Shall we skip winter?

(the gulf of Kalloni)

This beautiful autumn seems endless. You can’t call it an Indian summer, because the humid nights, the fallen leaves and huge numbers of mushrooms are clear signs that it’s really autumn. However, every day the temperature climbs above 20°C and people are still swimming in the warm blue sea. Having lunch in the sunshine is also a treat: lots of Greeks and a few tourists are taking advantage of the conditions especially on Sundays and all the outdoor areas of the waterside restaurants that don’t close for winter are packed with people.

The olive harvest started early this year and most trees have lots of fruit. Everywhere you hear the ‘rickety-tick’ of the sticks people use to knock down the olives, and around the trees, people picking the olives off the ground. On the roads you meet cars loaded with sacks full on their way to the olive press where you can see them stacked in huge piles waiting to be processed. Sometimes you may even hear a vacuum cleaner being used to suck up the olives - by someone too tired or unwilling to bend down any more.

The light has a warm glow and it is great weather for walking. The trees which are shedding their leaves are beautiful and so are the scenes made by the rays of the sun. Up in the woods above Anemotia or Vatera, or in the forests around Agiasos, you will come across more cars, full of families, or just men and women, who stop and race into the woods with baskets to collect mushrooms. Their tracks are obvious because when they stop to check mushrooms for worms they cut them and chuck away the bits they don’t want - so like Tom Thumb you can follow the tracks of rejected mushrooms, but you won’t find any for yourself.

When there is no wind the gulfs of Gera and of Kalloni are like turquoise mirrors, their surfaces disturbed only by fishes gulping for a bit of fresh air. Small white clouds are reflected in the water, and at the salt lakes of Skala Polichnitou flamingos have returned to walk proudly on their long legs through the shallow water.

There are no shellfish on offer because there’s a ban on catching them - too much cadmium - although levels of salmonella, coliform and lead are said to be okay. Both fishermen and people who love to eat shellfish are disappointed.

However, the splendour of autumn has been spoiled by a fire at the Molyvos garbage dump. Unlucky the houses that are in the wrong wind direction, they have been shrouded in an evil smelling cloud and people have had to keep their doors and windows tight shut and you wouldn’t venture outside without covering your mouth and nose with a cloth - in such fine weather! The Mayor said it was not his decision and blamed farmers for the disaster. Throwing earth on the fire didn’t help and so for weeks we’ve had this stench. The Mayor has promised that next year there won’t be a problem because there will be a proper waste disposal plant. But who believes him? He is the last Mayor of Molyvos whose position disappears in January, after which the whole of Lesvos will have one municipal council, and only one mayor based in Mytilini. These are the moments when you don’t want to live on this island, as such a beautiful place is ruined by people who have no idea what to do with their garbage.

Each time rain is predicted the heap spontaneously bursts into flames - like today. Even though the forecast was bad, the day was splendid, except for the foul smell of burning plastic. A southerly wind chased the clouds high above the mountains but the rain stayed away. Thankfully the wind was strong enough to blow away the fumes and smells.

While I was walking and looking for mushrooms, I suddenly spied a delicious fat shoot of asparagus. So instead of chasing mushrooms I went after more asparagus and, sure enough, found more shoots that were too impatient to wait for spring.

The anemones are also in a hurry. A week ago I saw some already opening their buds and there are little fields full of them. How can we cope with all these people impatiently setting fire to the garbage and an environment that won’t wait for spring?

I love the winter. I love to sit near the fire as the rain drums against the windows and the wind howls around the house. But when you see so many signs of a spring (I’ve even seen a Shaggy Cistus with an open flower) you have to ask yourself the same question as those asparagus shoots and early anemones: shall we skip winter?

(With thanks to Tony Barrell)

@ Smitaki 2010

Imperial mushrooms

(a Caesar's amanite)

After all these years I finally found the most popular (and common) mushroom on the island: the Peppery milk cap (Lactarius pepersaus), in Greek peperites or (in local language) pefrites. I knew they grew under pine trees and that if you see a small pile of earth you have to dig for them and yesterday, in the huge pine forest above Anemotia, we saw these little mounds everywhere, including one enormous specimen (they grow twenty to be thirty cms across!).

It is amazing to realize how these sturdy milk caps find the force to lift themselves through the earth. You could use them to dig your garden! I understand now why Greeks often say they come home with several kilos of mushrooms. Some of them are so heavy I bet four would weigh a kilo.

Although I see on internet that these white peperites are not valued as a top culinary dish, it is nevertheless the mushroom that is eaten most on Lesvos. However, there are other kinds of less abundant milk cap to be found that taste even better. For example, we also found the Lactarius sanguifluus (in Dutch the Blood milk cap) and the Lactarius deliciosus, the Saffron milk cap.

The Lactarius sanguifluus looks quite scary: it is bright red and green - not colours you’d like to cook with - and yet it is more valued for its taste than its milk white cousins. I prefer the Saffron milk cap and actually fell in love with it because it reminds me of mandarins. Cut the stem, and the outer ring is bright orange. However, when you clean them for cooking parts can turn bright green. According to mushroom fanciers it has less flavour than the Lactarius sanguifluus.

There’s quite a debate about which is the most delicious mushroom: porcino or ceps (Boletus edulis) or Caesar’s mushroom (Amanita caesarea).

The ceps I know from Holland and Belgium: a real treat and easy to recognize and a few years ago we found some marvellous ones above Agiasos, but never since. Most likely we’ve been looking at the wrong time of year.

I had seen Caesar’s mushroom before, but never eaten it. This orange-red mushroom does its name proud. Maybe it was named after Julius Caesar, or, for its taste which makes it the ‘emperor’ of the Amanita family? The Romans called it boletus and in 54 BC it caused the death of one emperor. Claudius who had taken power after his nephew Caligula was murdered loved both mushrooms and women. His fourth wife was Agripinna who, before they married, already had a son, Nero. She promised him he would be emperor and persuaded Claudius to recognize him as the official heir to the throne. However, Agripinna was impatient for Claudius to die and served him a meal of his favourite Caesar’s mushrooms into which she had sneaked in a few Death caps (Amanita phalloides). That was how Nero came to power.

Amongst the milk caps we also found some Caesar’s mushrooms, which with their red caps were easy to spot in the autumn landscape. Compared to the world famous, and poisonous Fly amanita (Amanita muscaria - and also known as Fly agaric) which is red with white spots, Caesar’s has no red spots and the under part of its cap and the stem are orange. And it’s one of the world’s tastiest.

I am not a hero when it comes to eating mushrooms I do not know and when looking for ceps, I know to leave the red ones alone. So eating red Caesar’s mushrooms was quite an adventure. My host baked them with cheese, cream and cognac and they were excellent. The orange of the mushroom dish made a great contrast with the green and white of a dish of rice and chard, another with red beets and a salad of fennel and oranges.

At the end of this delicious feast one of the other guests felt faint and although we trusted our host’s knowledge of edible mushrooms, we couldn’t help thinking maybe some of them might have been poisonous. I imagined us all being rushed to hospital, so we quickly looked on the internet to check symptoms of mushroom poisoning. Feeling faint was not included and when the doctor finally arrived it was found to be a case of low blood pressure.

(with thanks to Tony Barrell)

@ Smitaki 2010

At you the choice

(Mytilini, the capital of Lesvos)

The advantage of living on an island is that you feel far away from the hectic world where the important things are decided. Especially these last days when the weather has been incredible beautiful: high temperatures with the sun trying to dry out the humidity which makes mysterious foggy shapes out of the mountains.

However, thanks to the letter bombs addressed to heads of states and foreign embassies, the Greek capital has been in uproar. The international post was shut down for 48 hours but here at the Molyvos post office mail going to foreign countries has been taken in as usual. Let’s see how far the post will come these days.

Some of the packets were sent by courier services and normally would be delivered within a day. However, when the Speedex company had to bring my new computer from Athens to Lesvos, they took their time. First it went to Patras (how could you confuse Patras with Mytilini?!) When that mistake was discovered the computer stayed a day in Patras before going back to Athens where it stayed another day. Only then was it shipped to Lesvos. The boat arrived at seven in the morning, and you might think that somebody at the courier service would jump into a car to deliver the package to me - it was already three days late. But that was too much to be expected. When I phoned Speedex in Mytilini the employee I spoke to took no interest in my problem and told me there was no way they would deliver it the same day: maybe tomorrow or the day after!

Unfortunately, this lack of service is still common in too many Greek companies (especially those still state owned). Sometimes you think you live in a communistic country where the workers are not interested at all in their work but do everything that make the hours pass as pleasantly and quickly as possible.

Yesterday, this kind of apathy was confirmed by the results of Sunday’s local elections: only 54 % of the Greeks voted. There was even a village in the northwest – Velvendos - that broke a new record. Protesting against the new Kallikrates project 95.77 % of the villagers stayed at home! Greeks are tired of change and don’t believe in the government’s solution to the crisis. They also don’t think it’s possible to prevent politicians and other people with power from putting money into their own pockets, or that the workers will forever continue doing jobs for slave’s wages, or that anybody can get Greece out of this crisis.

However, these elections have shown that small parties - left wing or green parties – are gaining more and more votes which means more Greeks believe that by not voting for the two main parties (Pasok and Neo Dimokratia), they can change the country.

On Sunday there was indeed a lot to decide. Not only was there the choice between parties, but elections according to the new Kallikrates system took place. This means that Lesvos is no longer part of a regional island group including Limnos and Ai Stratis, but is now also with Samos, Chios and Ikaria. So people had to choose a new governor for this expanded group. Kallikrates also meant that our island’s local municipalities were also disbanded, so that now there is only one authority and again, for this a mayor had to be elected - plus a deputy and the entire council from very long lists of candidates. Each of the old municipal districts had to vote for a representative on the central council. It was the same everywhere in Greece because the national government wants this Kallikrates system to save billions of euros.

On the topic of economics, here on the street these days there are more and more people riding horses or donkeys. Will the crisis bring back the old ways of getting around? People also fear that the price of heating fuel has risen so far they won’t be able to afford it for the coming winter, so I think in a lot of houses we’ll see a return to the old wood stoves. Another sign: although the ban on public smoking is opposed by Greeks many have stopped because it’s also become far too expensive.

So, we are facing a hard winter. Although some people are cheered up by the prospect of a good olive harvest - the trees are heavy with fat and juicy fruit ready for the olive press - this year rather than paying people to do the work, many will be doing their own harvesting. This is how people are forced to face the crisis: spending less and working more. And now we have to wait and see how it will work with only one mayor for the whole island. I am wondering if such a mayor, living far away in Mytilini, will take notice that the road here in Eftalou has not been repaired since the storm damage of last winter. Do we have to wait until the road disappears completely into the sea so that people living here can only get to Molyvos via the coastal road to Sykaminia?

(With thanks to Tony Barrell)

@ Smitaki 2010

IN MEMORIAM: ANDONIS

(the house of Andonis)

The Greek Olympos had that many gods they sometimes get into your head. I have tried hard to learn all their names and connections but if you are not careful you make mistakes and mix them up. When writing my last column about quinces I said that the goddess Aphrodite distributed lots of golden apples. However, she only gave away three – to Hippomenes – and although she played a part in story of the apple that (eventually) started the Trojan war, she was not the one who threw it into the crowd of wedding guests. That was Eris, the goddess of strife. So I was very sloppy writing this and I apologise (see my story about Apples from Lesvos).

There are many stories about the man I am going to write about now, but I choose only to pass on what I know to be facts and leave darker stories for what they are.

Everybody who has been to Eftalou, knows this man or at least the place where he lived: close to the Panselinos hotel between the road and the sea there is a complex of shabby structures made out of drift wood where a bent old man lived with dozens of dogs and cats: Andonis. You could only see what lay behind those shacks if you looked at them from the sea. It was a tiny stone house in which this man from Molyvos used to live.

Adonis was born by the sea here in Eftalou where he grew up with his brothers and sisters, together, it’s said, with lots of cats and dogs with which they slept to keep warm in winter.

Andonis married and had children but although his wife had a house in Molyvos, Andonis preferred to live in his little house by the sea and refused to abandon his many cats and dogs.

He was crazy about his animals and whenever he thought somebody might harm them – even if it were an unsuspecting tourist trying to stroke one of his cats – he might suddenly appear, screaming and rushing to save his beloved animal from the hands of a quite innocent animal lover.

If a cat got lost pandemonium broke out and he would run into the garden of the hotel, cursing people because he was sure it had been kidnapped by a tourist. His love for his animals had no limits, neither did the number of strays he took in. Early every morning his wife would come from Molyvos with food for him and all his charges.

Andonis came from a fishing family and he loved going out to sea to catch more food for his animals. Maybe that is how he met the seagull which for years lived at his little jetty, and was always there when he’d been fishing.

Even when big storms blew in the winter, no-one could get him to move into the village. His sons would beg him but he stayed with his animals. In the end it was cancer that made him move out. Two summers ago he started going home to his wife in the evenings, and last winter he no longer stayed at his seaside home with his animals. Although they were still fed by his family, they were in truth abandoned. And this is why they became the terror of the Eftalou boulevard. On the internet they became known as the ‘hellhounds of Eftalou’!

It is a very sad story because the abandoned dogs eventually ate the cats and then ran wild. They still lived on the street but some were not quick enough to jump away when cars sped by. Somebody even put poison down — and so last summer there were only six left.

As they roamed around and their territory expanded, they even came and killed one of my cats and, although I will never forgive the way they tore it to pieces, my heart still bleeds as I hear them barking and struggling to survive without their master.

One week ago the cancer finally took Andonis away and his dogs will never see their master again. It is likely that they will be taken to an animal shelter so that Eftalou will be safe again. Even though they were a real plague these last years, I will miss them, as I do Andonis. We will never see his crooked old back shuffling along the boulevard; we will never hear his shouts when he lost a cat or a dog did something he didn’t like. We will never speak to him when he was sitting at his little house, secretly eyeing the wandering tourists. He would always answer me with an avalanche of Greek words, most of which I never understood — and Andonis loved to talk.

One of his dogs has a new home at my place and I dearly hope that the others find places to live and people to look after them; and that Andonis too has found peace without his animals. Even though his dogs caused us many problems we shall miss this icon of Eftalou. So I am wondering if there are dogs and cats in the timeless fishing grounds where he now is. Goodbye, Andonis, I wish you well.

(with thanks to Tony Barrell)

@ Smitaki 2010

From what fruit took Eve a bite?

(Quinces)

The Tree of Knowledge, Good and Evil or Forbidden Fruit stood in the Garden of Eden, where, according to the Bible’s book of book Genesis the first people lived: Adam and Eve. However, they were expelled from paradise because Eve could not restrain herself from eating the ‘forbidden fruit’.

Historians keep asking themselves: from what fruit did Eve take the bite? Was it an apple, a grape, a pomegranate, a fig or maybe a quince?

These historians are always busy wondering about fruit: what were the mythological golden apples that grew in the famous gardens of the Hesperides? These were the ones Herakles had to steal (but first he had to kill the dragon which was guarding them).

Aphrodite threw a golden apple amongst the guests at a wedding to which she was not invited, thus (indirectly) setting off the Trojan War. She also gave three golden apples to young Hippomenes who used them to defeat the goddess Atalanta during a foot race. Atalanta had to marry the man who could beat her, but when Hippomenes dropped the apples (one by one) she couldn’t resist stopping to pick them up, and so lost and had to marry him.

The question remains: were all these mythical apples from the garden of Eden, the Hesperides or the ones thrown by Aphrodite real, or were they made of gold, or were they really oranges or, as some people believe, quinces?

Lesvos has just had its first serious autumn rain, a blessing for the olives as some trees are so heavy with fruit they were desperate for water. The figs have all gone, but a few unpicked grapes are withering on their vines. The first chestnuts are falling, but most remarkable are the yellow-gold coloured quinces that you see everywhere around the island and yet few people ever pick them.

Through in western Europe and north America the quince is a forgotten fruit. It originally came from the Caucasus, and centuries before Christ it was known in Arab and Greek kitchens, and later in the Roman kitchens. The Roman cook and gastronome Marcus Gavius Apicius describes several quince dishes in De Re Coquinaria, which is maybe the oldest recipe book we now know.

However, the quince is not such an easy fruit to cook, which may explain why in the era of fast food it is not popular. If Eve really did take a bite from a quince she would have needed strong teeth, because it is like concrete if try and eat it straight from the tree. Botanists think there may have been a softer version in ancient times, because the one we know can only be eaten and enjoyed once it’s cooked. It’s taste is somewhere between an apple and a pear but it also has a magic fragrance. As well as a delicacy the quince was often used as an air refresher!

In ancient Greece, the quince was a symbol of love and people would throw quinces at newlyweds setting off in their carriage - and the pair were supposed to eat at least one to sweeten their breath. The bride then counted the pips to see how many children she would bear - a strange tradition because a quince has so many pips you wouldn’t wish that many children on any woman. The Romans also thought the quince was a symbol of love and gave them when they got engaged.

None of these customs are remembered now; the quince has lost its reputation as a good luck token and has even been forgotten as a tasty fruit and so is not much harvested in Greece. Unlike walnuts, grapes and olives, quinces are left hanging on their trees.

It is said that Charlemagne introduced the quince to France and Germany. In 812 in his Capitulare de Villis he ordered that everywhere in his empire gardens should be made to grow vegetables and fruit trees and the quince was amongst the names of seventy plants he listed. In France they still make and enjoy a beautiful quince liqueur - liqueur de coing.

The Portuguese used to love quinces otherwise we might not have had marmalade. The Portuguese name for quince is marmelo and the original marmalade was quince jam. The quince we know today - Cydonia oblonga – is named after the ancient city of Kydonia in Crete, now called Chania. The English used to make excellent jellies and jams from quinces, but, perhaps because of the cooler climate, they are not easy to find in England.

A quince tree loves warmth but is also is pretty resistant to cold - an ideal fruit for the Mediterranean climate, but a nightmare for cooks who have forgotten how to preserve fruit.

Last week a friend came with a big box full of them. I was a bit alarmed because I know how difficult it is to make them into a preserve. Actually, because they are so hard, cutting them up into slices is quite dangerous: you could easily chop off a piece of finger!

However the rewards are very sweet. Jam, jelly and liqueur are quite easy to make and as the Dutch expression goes: it’s like ‘an angel pissing on your tongue’. Here is an easy recipe for Persian quince jelly,

Peel the quinces and cut them in small parts. Put everything in a pan and add water until they are just covered. Add two cardamom seeds per quince. Cook until the fruit is soft (1–1.5 hours). Put the mixture in a cloth in a pan overnight so that all the juice comes out. In the morning weight the juice and add an equal weight of sugar then boil it until it thickens to a jelly. Pour into sterilised jars, close the jars and cool.

(with thanks to Tony Barrell)

@ Smitaki 2010

Send me a postcard, darling

(Portret of Theophilos at Karini)

When I was a child, there was no television and I could not yet read the papers, the first images I saw from far away exotic countries came with postcards. Do you remember pictures of Spanish dancers (with real fabric skirts!), a donkey with a straw hat, mountains and bright blue lakes, a Laplander in colourful costume or a group of Greek women dressed for dancing?

In those days the postman would often bring cards from friends or family on holidays, but these days the post box remains pretty empty and you only get cars for your birthday or at Christmas. I have to admit that long ago when I was on holiday I took a long list of friends and family with me to whom I had to send a card and spent at least an afternoon writing them all. Now we send emails or we phone to let the people at home know our holiday is going well.

So old postcards have now become collectors items and sometimes represent a little piece of history. You now can find such relics of old Lesvos - including black and white pictures of Mytilini, or Agiasos - on the internet.

Theophilos Chatzimichaeli (known as Theophilos) was a painter born around 1870 in Varia (close to Mytilini). He died in 1934.
Besides his artistic activity he worked as a doorman at the Greek Consulate in Izmir, as a sheperd in Pilion and in Volos he did all kinds of jobs. After spending some thirty years in foreign parts he returned to his home island where in the last five years of his life he painted walls, cafes and canvasses.

He was an eccentric man who was often teased by people. He loved history especially the great warrior heroes. At carnival times he regularly dressed in a traditional kilt, as Alexander the Great, one of his Macedonian soldiers, or a hero of the Greek war of independence (at the beginning of the nineteenth century).

He took all the work he could get and painted theatre designs for theatres, and, in exchange for a meal, would do a mural on the wall of a café. You can still see his work in Pillon and on Lesvos in some lost cafes. The most colourful part of his life was when he lived in a hollow tree at Karini, near Agiasos.

However, so much of his art perished, or was lost, what remains is worth a fortune and is well regarded by international art dealers. This month there is an exhibition of his work in the Benaki Museum in Kolonaki, Athens which has started people re-thinking Theophilos, the man, especially the long standing perception that his character was like his paintings – simple and naïve.

Already in his time there were postcards of the same subjects he painted in his ‘naïve’ style: people in traditional costume, rural scenes with shepherds, country girls or landscapes with villages which so often feature in his paintings. Art historian Maria Moschou, wrote an article for Athens Plus (October 1) in which she wonders whether he was so naïve. Maybe he simply knew that people liked to see heroes, street vendors or artisans.

I wonder what themes and subjects are popular these days? Besides beautifully photographed landscapes and city scenes there is a fashion for elderly Greek people with lined faces, long gone trades and crafts and, yes, people in traditional costumes which nobody wears any more. So if he been born a century later what would Theophilos have painted?

Would he have depicted cars travelling through the landscapes, or would he look for ones without signs of progress? Would he have painted scantily dressed tourists roaming the lanes of Molyvos and Petra, or would he has have depicted Albanian workers on building sites dusted with white cement, or maybe the old men sitting with their coffees all morning long in the cafenions? Would he have dared paint half naked women?

Stelios Kouniaris of Molyvos, a contemporary equivalent of Theophilos, is not worried by near nakedness or cars. His work is studded with such images, not big in the foreground, but like stray cats and dogs, they wander through his pictures.

Both the works of Theophilos and of Stelios Kouniaris present a colourful vision of Greek life - nice souvenirs to take home - but for the work of Theophilos you have to make do with postcards, unless you are a real art collector willing to spend a tidy sum on an original. Stelios Kouniaris has not yes been discovered by the art market and can still be bought for reasonable prices, although in the castle of Molyvos where he works, there are already some postcards of his work on display. Send me a postcard, now!
(for more information on Stelios Kouniaris, see: Epsilon art).

(With thanks to Tony Barrell)

@ Smitaki 2010

The Greek – Chinese connection

The port of Piraeus

Greek politicians are happy: China wants to help Greece out of its economic crisis with huge projects including a major investment in the port of Piraeus. What’s more, Chinese tourists have chosen Greece as their favourite European destination.

In May this year, Turkish and Greek tourist agencies worked together to attract Chinese tourists to this region with a plan for twenty-five offices in Istanbul and Athens all aimed at Chinese visitors.

Even though Lesvos has a few Chinese inhabitants, a Chinese tourist is still a curiosity. Chinese residents have shops selling cheap clothing and sometimes you see them driving around in over-loaded old cars, but I bet they total no more than the fingers on your hands.

On Rhodes there are several Chinese restaurants but the only one here, in Mytilini, closed its doors years ago. Chinese on Lesvos? You will only find them in their cheap stores in Kalloni and Mytilini.

This sudden friendship between China and Greece is not so strange. Both countries are said to be the cradle of civilizations: Greece of western civilization, China of the east. A Greek archaeologist, Theresa Mitsopoulou, thinks that the Greeks originally came from China. It is conventional wisdom that they are descend from Indo-European people, but she claims they are Sino-European in origin.

Theresa did her studies in the 1960s and discovered many similarities between ancient Greek and Chinese cultures: in their languages, techniques of shipbuilding, the use of the snake as a symbol, or an amulet against the evil eye. Her theories were too controversial in Greece. No proud Greek could ever admit his roots were in China. However people who agree with Theresa are convinced that there are archaeological finds in Greece that confirm her theory: in particular the use of the undulating snake with the heart shaped face; the ships once built and designed in Santorini especially for shallow waters clearly resemble Chinese ships; and in the language there are several similarities such as the Greek word for wood - dasos - and the Chinese dashu which means ‘tall trees’, and the clincher: the Greek word for grandmother is Yiayia and in Chinese it is Yeye.

Besides being an archaeologist Theresa used to be the bestknown tourist guide in Athens. She speaks six languages including, of course, Chinese. Had she not decided, after thirty years climbing the Acropolis, that she was now too old to get up to the Parthenon, to give up being a tour guide, she would have been be the ideal companion for the coming flood of Chinese visitors.

For Chinese tourists visiting Lesvos there is good news. This week on Lesvos the authorities assembled about the permission to install a custom post in the harbour of Molyvos, so that cruise ship passengers could be processed there instead of Mytilini. At present they have to endure a ninety minute bus ride before they can see the wonderful medieval village of Molybos on the opposite side of the island from Mytilini (although the journey does take them through the island’s gorgeous landscape). To land them directly at the port of Molyvos is a very attractive proposition all round. Lots of cruise ships already pass close by on their way to Istanbul, so it’s hoped by the 2012 season they can drop their passengers in Molyvos - and who knows how many Chinese we will then be meeting?

And although there are similarities between the Greek and Chinese language, Chinese remains impenetrable to people who haven’t studied it. So, it’s probably a smart move if our school children started learning it soon - and shopkeepers too. Before you know it the Chinese might even buy Molyvos harbour. So I say Hyanying! - my first Chinese word and I think it says Welcome!

(with thanks to Tony Barrell)

@ Smitaki 2010