Friends and other Mothers,

Sunday, of course, was Mother’s Day and it is celebrated here in Greece as well as in other European countries. We kept the day rather low-keyed, but our host, Ingrid, her mother and Ingrid’s daughter, Sophia, all took the opportunity to venture south of the peninsula for a Mother’s Day lunch. Polly and I ventured into new territory as well, but more about that later.

It was another sunny day and the forecast was for even warmer temperatures than we had had on Saturday. Looking to get about 75 or 76. Not hot, but certainly better than it had been. As I believe I mentioned yesterday, it was 9 degrees which I discovered is about 48 degrees for us. A cool, one might say, cold morning. However, it warmed up quickly and Polley and I were drying our hair in the sun by 7:30. I walked into Drepano and a bit beyond in the morning. As I walked along the road, I was pleased to discover what I see as the real sign of summer in Europe: red poppies. Usually by this time in most European southern climates, and certainly in Greece, the red poppies are everywhere. This year I had seen none until yesterday.


It might be a sign that things here are about to change.

I came back and Polley and I eased into the day. We continue to spend a good deal of morning time reading. About 11, we got into the car and traveled about 5 miles to a sweet little fishing village, Vivari. While we had eaten at a taverna there, The Mermaid, in years past, we had heard of another place and thought we would go there for some wine. I never could quite make out the name of the place, but it appeared from the Greek that is was the Soro Taverna.


It was still a bit early, but some people were sitting at one of the tables, so we went in. Later, we discovered they were not customers, but they were members of the family that owned the place, having their morning coffee. None of the people spoke English, but I fumbled about in my minimal Greek (like Shakespeare, “Little Latin and less Greek.”) and we managed to determine that they were open and that we could get some wine.

Vivari sits on a little inlet and seems to have a small fishing fleet. As we sat in the sunshine, we saw two boats come in.


We also saw children and their parents playing the water. A very nice setting, a sweet little village.


By the time we were getting ready to leave, a young man, obviously a son or grandson had arrived on the scene. He had some English. I ask him for the bill and he said, “Two euros.” I couldn’t believe it. That was the new low for half litre of wine. I was so amazed that I tipped him 33% or another euro! We will be returning to that place, you can be sure. We returned to Ingrid’s for some lunch. We had acquired so much food that there was no way we could justify lunch out. We have come away from nearly every meal with leftovers, plus some things we fixed for ourselves. The requisite siesta followed lunch, however, we set the alarm as the day before we had slept for 4 hours and then had a very difficult time sleeping that night. We need to get some control over our leisurely life!

That evening, after a very nice time talking with Ingrid at the bar, Polley and I went to Kastraki, the quaint little taverna just up the road on the way to Tolo. We are becoming regulars there and it is a good thing. Apart from two people who came in for a drink, we were the only people in the place. As always the food was excellent. This time we started with a couple of glasses of ouzo and then had their eggplant salad, a kind of spread that you put on bread, some of their Greek fried potatoes (thinly sliced, lightly fried disks rather than our French Fries) that were good with the eggplant salad spread on it and another order of fried anchovies. Our little cat friend benefited from the anchovies.


And we were finally so full that we took the rest home. More leftovers!

We were home rather early, but decided to just sit and read and see if we could catch up on the missed hours of sleep. Another day in this Grecian adventure. More tomorrow.

Ed and Polley