Myths

Can you believe that there are tourists on Lesvos who get bored? There are people who phone their travel agent saying: "Madam, I am so bored, I want to go home. When is the next flight home?" It was a German family who were the worst. Man, wife and child arrived at the airport, got the transfer to their hotel in Skala Eressos and after 5 minutes in their room, they immediately wanted to go home! They left the island that same evening...

Well, Lesvos is an island that doesn't have something for all tastes. We don't have miles of golden yellow sandy beaches where you can sip colourful cocktails the whole day long and lounnge in fancy restaurants. Lesvos has many small family beaches, beaches where peace rules and where no fashionable music blasts out of mega-speakers.

Neither does Lesvos have famous antiquities, like the Acropole in Athens, the Palace of Knossos on Crete or the white village of Lindos with its temple on Rhodes. Lesvos has Molyvos and the petrified forest. And besides that it has natural beauty and many real Greek villages. It is no wonder that Lesvos was popular in Roman times, thanks to its forests and idyllic fields.

Lesvos is also not highly rated for mythology. Achilles is said to have buried his friend and old fighter Palamedos here on the island after he died on the field of Troy. They also say that Achilles once stood at the gates of Molyvos. Then the daughter of the king fell in love with him. She opened the gates and her reward was that she was killed because of treachery.

Another myth of the island is that of Orpheus. After he was killed by jealous nymphs, because he could not get over the death of his wife, the head of Orpheus washed ashore at Old Andissa, together with his famous lyre. His music is still to be heard on Lesvos.

Lesvos is close to Troy. Maybe when they were fighting that city you could, standing in Molyvos, wave to the beautiful Helen, wife of Menelaos who got taken by Paris to his home. That is why for many years Troy was besieged by many angry Greek warriors. If you used your imagination you would think that it was very busy here at sea at that time. If the wind was from the southeast you could smell the pigs they roasted on their fires. And believe me, many more than one warrior came to Lesvos to buy food and take women.

Around 750 B.C. Homer described part of the battle of Troy in the Iliad. Not in words accessible to everyone. Recently the Italian writer Alessandro Barrico rewrote the Iliad in his own words so that the Iliad has become a real page turner. Especially reading it on the beach. Nothing better than reading stories about this battle where mythical heroes, gods and half gods quarreled and fought, while looking at the same sea where once they sailed their ships and looking at the mountains on whose slopes they camped.

'The Songs for the Kings' by Barry Unsworth is about some Greek kings with their army that tried to reach the battle of Troy, but were prevented by the gods of the wind. This book is even more humorous. I suppose Barrico could not go that far, without hurting Homer's writing.

International editors worldwide devised a project where writers are invited to tell their version of a myth. The English writer Karen Armstrong started the series in her own way with 'A Short History of Myth'. She is called the runaway nun, because she once spent time in a nunnery but is now known for her books about religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. She is specially known as a person trying to build bridges between those religions.

If you prefer a less serious book in this series, there is the 'Penelopiad' by Margaret Atwood. This well known Canadian writer wrote the story of the wife of Odysseus. Penelope waited at home for her husband, while being besieged by all kinds of men who wanted to marry her. Nobody believed Odysseus would ever return home after the years he fought in the battle of Troy after which the Gods prevented him from going home with all kinds of adventures.

And who remembers why it was that Atlas had to carry the world? This pretty story with her interpretations about Atlas was written by the English writer Jeanette Winterson called 'Weight'.

Getting bored on this island? Besides visiting Molyvos, Skala Sykaminia, Agiasos, Plomari, going to the petrified forest, riding on a donkey, driving a safari, enjoying the hot springs, meandering through the mountains, eating sardines or whatever, you can spend your days reading and muse on history. Israel started a war because some soldiers were kidnapped. Just like the abduction of Helen, which caused the ten years battle of Troy. So you see, nothing is new in the world. Yes, there is. People get bored on this island, which really is incredible...

Copyright © Smitaki 2006

Heroes

Was I glad these last few days I was not in Holland. Everything there seems to be orange and everybody is crazy about football. Here in Greece everything is blue-white. And Lesvos also has some green, because of its abundant nature. Blue-white sea, when some waves curl around, blue-white sky when some clouds are floating above the green trees. In Greece they do not have to paint their country in national colours for the football. Just like the Greek flag the main colours in Greece are always blue and white. And then they are not so crazy because they are not in the World Cup, even though they are the European Champions.

Molyvos is just a little crazy. More than one café has a big screen on their terrace so that groups of people can follow the ball. Whenever Germany, England or Holland scores a goal, just like in Amsterdam you hear shouts coming from every corner. Not when Ghana, Korea or Portugal scores. There are no tourists from those countries here.

I rediscovered the radio. I am not good at following a football game. It is too boring for me. I always do other things when a game is on. Otherwise I will be bored and make stupid remarks about the football. But I like to follow the game, especially on the radio. Those reporters are crazy and do not know how quick they talk and should make sure that you understand what they see. I think it is fun hearing their excited talk.

Yesterday night I was persuaded to come to the village because many friends were gathering together in Resalto, the café of Josif just above the harbour to watch the game between Holland and Portugal. Besides Josif, some Greek customers and our German friends were all dressed in orange t-shirts. The orange army suddenly went quiet when Portugal scored the first goal.

And there you sit with a big party just under the stars. Colourful lights from the village were blinking cheerfully, while the people watched the screen, too afraid to miss anything. In the beginning there was hope, which slowly disappeared into the beautiful night.

I was lucky to have found somebody who like me did not like football that much. We whispered together and enjoyed the twittering lights of the harbour. For the first time in her life Doro had seen a shooting star. I do see them now and then, but I always forget to make a wish.

I could have told her: "When you look at the screen", where they were busy waving yellow and red cards, "you will also see stars falling. 22 and the referee. Because if that is sport at a high level, I will gladly see football disappear as a sport". But I did not say so, the faces around me were too grim.

More and more the crowd was yelling when a Portugese player took a dive on the field. There were even people starting to giggle, thinking the whole game had turned into a slapstick movie. Slowly an excited mood started to appear because everybody wanted so much for Holland to win. And because at the end Holland did try to make something out of it.

Today I read the Iliad of Homer. Put into new words by the Italian writer Alessandro Baricco. On the battlefield of Troy there were also two opposing parties assembled. All those Greek heroes were butchering each other. While reading and imagening that battle in front of me I had to think about the football game from yesterday night. Had the players been in an arena or before the gates of Troy, they would have killed each other with love.

In the early times there was no television, so stories were told. The battle of Troy was never recorded on celluloid. What images would that have given if there had been cameras. Who knows how many red and yellow cards had to be distributed. Maybe then there would not have been Greek heroes. Now we only have the oral stories. Told by people who made their own interpretation of the story. That is how the stories of the Greek Heroes were made. About Achilles, about Ajax or about Odysseus. They were not all nice ones, that is what the storytellers made of them. The football games do not have to be told. Everybody saw them. So all those dirty tricks cannot be changed anymore into the deeds of heroes.

Yesterday many a Dutch was ashamed because of the dirty game. There are players who become a hero, like Cruijff or Maradonna. Yesterday night there was no one who might possibly become a hero. They should have lived in the early times. Then we could have turned their dirty game into a splendid game. Now everybody saw what they were doing and they were caught red-handed.

The next time I will listen to the radio. Even when the reporters try to relate as best as they can the game they are seeing, I can make my own images during their report or close my ears when they give too many coloured cards away. Then I should not feel ashamed when a team plays such a foul game in the name of Orange.

In the village now there is a vacuum. Nobody wants to cheer for the eternal champions of Germany, England, Brazil or Italy. Some Greeks wanted to cheer for Australia because they have lived there or still have family there. But the Australians like the Dutch are out of the game. I am wondering who will be cheered next on all those terraces of Molyvos under the stars...

Copyright © Smitaki 2006

Tales of a kitchen maid

Last week I told you my story about preserving pistachios in molasses. A pretty difficult job that went wrong from the start. This week everything was a little bit easier. Last week we went gathering capers. There are plenty of them at the moment. Besides the flower buds and the beautiful flowers, the caper fruit are also hanging from the plants. If you want to know more about where and how to gather them, you should read last years News for 30 May and 21 June.

Picking capers is a difficult task. They are so small, so gathering them takes a bit of time and the plants are pretty thorny. But they are easy to preserve. Besides sterilizing the pots, no cooking or making molasses is involved. You put the capers in a big bowl of water for two days. Refresh the water every day. Then put them in the pots and fill up the pots with a mixture of 1 cup of water to 2 cups of vinegar, a splash of white wine, 1 spoon of salt for each cup, in each pot some grains of pepper and a clove. That's it.

The weather seems upside down at the moment. In West Europe it's nice and warm, while here in Greece it is cold for the time of the year. Today it even looks like a grey day in Holland. No wonder we thought about making some cough syrup.

You make this not with capers but with mulberries, which are not so well known in Holland. The fruit looks like long blueberries but coloured white, red and black. Most mulberries are found in South Eastern Europe, China, warm regions of Russia and the Middle East. Red mulberries are loved for their flavour but hated for their stains. When you go picking red mulberries be sure to wear old clothes because the juice gets everywhere and cannot be removed.

I knew these stories but until last year I never saw a mulberry. I knew that Vangelis' restaurant in Skala Sykaminia is under a large mulberry tree. I wondered what the fruit would look like, but it is without fruit because it is a male tree. I thought what is the use of a tree without fruit. But now I know better. Only a fool would have a restaurant under a fruiting mulberry tree. Otherwise for one month your clients will have mulberries in their coffee, ouzo, calamaria or with their tzatziki. The name Sykaminia comes from one of the Greek words for mulberry: Skamnia. The other popular word is Mouria.

Last year when I came home from an expedition looking for mulberries and I took a shower outside to cool off I suddenly stood eye to eye with a mulberry. The branch growing out of a tree next to the shower appeared to be a mulberry tree, a white one. I didn't have to go so far to find them! I strongly recommend a mulberry tree next to your outside shower, because picking the fruit from the tree and having the sweet somewhat foul taste from the mulberries in your mouth while enjoying your shower is a unique experience.

The white mulberry tree in China is known as the silk tree. The leaves of this tree are the unique food of silkworms. I never saw any sign of even one silkworm in the tree. The leaves are still all there and so far I have no projects to start any business with silkworms. But maybe I could start spinning here... That might be something for when I really get bored, but I don't think I will in the next few years on this interesting island.

The herb books say that mulberries are good for a sore throat. You have to cook the juice until it becomes a kind of honey. Afterwards you can mix it with some water or you can make a compress with it to put on your throat. In one of the countries on the silk route, Azerbaijan, it is said that the mulberry is good for diseases of the liver, gal bladder and the heart.

In China they have other medicinal uses for the mulberry. There they are good for anaemia, tiredness, dizziness and early greying of the hairs. So it is no wonder that in China, Korea and Japan a healthy drink of mulberry became very popular.

Especially in Arabic countries sweet mulberry syrup mixed with water is a welcome drink to cool off. Furthermore you can make tasty ice cream with it and combined with apricots or figs mulberries are used to flavour cakes. So, it is a fruit with many possibilities.

The Greeks do not use the mulberry a lot in their kitchen. The fruit hangs from the tree like strawberries and when their time has come they mess up the streets. While I'm writing this I'm already thinking what to make next with them, besides the throat syrup for the winter.

However the fruit is ripe at the same time as the cherries. We make lots of jams with the cherries. Then the plums and apricots are nearly ready to be harvested. Even with the unusually cool weather for Greece the fruit just goes on ripening. This means that it is going to be a busy time in the kitchen. Greek nature makes sure that you never have to spin silk, you never get bored!

Copyright © Smitaki 2006

Tears of a kitchen maid

Greeks love sweets. Probably from childhood they learn to love sweets. Many a Greek child is too fat and if you were to see the amount of candy they leave the shop with, you'd be horrified.

The most popular sweet for adults is baklava. The consumption of baklava here is probably as high as over the water in Turkey. Tourists complain that baklava is too sweet. And this honey-nuts-pie is pretty sweet. But that sweetness should be a healthy sweetness, because of the honey.

Another traditional sweet is the 'Spoon Sweet', glika koutaliou. When you visit a Greek for the first time, you will get these sweets presented on a little plate besides your coffee and a glass of water. They are made of fruits or vegetables preserved in sugar. Figs, pistachio, walnuts and apricots as well as tomatoes, lemons or pieces of pumpkin find their way to the pot of sugar.

The best I ever ate were preserved lemons. The fresh sour taste of the lemon marrying with the sugar made an impression on my tongue I will not forget. But you only find a few preserved lemons. The most popular 'Spoon Sweets' are made from green tomatoes, figs, pumpkin and pistachio. The last one is my favourite.

When I discovered a pistachio tree close to our house I was very happy. First I would make Spoon Sweet with the fruit and later I would make them into the wonderful nuts to accompany a cooling drink. However it was too soon to be happy.

First of all the tree was wild and did not have that much fruit. Last year in May I picked three quarters of the fruit when they were still green. For making 'glika koutaliou' the fruit or vegetables have to be unripe. They should already be strong, have their natural shape and taste. Last year the result was a little pot with my favourite candy and it tasted very good. In September I picked all the other fruit. They are ready when the outside skins burst open and the nut comes peeping out. I dried the peeled fruit in the sun, hoping they would turn into the pistachio nuts you buy ready prepared at the shop. Then they have an opened hard shell with the green nut peeping out.

While it was easy to peel off the outside skin, the hard shells around the nuts stayed closed. I roasted them, put them back into the sun, roasted them again and back into the sun, but without any edible result. I am still trying to find the right way to turn them into those lovely nuts you eat while having a drink.

This year I discovered a complete orchard of pistachio trees. I like them so much that I picked a whole plastic bag full of them to turn into my favourite candy. However I forgot how I did it last year. So I got the recipe from a Greek friend. But I wondered why I did not recognize any of the things she had written down. I had to prick them and cook them in water until the skin turned loose. Skin? I never saw a skin on the outside of a green pistachio.

It was on one of those days when a heatwave struck the island. I was busy with three big cooking pans. In one pan were the pistachios on which I could not find any outer skin. In another one was the sugar happily partying with the water and in the third were the pots where I wanted to put my beloved Spoon Sweets. I burned my fingers looking for a skin on a still boiling pistachio. I burned my nose looking into the boiling pan with sugar in order to see if it would turn into molasses. But I stayed happy. Water was streaming down my body. After what seemed like an eternity and when I nearly wanted to stop, I discovered a tiny white skin coming loose from the pistachio fruit.

I was already standing in a pool of water and because I was so occupied with the cooking it never crossed my mind that the water would come from anywhere other than water spilt while cooling down my burned fingers and nose. So I happily put the pistachio fruit with their little skins into a strainer and I turned off the heat under the pan with sugar because it looked like the molasses was ready. Then I looked around and discovered that there was water all over the kitchen! I did not understand until I looked into the pan with the pots. They were nearly burnt. All water had disappeared. I took out the boiling hot pots and put new water into the pan. Drip, drip, drip, there was a hole in the pan!

So in this roaring heat I had to mop the kitchen. And this was just the beginning. Because how was I to get rid of those little skins on all of the pistachio fruit? That was the kind of work which made the perspiration run down my body as quickly as the water streamed out through the hole in the pan. I'd had it. I would have to very gently rub each pistachio fruit in order to get the skin off! When I had managed to fill the smallest pot, my patience was totally gone. I opened the pan of sugar and discovered there was no molasses anymore but only sugar. I probably cooked the sugar and water that much that it turned into one big lump of sugar. So I gave up. I threw the lids on the pans and fled to friends to cry my disappointment.

The next day when our thermometer in the shade reached 37°C I angrilly peeled off those nasty little skins, which took me hours of perspiring in the heat. Then I took all the sugar I could find in the house and cooked it into a molasses. Then I sterilized three pots in another pan and filled them with the pistachios. When I tasted them they were still pretty hard, so I probably picked them too late. I let the pots cool off and then I put them as far away as I could. I do not want to see them for a good while. Maybe they will to surprise me after a few months by softening the fruit, because I cried so many tears over them.

I am sure that last year when I made my perfect first pot of Sweet Spoon Pistachio I used another recipe. Because if I remembered that I had to peel off those skins I would have never started preserving such a big bag full of pistachio fruit. Now that the temperatures have become normal and my tears have dried up I will look for that other recipe. In September I will attack the pistachios again and with new knowledge I will turn them into those tasty nuts to accompany a drink. Life is hard in the Greek kitchen. Especially when there is a heatwave going on...

Copyright © Smitaki 2006

Shiver

The West of Europe is suffering from cold and rain, while on Lesvos the summer has arrived. Days with temperatures above 30°C are normal. Also the sea is suddenly a lot warmer. So the daily swimming parties have started again.

However, a few days ago we got a nasty shock when we tried to take off into the water, there was a jellyfish. I grew up in a Dutch seaside village (Zandvoort) and when the weather was warm and the wind was from the east you could bet on there being jellyfish. Then nobody could get me into the water, especially not into that muddy North Sea.

Greece also has jellyfish. Although I must admit that I've only seen them once on this island. Three years ago early in spring there were some huge very blue jellyfish sunning on the beach of Skala Kaloni. Brrr, no way would you have wanted to swim then. A long time ago I saw an invasion of jellyfish on the island of Mykonos and on Samos more than once I had to stay clear of the water because those slithery things occupied the sea.

So the second time I saw them here on Lesvos was a few days ago. And I think, when there is one, there are surely more of them. We took a good look in the water and yes, plenty of those red brownish jelly creatures were floating along the coast. But they did not look like they usually do. They were like oval balls and had some kind of stripes with merry coloured running lights! I never saw this before. It looked like an underwater fair.

It gave me the jim jams and I was reminded of the book 'The Swarm' by Frank Schätzing. In this fascinating book the world is attacked. Not by Martians or other alien creatures, but by all kinds of disasters from the sea. Strange worms which eat the sea bottom, creating underwater landslides, dolphins that go crazy and start attacking ships, tsunamis destroying parts of Europe, crabs which crawl onto the land in millions and enormous jelly plagues. A very interesting book which besides being a good story gives information about underwater life. It is the perfect book for the beach.

Unless you are confronted by such a strange sea creature. Like all the plagues in the book this jelly thing seemed to come right from the deepest darkness of the oceans. Thanks to it's coloured moving lights it seemed to give out strange signals. Brrrr. It made me shiver but part of me was fascinated. So we didn't go in for a swim and since then I always watch out for them before I dive into the water.

Since then I never saw another jelly. Except for on the internet. I was so curious about what creature had kept me out of the water that day. Well, jellies are creeps! I even saw a picture of a giant jelly in Japan the size of a human being. If ever I meet such a monster in the sea here I will definitely not go in the water for at least three years.

I did not find our mysterious lightning jelly on all the jelly sites I visited. After some more studying I found that there are other jelly-like families. And there I found it. Under the ctenophores. It was a comb jelly. Which is not a real jelly because it does not have tentacles metres long with which it can prick/sting or whatever a jelly does to you. Although it is a kind of cannibal because it feeds on other comb jellies.

There would have been no danger if we had swum amongst them. But when you do not know this, you'd better keep your distance. And I certainly don't want to touch such a slimey creature. That would immediately remind me of the times I accidentally touched a jelly.

While surfing the internet I also found a story about a group of Belgians who went to Greece to study reptiles, including snakes. They had beautiful pictures which gave me the shivers as well. Years ago I was surprised by an enormous bright green snake about 2 metres long right behind my computer. He slid through the open back door, so I could not help but looked around me every minute. Is there a snake under my desk, is a snake trying to sneak in behind my back?

The aesculapian snake was as thick as a fist and was not after all dangerous, but for one second (the other second I was out of the house) I thought I was faced by at least a constrictor. Greeks are very afraid of snakes, but now I am getting used to the idea that there are plenty of them around. They are more afraid of you than you of them, so usually they run first. And then most of the species living in Greece are not dangerous. The only thing you have to take care of is that you don't step on them while they are sunbathing or sleeping. Worse still is to step on them with flipflops (open shoes). When I walk in the fields I take care to have long trousers and closed shoes and even then if I'm not sure I carry a stick which I beat on the ground so that the snakes hear and have plenty of time to disappear. And certainly I never leave a door open anymore. I learned my lesson pretty well.

I do not want to scare you, but the Dutch saying is that one warned person is worth two. Just watch where you put your feet and whenever you walk in a field, wear closed shoes. The same goes for swimming where there are stones or rocks in the sea. Use water shoes. They will not help against jellies but they will protect you from sea urchins which do not step aside from you.

There is no remedy against jellies. But I will comfort you by saying that here on the island they are pretty rare. As are the comb jellies. Tell yourself it is an honour when you meet such a lightning ball of jelly. On the internet they describe them as one of the most beautiful creatures of the sea.

Copyright © Smitaki 2006

Monsters

Did you watch this year's Eurovision Song Contest? I did. And I must say that I enjoyed several songs and I even had fun because of the humour that some countries displayed (amongst others that of LT United from Lithuania with 'We are the winners'). But I really could have cried when they started distributing the votes.

There was a rumour that Greece, the host country this year, did not wanted to win because the organization of such an event is far too expensive. Anna Vissi, who represented Greece for the second time, was of course the centre of all the media attention. Her song 'Everything' was to be heard every 5 minutes on radio or television. I saw at least 3 different clips shown with that song, amongst others one with images of her visit to Amsterdam.

In the song contest 'Everything' impressed me even more. However I was especially charmed by the beautiful voice of Sibil Tüzün from Turkey who sang 'Süper Star', and the mixture of pop and folklore of Hari Mata Hari from Slovenia-Herzegovina. But who am I? I am an old fashioned Festival watcher who in earlier times despised all festival songs, but secretly watched the festival because of the excitement over the presentation of the votes. La Hollande: douze points!

But the festival is not the same anymore. I mean, that is what I think. Was it a shock for the old in 1974 when the pop song Waterloo by Abba won, or was it a shock for Israel when their transsexual Dana International won the festival in 1998? This year it was a great shock for me that Monsters from Finland could win. What has hard rock to do with a Eurovision Song Festival? In the early days you had millions of rules. How the song should be, how the singers should be dressed and so on for everything. Now the Song Festival looks like a free market and what maybe started as a joke for Finland ended up for me as the Downfall of the Song Festival.

Yes. I am getting old. The Song festival has always been a matter of favouritism. According to an analysis of the voters by the Institute of Advanced Computer Science (Leiden, the Netherlands) Greece and Cyprus are lonely leaders at the top of countries giving each other the most votes. This year it was explained to me that it is thanks to the young that the Finnish horror show won. They like to sms and they do it quickly. And they certainly like such a group which goes against all the traditional rules.

Well, that whole matter of sms is a weakness. How can such a small country as Holland compete with such a big one as Russia? You'd be better to count the mobile phones in each country and you'd probably have the same results, without going to the trouble of organizing a Song Festival. The only thing which can save you is to behave extravagantly. That's also become difficult nowadays because everybody tries to put on as striking a show as possible. Like Finland. And they won.

Paul de Leeuw, a cabaret performer who presented the Dutch votes, understood quite well how it works. In the minute he got for presenting the votes, while millions of people were watching, he made a pass at the Greek host Sakis, trying to exchange telephone numbers.

The Sunday after the festival it was the name days of Eleni and Kostas. Our English neighbour Helen was surprised by an enormous lunch that afternoon. There it seemed that many guests had been watching the analysis of the Song Festival in the morning on television. Especially the Greeks were wondering who this crazy Dutchman was. First I did not understand it. Were they confusing somebody else with the Dutch representatives? Treble, consisting of three drumming Dutch girls, was already out of the contest by Thursday. Then it struck me that they were talking about Paul de Leeuw. And I was a little ashamed to explain to them that he is a popular anchorman in Holland. 'Trello ine'. He is crazy. And so Holland did at least make a bit of a mark at the Song Festival.

I do not know if after this Paul de Leeuw will travel to Greece to visit Sakis. Sometime in this spring he made the Dutch viewers of his show believe that Lesvos is the island for lesbians. That is totally wrong. Paul de Leeuw, come and see the island. Except for in Eresos there are no gatherings of women, only of people who love nature and peace and quiet.

Copyright © Smitaki 2006

Rivers of flowers

It took some time, but finally the summer has set in. I swam for the first time this year (I am not that big a hero that I swim the whole year round) and the open fire place can be cleaned to make space for the television, which is a poor replacement for the orange flames I like to stare at.

The fine warm weather means also that the flowers growing at this time of the year on the island will soon disappear. Not long ago I wrote about the Keukenhof (A famous flower park attraction in Holland). The travelling Keukenhof this spring was abundant on Lesvos, but it was not always easy to reach it.


I already published a picture of the tulips that Jan found on the island. I myself was not able to see them, because Jan saw them during tough mountain walks for which I stay at home. Just going up and down Lepetimnos (968 m) and a day later up and down Olympos (967 m). I do like walking, but I am afraid that my legs will not hold on such tough walks. And so I was punished by not seeing the tulips live. Next winter I will take on long hours of training so that next spring I will walk as lightly as a bird up and down the mountains. I have to make some efforts to see the tulips.


Other near mythical flowers which were not easy to reach are the rare yellow rhododendrons. These are flowering at the end of April, beginning of May in the mountains between Anemotia and Pterounda. And these masses of flowers are only to be visited by a tough walk or by jeep. Yes, you read correctly: masses of flowers. Although that description does not quite do the job. In that dark pine forest where the only sound you hear comes from the birds and where the sun paints a nearly black and white landscape, rivers of bright yellow rhododendrons crawl downwards through the folds of the mountains. They are waterfalls of lightning flowers which take care to perfume the whole area with a wonderful sweet smell.


I assure you that seeing this piece of art from nature will keep you quiet for a moment. I saw this wonder myself. The walk going through this area I already made twice, finishing on four legs because I was so tired. But the flowering rhododendrons I visited this time by jeep. Which was as tiring as walking because the road there was no piece of cake at all.


Yeah, nature does not come that easily. So now we have seen the whole range of Dutch spring bulbs on this island: daffodils, snow drops, crocus, fritillaria and tulips. Those headstrong tulips which in Amsterdam used to nearly grow out of my vases are my favourites. Here they are protected, so I have to fill my vases with other flowers like broom, lupins, cornflowers and the many other flowers that are colouring the fields here.


Other flowers that you are not allowed to touch are as cheery as tulips: the orchids. When I first saw them, I did not love them too much, but now I am also taken with an orchid fever. What graceful flowers they are and what crazy forms they can take! They like to hide themselves pretty well, but once you find them they will not let you down when having a closer look. They will make you happy.


Peonies are not as sensational, but nevertheless form merry colours in a woody landscape. Their proud flowers just head out of the greenery. Or the small wild gladiolus which comes in an intense purple and colours many roadside or field. And then you have fields which copy the Dutch tulip fields with their thousands of poppies who like an intense red tapestry.


So you see, I cannot get enough of describing the flowers to you. But I soon have to stop writing about them. When the summer heat starts, all those magic flowers will disappear for the year. No hard feelings. The island will have more of these nice surprises.

Copyright © Smitaki 2006