweetcorn,beetroot, etc.. Round the sides of the bowl you next constructed a ‘wall’ of carrot, celery or cucumber slices or batons to hold content nicely in place. This you then fill with potato salad, tsatziki, taramas, etc. -   a nice         sticky layer into which the rest of your selected food could then be wedged – ingenious, huh ? 

 At Prevesa Beach Hotel, piled-high plates were greatly in evidence at breakfast, lunch and dinner  as guests  took full advantage of the generous buffet on offer for every meal. And between meals in the pool areas and in the lounges there were snacks and drinks available as well as an endless supply of ice-cream.  At times watching what some greedy gutsies were downing was tantamount to undergoing   food-aversion therapy.

Despite the fact that  the chefs  were catering for so many people, the quality of food was really good. Being a Brit, I am always keen to sample a cooked breakfast, so each lunchtime I resolved to have only a salad. But each buffet invariably held something to tempt me: memorable were the rabbit stew and the spinach and artichokes with cheese and a creamy bechamel topping – delicious ! Just as well we had the sea and swimming pools  astone’s throw from our room so we could attempt to work off some of these calories by swimming or walking in the beautiful grounds and surrounds.  

 

 

     The sign on the employees’ sitting room door did not, I think, express the fact that management saw personnel as inanimate objects – at any rate, as you can see above, they were a cheery bunch, ever ready to be of service.  My only complaint was that on two occasions  I eagerly went to the basement gym ready to participate in Pilates and traditional Greek dance as advertised, but nothing came of them. They said there was no interest in them, but a little bit of  promotion could well have done the trick. I am an avid brochure reader, but most people were unaware these activities were on offer. 

 

  On our last evening we had sundowners on the terrace overlooking the sea, and learned that management had  a treat in store for us : instead of the usual dinner buffet, they had laid on a barbecue. We had some excellent and plenteous (as ever!) roasted meats, salads and sweets . Thank goodness they had organised  live music as well so we took advantage of that and got some post-prandial exercise into the bargain.

 

                      

Although it was way past her bedtime, this little mite below was having the time of her life, Dad-dancing. She went on for ages, bobbing up and down in time to the music, with her chubby cheeks creased in a wonderful smile.  Actually, proud papa looked as if he was having a pretty good time too. 

 

                    

So sated, in every sense of the word, we left the hotel, travelling north through a warren of tunnels hewn through the mountains. This one is over four kilometres long – a definite feat of engineering but not for those with serious claustrophobia. 

         On the road, we see my favourite sign warning drivers that they are driving through the natural habitat of the bear ( a tunnel constructed just to protect them)  – so what is that symbol of a graceful gazelle doing there ? !

 We by-pass Ioannina and head for Metzovo, a picturesque mountain village. When you see how some of the village houses appear to hover over the crevasse below, you realize that this place is not for those who suffer from vertigo to make their home. I shudder to think how one gets about on these roads during the inevitable winter freeze.

                              

 

                                      

  

                     

 Our goal there is to visit the Katogi Averoff winery surrounded by beautiful houses in the traditional style, nestling in mountains which are part of the Pindos range.   A son of Metzovon, Evangelos Averoff was a well-known politician. Initially, in an effort to boost the finances of his home area,   in the late 1950s, he brought the first Cabernet Sauvignon grapes to Greece. Breaking new ground, both literally and metaphorically, he blended these grapes with traditional Greek strains to produce his famous Katogi red.  We may have arrived in shorts and T-s but we are here to stock up our cellar with winter reds. A particular favourite of H’s is Ktima Averoff, a rich red of mainly Cabernet Sauvignon grapes.  The sales-lady suggests we try a new blend, Augustos, which uses some grapes from the Peloponnese area. 

 

         Who are we to argue?   We’re planning to have a warming winter – cheers !

Highland Haj 3 : Highland highways, waterways and watering holes.

I did say there was more to come on Tarbert, Argyll and, though it has taken a wee while, here we are. Many of you will be familiar with the Mull of Kintyre, thanks to the eponymous song made famous by Sir Paul McCartney and Wings in 1977.  Paul has had a long association with the area since 1966 when he bought High Park farm near Campbeltown. 

People usually enthuse about the natural beauty of the area, so I was surprised when an Edinburgh teaching colleague, on learning I was from near Tarbert, pulled a face. Probing further, I learned her unusual reaction was informed by years of classroom experience teaching Geography. She asked me to imagine what it was like trying to get teenage boys to draw maps of a peninsula greatly resembling the male member. I still stand by the beauty of the landscape, but have never been able to see it with the same eyes! 

One morning, out for a stroll, I came upon this event: a massive trailer being slowly towed along the road, complete with police escort. The strange thing was that the trailer, though fully extended, was….quite empty! The friendly traffic-controlling ‘bobby’ explained all. This was a dry-run to see if the trailer could safely manage our windy roads while hauling a wind-turbine component. And we have a happy ending: Katy MacBrayne of the Argyll and Bute Council Development and Infrastructure Services confirmed that the blade had been successfully transported from the RAF base in Machrihanish to Salachary, north of Kilmartin, to the Carraig Gheal Wind Farm – good name, that!

                                                    

    

We had a special evening treat - attending a film show in the Screen Machine, Britain’s only mobile cinema. This large vehicle serves the Highlands and islands of Scotland, bringing the latest films to remote areas.

 While we waited for the screening to begin, I was intrigued to see that the early birds were young lads, intent on getting front-row seats.  I got chatting with the lady seated next to me.  Turned out she knew my Auntie Katie, a family stalwart who had never married because, according to her:     

      ‘the desirable was not available, and the available was not desirable’  - just LOVE that! 

 She was very well known as she ran the local sweetie-shop, where youngsters regularly came for their barley sugars, chocolate misshapes, lollipops, gob-stoppers and sherbet sookers – tongue-searingly sharp sherbet retrieved from its cardboard cylinder by sucking on a liquorice tube. We laughed as we fondly remembered how Auntie Katie refused to let the children spend all their money at once. I guess she more or less had a monopoly on their pocket money anyway – they would always come to her. 

 What this lady and my aunt had in common was their membership of the same church, the Free Church of Scotland. This ultra-conservative church, of Calvinistic nature, allows no music to be played during the service. It holds the fourth commandment, ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy’, as the central tenet of its faith. Consequently it has opposed ferries operating on a Sunday, obstructed children from using play parks and definitely frowned on doctors going out to care for the sick. I remember as children we were not allowed out to play when this church service was being held.

 Devout members, ‘Wee Frees’ as they are known, will go to great lengths to avoid any activity which may be construed as ‘working’ on that day. I clearly recall Auntie Katie, every Saturday, scrubbing her floors, cooking her meals, and even boiling water for her tea, kept hot in a flask … all to keep her Sabbath holy.

 That night the film being shown was ‘The Angel’s Share’. This was a light-hearted tale of down-at-heel Glaswegian lads trying to make a fast buck by siphoning off seriously expensive whisky from distillery vats. But truth to tell I felt a little discomfort. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the film - it really was quite entertaining. Nor was it anything to do with the venue - the air-conditioned, 80-seater was beautifully comfortable. My discomfort stemmed from the fact that the director was Ken Loach and, in keeping with his vernacular style, every second word was a four-letter one rhyming with ‘luck’ ….and there was me sitting next to a Wee Free, feeling her every wince!

                

We had a wonderful experience when we had a sail on the Waverley, the last seagoing, passenger paddle steamer in the world.  Named after Sir Walter Scott’s first novel, she is one fine old lady. Built in 1946, she regularly plied the Firth of Clyde until 1973 when she was bought by the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society. A public appeal raised funds, enabling the PSPS to arrange major refurbishing and ultimately organize Waverley Excursions. 

 Her operators claim she is one of the most photographed ships in the world. Certainly as she arrived at Tarbert Pier it was with a stylish elegance, the sound of the water swishing against her paddle blades like that of the starched lace petticoats of a grand dame. Though she took a bit of buffeting in choppy seas, in wind and rain, she took it like the trooper she is and we enjoyed a unique, smooth cruise.

Next to the P.S.Waverley, we see another vessel – the Oyster 70 Alba Venturer– which was just coming in to anchor, before rounding the Mull of Kintyre and going on to the island of Gigha. It operates under the aegis of the Ocean Youth Trust Scotland, a youth work charity which offers residential voyages for young Scots between the ages of 12 to 25, usually without any prior sailing experience. Operating from March through to November, their fleet of three sailing ships offers sail-training. Along with that experience, crew members attain personal development through facing physical, mental and emotional challenges. So the smiling faces that greeted us from the deck were among the thousand young people lucky enough to be selected annually for this maritime adventure.

        

The final focus of this posting is our visit to the imposing Stonefield Castle Hotel. Set in 60 acres of woodland, on a promontory north of Tarbert, it enjoys glorious views of Loch Fyne and boasts magnificently massive rhododendron bushes.  Here as a student I spent a summer holiday, washing dishes in the back kitchen while guests dined off fine china and on gourmet food. Naturally I wanted to be on the other side of the serving table, so invited the ladies of our party there for afternoon tea. 

Seven-year-old Neve was delighted to be included in the group and she had, on her own initiative, designed and completed a lady’s behavioural analysis to check if she was worthy of such designation. Ladies, according to her ‘survey’, do not clip their brothers’ ears, nor do they shout! My great-niece- and she is great! – thoroughly enjoyed the high tea she is displaying here: shrimp cocktail on brown bread, lettuce and dressing, game chips, oatcake, fruit scone with cream and raspberry jam - mmm!

          

   

    

 

                      

But today, as all you guisers know, we celebrate Hallowe’en and now Neve, the lady, turns into a blade-wielding, plundering pirate.

                                                                  Be afraid, be very afraid!

Stork stories, the birds and the bees, and Koufovouno Paniyiri revisited

Now, where were we? Ah, yes: Koufovouno.

 When we arrived, what first caught our attention was the nest of storks, right across the road from our house. This year the nest atop the pole was really densely populated with five young ones. In the first picture these big bairns seem to be on the lookout, as usually they stand together facing away from the sun. They must be hungry and waiting to be fed.  

 And, right on cue, here comes lunch.  In the second picture you can see a chick being fed directly, though the tendency is for a large amount of food – insects, and earthworms for the wee bairns, then developing to fish, reptiles, small birds and mammals- to be disgorged and the brood feed from that.

 

         

 

 Both parents share the duties of incubating the eggs and of feeding the young; perhaps that is why we associate this bird with matters maternal. But there is one trait that does not comply with that image – that of killing weak or small chicks, which is sometimes done to reduce the number of mouths to feed in times of perceived food shortage. Neighbours have, indeed, seen fledgelings being dropped from the nest on the odd occasion. 

And while we’re on the subject of their own babes, why do we associate the stork with being the bringer of human babes? There are many stork stories to be told. Greek Mythology holds that Gerana , queen of the Pygmy race, boasted of being more beautiful than the goddess Hera who summarily turned her into a crane.  Some tales confuse birds, saying Hera turned her rival into a stork and that, to avenge her, the stork-woman tried to steal her son. So we have that image of the baby-bearing stork but stealing, not bringing - so far, so confused. 

Egyptian mythology associated the stork with the human soul, the ba, and the return of the stork represented the reanimation of the spirit of the deceased.  Here the association with babies is evident. Norse mythology identifies family values and commitment to one another with the stork. It is clear from the stork’s tendency to return to the same nest and to forge long-term partnerships that it could come to symbolize fidelity and monogamy. That they also arrive from their wintering grounds in spring, the time of fecundity and reproduction, connects them with the concept of birth.

 Certainly these tall tales have been a helpful resort for parents whose children broach the delicate issue of where babies come from. In English we say such conversations are about ‘the birds and the bees’. The stork has played a significant role there but where, oh, where do these bees come in?

After providing the food, the parent bird perched on a telegraph pole nearby clacking loudly-a sound made by rapidly opening and closing its bill, and amplified by its throat pouch. I wonder what was being communicated then? Perhaps telling its mate that the next meal was their responsibility!

They say that you can differentiate between the adult birds in that the male is the larger one. In this case the babes were so big we couldn’t really tell them apart from their parents. These youngsters, being ready to leave the nest as my later pictures show, must have been about two months old then. And after leaving the nest they will continue to be fed by their parents for up to three weeks, until they can fend for themselves.  Given that we could not tell child and parent apart, it is hardly surprising that the Ancient Greeks believed that the birds had in fact switched roles and that the young were tending their parents. This is why the law they passed stipulating that children must care for their elderly parents   was called the Pelargonia, pelargos being the Greek name for the stork.

 

            

While we were there we were lucky enough to sight the young take to the air. After several attempts at little jumps with outspread wings, off goes the first one. Had to be a girl for we girls say the female of the species usually develops more quickly and because…… it’s a maiden flight! Now what would the aeronautic equivalent of ‘breaking new ground’ be? – constructing new air corridors, perhaps? There’s our girl standing, albeit unsteadily, on our roof and so conferring good luck on the household!  Having taken that step, or rather, that leap into the air, she has set up a sense of inter-sibling rivalry, challenging the others to do the same.

And here’s the response: ‘I’m up for it! Yes, you see…. I did it!’

                          

To our delight we had two roof-top guests, though I don’t think the rest of the family were so pleased to have the flyer return and crash-land on them.

                                          

But we have been distracted- we’re in Koufovouno for the paniyiri. Nowadays the nod to the original agora or market place is the line of stalls set up on the main road. They sell all sorts of tatt: plastic weapons, toys and jewellery to attract the children. The peckish are catered for too, what with hotdogs, lollipops and candy floss- which goes by the name of ‘the old woman’s hair’ in Greek- eugh!

                     

Once again the Koufovouno Ladies’ Association has been busy and they’ve organised food, music and dance – another cause for celebration! First here’s a splendid Thracian headdress and next we see local beauties resplendent in their hand-made, handed-down traditional Koufovouno costume- just a wee bit heavy to be comfortable to dance in.

 

   

Falling as it did on a Saturday, the paniyiri was very well attended with villagers coming from far and wide to meet up and join in- but not on foot as was the case in the past! Here we are catching up on the news with Magda, our second-cousin. After the dance troupes performed their sets, everyone took to the floor and danced their socks off. But it was well after midnight when things really took off- this young man took centre-stage with the traditional Thracian bag-pipes and the place erupted. It was so great to see so many young lads and lasses proudly and enthusiastically responding to the call of the pipes.

 Incidentally, many Scottish pipers will recommend that whisky be used every now and then to disinfect the bag- I wonder if the Thracians use an ouzo equivalent?

    

 

      

 

 

     

       

The following day, after such late-nighting, we rose late and lazy, going for a wee stroll to admire neighbours’ bountiful broccoli, beautiful gourds and giant sunflowers.

 

But any mention of Koufovouno at this time of year must always, of necessity, feature garlic. Here is Kyria Adamoula busy processing her produce. Mistress would be the equivalent of the Greek Kyria since it is a form of polite address or title, not only a marker of marital status. Now that the bulbs have dried, she is plying the garlic stems into plaits for easy stacking and storing. Her granddaughter, spying the camera, could not miss the photo opp. – a right wee celebrity wannabe! 

                                              
    

                                                 

The final shot shows the garlic garland she was kind enough to give us we will remember her fondly and frequently as we prepare pungent meals from now on.

So we sadly say goodbye to the village and, as we do, we know that the storks, too, will soon be taking their leave. They will fly over Turkey, through the Levant, gaining lift from the thermal currents rising above the land mass, to reach their winter quarters in Africa.  

 What with stork-watching, bag-pipe skirling and the garlic aroma pervading our nostrils, our trip has been a rich sensory experience.