Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Greece ~ Going full circle? Just maybe . . .

Some youthful memories are better not revisited,
but sometimes you can go home again.
-- unknown

We were looking for new adventures when we purchased our Stone House on the Hill in Greece’s southern Peloponnese. Travel from there to an array of European travel destinations – only a few hours and a few euros away – added to the temptation of having a part-time home base there.

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Europe's travel candy: London, Istanbul, Cairo, Jerusalem only a few hours away
Now that we are two years into our ‘here/there’ lifestyle we find we like being in Greece so much that we aren’t as tempted to fly off on these short excursions to other countries as we thought we’d be. We are having too much fun in Greece.

Every day is a new adventure, even doing the most mundane of chores. We find the lifestyle is causing us to rediscover old skills and apply them in a new setting. Many of those skills were learned in our mid-20th Century childhoods.  We are just a bit rusty but slowly that lifestyle is coming back to us. . .

Often times we remark of the similarities of this simplified, slower pace Greek lifestyle and that of our childhood. Skills we learned and used way back when are being dusted off and used again. Whether it is because it is all still so new and somewhat foreign to our biorhythms or because it it is bringing us full circle, back to our carefree days of our childhoods, really doesn’t matter. Whatever the case, as Yogi Bera, so aptly quipped, ‘it is deja vu all over again’! 

                I know they say you can’t go home again.
                 I just had to come back one last time.
                         -- Miranda Lambert
Regions of Washington State

Born and raised in small towns in the central part of Washington, a state tucked up in the northwest corner of the United States, we smile when our Greek friends shake their heads, admitting they’ve never heard of the state, let alone the towns in it. Agriculture, btw, as when we were kids, continues to drive the economy in the central and eastern parts of the state.
 
Like other mid-century ‘boomers’ the ‘new technology’ of our childhoods was the television. Telephones, with chords, were wall mounted. We grew up eating home grown vegetables from the garden and eggs collected daily from the chicken coop.  Computers didn’t exist in our youthful world – we entertained ourselves by reading books or playing outside.

Needless to say, like many small town kids, we could hardly wait to grow up, get jobs and live in the 'big city'. Ultimately, we moved to the Greater Seattle Metropolitan area on Washington State’s Puget Sound.

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Seattle skyline from Elliott Bay

Now, after nearly three decades of big city surroundings, we have embraced Greek village life with the force of a bear hug! We love its pace, culture, people –  and its food! -- as we’ve told you repeatedly on these pages. 

So here we are in a house above a small village on a Greek hillside, living a lifestyle not unlike that of our childhoods. We seem to have come full circle. . .the major difference being how we embrace the lifestyle that we once could hardly wait to leave.

I had the urge to examine my life in another culture and move beyond what I knew.
                               -- Frances Mayes, author, Under the Tuscan Sun

Let me give you a few examples, beginning in the vegetable garden. As a child I dutifully pulled weeds and helped harvest, but back then I considered those vegetables-- on the rare occasions we had them -- out of a tin can from the grocery store the real treat. 

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My Greek garden - growing vegetables and vocabulary

20160502_163055_resizedNow I can’t spend enough time in the garden!

This spring I spent hours working to enlarge the two existing planting strips into a larger garden, now crammed with beets, lettuce, onions and potatoes.

Our first lettuce harvest last December was cause for joy as I served a salad with both our homegrown lettuce and our olive oil!

As for the olive oil, I finally got around to bottling some of it (using sanitized recycled ale bottles from one of our friends who runs a taverna) and labeling it with our own Stone House on the Hill labels. An adult ‘arts and crafts’ project – skills from childhood again came in handy!


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Off to the left of my veggie garden stands the wood pile.

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The Scout restacking the wood pile

As kids we both helped stack wood – a fuel used in both our homes.  Can’t say it called out to us then, but now we’ve stacked and re-stacked wood to get it ‘just right’.  That wood you see in the photo is part of our olive harvest: branches are trimmed from the trees during harvest and then are cut for use in fireplaces and wood stoves.

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                                                                           Myprize: my clothes line
To the other side of my garden stands something I’ve missed for decades: a clothes line. One of my favorite childhood chores was hanging clothes (when I got tall enough to reach the line). Living in ‘modern-day big-city United States’ means no clothes lines – some cities and sub-divisions ban them. Here clothes, bedding and towels are dried outside. Only on rare occasion would we take these items to the commercial laundry for washing and drying (there is no such thing as self service laundromats in the area).

Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

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Lemon harvest at The Stone House on the Hill
Long dormant skills learned during a childhood spent working in his parent’s apple orchard have come to life for The Scout. While never having ‘worked’ an olive grove before, he amazed me, as he stepped into this new environment with knowledge about the spraying, pruning, watering, and harvest that is required for the new adventure of ours.

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Spring wildflower carpet is cut for summer fire danger protection
And like his long-ago apple orchard, the olive grove goes through seasons just like all fruit bearing trees: a time for pruning, a time for mowing down the grass, fertilizing, watering and ultimately harvest.  While we are there, we take care of the grove and hire a fellow to take over in our absence.

Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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Playing house - grownup style
My childhood included a ‘playhouse’ – part of our woodshed. It was near the ‘playhouse’ (a cleaned out chicken coop) of my best-friend-next-door-playmate, Mary. We spent hours in those make-believe ‘homes’ of ours, honing our domestic skills. Every so often The Stone House on the Hill brings out the child in me and I need to ‘play house’ – each time I do, it reminds me of those childhood dinner parties I once held in that play house of mine.

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'Entertainment Center' and 'Great Room' of the Stone House on the Hill
We don’t – yet -- have a television at the Stone House. Much like we recall the debates of our parents, we ask ourselves whether we ‘need’ one. So far, the vote is: we don’t. We do have internet (something not even dreamt of in our childhoods – and it keeps us connected with world news, except when the mouse chews through the cable on the roof). 

When not going about daily chores or running errands or socializing with friends, we read books and spend time outside – just like when we were kids.

While in so many other ways that  this ‘here/there’ world  is providing new adventures and behaviors, it is just maybe bringing us full circle as well.

Each day is a journey
and the journey itself is home.
              -- Matsuo Basho


That’s it for this week from The Stone House on the Hill.  Happy and safe travels to you and your family.  As always, we appreciate the time you spend with us!

Check out the writings of other travel and lifestyle blogs at these linkups:
Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration








Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Souvenirs ~ Decorating The Stone House on the Hill

sou·ve·nir  [ˌso͞ovəˈnir], noun,
a thing that is kept as a reminder of a person, place, or event.

We long ago quit buying knickknacks, postcards, key chains and other nonsensical items on our travels. In recent years we’ve been cleaning out our Pacific Northwest home of such collections and discarding the travel memory clutter.
  
‘If we can’t eat it or drink it – we won’t haul it home’ has been our rule of travel.

We refocused and redefined 'souvenir' when we purchased The Stone House on the Hill and began decorating it. We wanted a home that reflected ‘us’ and might inspire and entertain those who stayed with us. What better reflects ‘us’ than travel? Why not start buying things for the house on our travels? Practical, or useful souvenirs, you might say. We've seen it used in those decorator magazines for years. . .

P1010802You long-time readers probably recall we had an extra suitcase on our Middle East cruise which was designated for those types of purchases and. . .then. . .

. . .added yet another filled with Turkish rugs.  We hauled more luggage that trip than we've ever taken anywhere! 

So many of you wrote saying you wanted to see our souvenirs and how they’ve been put to use in Greece, that I thought this week I'd take you on a home tour of sorts and show you where some things and have come from and where they are being used:




Turkey

Let’s start with those Turkish rugs we bought at our last port of call, --  Alanya, Turkey, that magnificent place with the stunning old fortress wall --  on our Magic Carpet ride of a cruise through the Middle East last spring:

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Alanya, Turkey at night from our Oceania Cruise ship Nautica
We purchased three rugs, one for in front of the fireplace, one for a hallway and one for the den.

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Turkish rugs for the den, hallway and living room
Jordan


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Petra, Jordan - a favorite highlight of the cruise
One of my favorite rugs came from Jordan – where Petra and the Wadi Rum were highlights. The purchase of the rug helped support the foundations and charities that are favorites of Queen Noor. (Queen Noor of Jordan is an American woman who is the widow of King Hussein of Jordan. She was his fourth spouse and queen consort between their marriage in 1978 and his death in 1999.)
The purple and green in its design matched perfectly with the colors of our ‘guest level sitting room and bedroom’.
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Guest room at The Stone House on the Hill
We also found an easy decorating item and souvenir to bring back is a pillow case.  The day bed in the guest room has pillowcases in the center that we purchased in Singapore. The goal is to fill that bed with ‘travel pillow cases’.

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Pillow cases make great souvenirs
While in the guest level of our home, lets move into the sitting area and . . .

India


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We went local and rode tuk tuks to see Cochin, India
Our first cruise port of call in India was Cochin, where we explored the town independently from the back of a tuk-tuk, similar to the one above. On one of our stops we couldn’t resist this throw and pillow that now decorate the beige couch in the guest suite.

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Throw and pillow from Cochin, India

Egypt


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Safaga, Egypt our port of call 
Our introduction to this fascinating country of Egypt came with a cruise tour that took us from Safaga to Luxor and during that trip our guide told us the story of the importance of the Scarab beetle in Egyptian myths and legends. She held up a papyrus painting and I immediately ‘had’ to have one.  It only cost $7US and the framing (done in Greece) was another 20 euros – it is one of our favorites.

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Scarab beetle brings memories of Egypt 
While 'de-cluttering' the Pacific Northwest, I happened upon some oversized postcards that I purchased several years ago in Provence, France. Instead of dumping them, I took them to Greece and got them framed (35 euros) by the two talented ladies who run my favorite gallery in Kalamata –  and they now are on display above the kitchen table.

Provence


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A taste of Provence
While we’ve prided ourselves in purchasing ‘useful’ souvenirs for our Greek home, I have to admit – we did give in to temptation and filled our refrigerator door with . . .magnets, one from each country in which our Magic Carpet landed. They surround my favorite saying:
Life is not measured by the
number of breaths we take,
but by the number of moments
that take our breath away.
Now, every room in The Stone House on the Hill features something to remind us of those breathtaking moments!

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Memories to take our breath away
That’s it for this week.  Thanks for coming along on the tour and we hope you’ll be back again soon.  I’ll do another post one day and show you some of the items we've found during our travels in Greece that now are part of our furnishings and decorations.  Do you collect souvenirs? If so, tell us about them in the comments below or shoot us an email!

Safe travels to you and yours~

Linking up this week with:

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





Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Greece ~ Siga, Siga; slowly, slowly . . .

“Slow down, you move too fast,
gotta make the morning last. . .”
                                             -- Paul Simon, The 59th Street Bridge Song
I regularly meet a fellow writer friend for coffee and chitchat when I am in the Pacific Northwest. We schedule it early in the day so as to fit it in to our schedules, which in itself could be a laugh as we are both retired. I mean, really, ‘schedules’ when you are retired??

We never worry about overstaying the 1.5 hour free parking limit where we rendezvous because frankly, we don’t have time to exceed it – there’s always another appointment or commitment that one of us needs to get to.  We sip steaming beverages served in paper cups imprinted with Starbucks logos, giving little attention to our surroundings.
 
We aren't quite as hurried as others who rush in and ‘grab and go’ –  we can now use our mobile device to order our coffee prior to our arrival at this coffee shop chain. No waiting. In and out and on our way. Who has time to linger?

That rushed approach to both having coffee and living life seems normal, the ‘American way’.

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Coffee on the island of Poros, Greece
And, I've come to learn, it is a stark contrast to the Greek approach to meeting for coffee. The difference between the two is nothing short of a cultural caffeine jolt. In Greece meeting for coffee is a long, lingering event, not limited to any particular time of day: morning, afternoon or long into the evening, people come together over coffee. 


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Coffee shop corner in Heraklion, Crete

It has taken a bit of time to adapt to this cultural phenomenon of relaxing and slowing the pace over coffee.  I mean, sitting at a table, long after your cups are empty, sipping a glass of water (that is always provided with the coffee in Greece), just isn’t the norm in the States. Yet, here, it seems almost an insult to the establishment to rapidly consume your beverage and then jump up and leave.

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Kafenion in the Greek Peloponnese
This ‘long-linger’ over coffee may have gotten its start at the old style kafenions, those tiny shops where a small group of elderly Greek men visit while sipping their strong-enough-to-put-hair-on-your-chest coffee and downing an ouzo chaser while twirling worry beads. Where ever the tradition began, it is insanely popular at cafes and coffee houses throughout the country.

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Maestros café - Kardamyli, Greece
During our early stages in Greece we used that American approach to ‘going out for coffee’ in our village. Sip quickly, check messages on our phones, then be on our way.

Siga, siga, (slowly, slowly) that is changing.  After all, what did we really have to do in Greece that would cause us to rush off from anywhere?  And why is it that ‘busy’ seems the acceptable by-word in the States, but here we are learning contentedness in sitting and smelling, the roses,  the coffee, in this case, and watching the world go by?

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Kaefenion - Agios Nikolaos, Peloponnese, Greece
We began slowing our pace one Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago when The Scout and I headed to our nearby village, Agios Nikolaos for coffee ‘at Freda’s’. That means Gregg’s Plateia – a small cafe run by Gregg and his mom Freda.  This popular eatery is an ex pat gathering spot, post office, bus stop, and serves as host site to any number of fund-raisers.

An added bonus is that Freda always has an answer to our questions, of which we usually have a few.

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An afternoon at Freda's - siga, siga
As we lingered at our table for nearly two hours sipping a cappuccino and a ‘press’ coffee on that warm afternoon I realized we were conquering the cultural coffee divide. During that time, we browsed through her furniture catalog, picked up books from her mail table that I had ordered from the U.K.'s  Book Depository and purchased oranges from the fruit vendor – never going more than a dozen steps away from the table.

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We buy from this fellow as often as possible
We’d visited with a couple of folks who were walking past, waved to others and simply watched others go about their rounds, like our village pappas, making his way to the church around the corner – after he’d made a stop at the coffee shop across the way.

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Watching the street scene - Agios Nikolaos, Peloponnese
By lingering, we had a treat as a ‘new’ fishing boat was spotted in the bay and crew were shuttling its catch between the boat and the harbor fish scales. Amazing all the things there are to watch and learn while sipping a cup of coffee – if  you give yourself the time to do it.

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Agios Nikolaos - Peloponnese
Our timing was off that day – even with our lingering – so we didn’t get to watch the bus from Kalamata stop in front of the cafe and deposit passengers prior to threading its way down the village’s main street to its next stop at the other end of town.

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The bus comes through town three times a day - Agios Nikolaos
You, who follow our adventures on Facebook, know that one of my most favorite pastimes (and unexplainable) is watching the bus that serves this region crawl through town on its way north or south and then posting FB photos like the one above.

I was glad to learn I wasn’t the only one who enjoys that bus. The photo below was taken on another afternoon coffee outing, when we had new friends who were visiting from the United States join us for an afternoon coffee at another favorite hangout of ours, Molos Bistrot, next to Freda’s. It was the oncoming bus – not the caffeine – that jolted them out of their seats with cameras in hand.

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Here comes the bus!
I took the photo below a few years back in a cafe where we sipped coffee during a stay in a village on Crete’s southern coast. Back then, we had a limited amount of time for travels in Greece and wanted to see as much of the country as possible.  The message didn’t ring as clear then as it does these days.

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We thank you for being here with us for another serving of Greek tales and hope to see you back again. Until then, safe travels to you and yours.

Linking up this week with:

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

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Don’t Miss A Rocky Mountain High in Greece’s Mani

Sometimes those Greek tourist promotion folks focus too much on sun-kissed beaches, sailboats, sand and surf.

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Plenty of sun and sea in Greece

Map picture
Greece does have more than its fair share of sea, sun, sand and surf but what is equally impressive and should call out to all visitors,are its mountains.

There are many unsung mountain ranges throughout Greece but now that we are part time ex pats, just south of Kalamata, in the Peloponnese we can attest to the striking beauty of the towering ranges that make up this expansive peninsula.

Of course, the Taygetos, that frame our area are our favorite!  (The Green on the map is mountainous areas).

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Taygetos Mountain views
And since I told you about stones last week, I thought it time to pay homage to the source of those stones: the mountains that surround us. This is also an intended nudge to those of you planning trips to Greece to include some mountains in your explorations. Hint: in The Mani you can find beaches and mountains within minutes of each other.

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Messinian meets Mountains - view from above our house
Quite frankly, the mountains were as much a selling point for this area as was the sea when we decided to purchase our Stone House on the Hill. One of our favorite pastimes is exploring the many tiny villages tucked away in those Taygetos Mountains that surround us.

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In this area signs are in Greek and English
You understand – an appreciate – the small sized cars that most people drive here when you set out on the narrow ribbons of asphalt that twist and turn up the hillsides and through the gorges.

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The road between villages - The Mani
While the road that links the villages is narrow – very narrow in some places – the route is an easy one as you encounter few cars and only a herd of goats or sheep and cow or two along the way.

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Slow traffic ahead
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Whoa Bessie!
No matter how often we make the drive, we never get tired of the ‘treats’ just waiting around each bend in the road – whether it be a sweeping view of the ocean that makes us catch our breath or a hidden treasure like this Mani tower and crumbling fortress that teases our imaginations with its history.

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A Mani Tower
If driving doesn’t appeal to you, these mountainsides are also laced with hiking trails, many of them following the routes of goat and donkey trails that many in the villages will tell you were once the only links between them and the sea.

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Some hikes can be done on the roads leading along gorges
Entrances to hiking paths are marked with signs in English and color coded markings along the way alert hikers to direction and difficulty of the route. There are no use fees or parking fees here.

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There's a magic in the Mani Mountains
We can’t recommend The Mani Mountains enough.  Keep them in your travel plans if you are heading to Greece. After all Lonely Planet just named the Peloponnese as one of Europe's top, must-see destinations for 2016.

Again thanks so much for the time you spent with us today!  And a special thanks to those of you who’ve enjoyed the blog so much that you’ve shared it with your friends and families – it is always fun to hear from someone that says, ‘a friend recommended your blog’.

Hello to our new followers and those who’ve signed up to receive the blog in their inboxes. Come back next week when we’ll slow the pace a bit and savor Greece, the Greek way. And for those of you wanting to see how we use souvenirs to decorate, I am about to invite you in for a tour! 

Safe travels to you and yours~

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

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Greece ~ Getting “Stoned” at The Stone House on the Hill

If you set out to explore Greece it won’t take long before you realize the country isn’t all  whitewashed walls and blue accents as the tourist brochures might like you to believe.

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Mykonos blue and white church
03332_mani_&pelo_inset_encartaIn Greece’s Peloponnese, where we’ve chosen to make our home a portion of each year, the architectural style of buildings and homes are rather stark in comparison; built of gray or tan stone and brightened only with colorful shutters and doors and garden blooms.

Admittedly there are some villages in the Peloponnese where you’ll find a mix of the two styles, such as in Kyparissi, the village we visited a few weeks ago. (If you missed that post, you can find it here)



 
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Kyparissi - a mix of two architectural styles
But in our area on the west coast of the region’s ‘middle finger’ we are definitely cast in stone.  So much stone, that you could almost start taking its stately beauty for granted. Whether old or new construction, stone is the predominant building material. 

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Old and new stonework - Trahilia
Cast in Stone

Tracing the origins of the use of stone in Greek architecture leads back to Egypt (the place considered ‘home of stone architecture’ by some historical accounts) and dates from 650 BCE onwards as that was the time of renewed contacts and trade links between Greece, the Middle East and Egypt. Greek designers and masons became familiar with Egypt’s buildings and construction techniques, and the rest, as they say, is history.

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Hidden art in the stone
Getting “Stoned” at The Stone House on the Hill

We had the opportunity two weeks ago to watch stone masons – they are artisans really – at work when they tackled a couple of projects for us at The Stone House on the Hill. It gave us an opportunity to renew our awe of anything constructed of stone. The projects, so small in comparison to constructing homes or buildings, still required so much hard labor that we were in awe of what our two craftsmen accomplished in our gardens in a period of three days.

P1000397We needed to raise the wall behind our house where the sloping garden’s dirt was being washed away by the rain and watering.




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We wanted, for cosmetic purposes, to resurface our entryway wall and the wall that borders our side yard.




It took a small crane to unload the materials which included concrete and stones:

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The materials are delivered in heavy duty delivery truck
Then materials needed to be hauled down our ‘StairMaster-eat-your-heart-out’ stairway and put into place. That’s The Scout helping haul stones while the masons went to work:

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The stonework begins
And when the work began, there was no stopping them. . .

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Stonework is a precise art of cutting and measurement
For hours each day it continued with hammers pounding, saws buzzing, the sun blazing overhead. . .

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Measuring, cutting, fitting and filling in - all part of the stonemason's skills
Three days later it was done. . .the before and after photos below illustrate that Greece’s timeless artistry in stone continues thanks to present-day masons.

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Before on left - unfinished surface; finished project on the right
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Before on left, funished on the right

“It’s beyond me. Everything seems to have a soul – wood, stones, the wine we drink and the earth we tread on. Everything, boss, yes, everything.”

-- Alexis Zorba, Zorba the Greek

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Stones with soul
That’s our report this week from The Stone House on the Hill. Thanks for being with us and hope you enjoyed watching our artisans at work.

A warm welcome to our new readers! And what a surprise it has been to learn that several of you reading the blog are fellow ex pats living not far from us here in The Mani.  Thank you for writing and letting us know. We’ve look forward to meeting you. 

And to all of you out there, safe travels and please come back again and join us for more Greek tales next week.

We are linking up this week with our fellow bloggers at:
Mosaic Monday – 
Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration

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