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Dear David, A Series of Letters to a Longtime Friend July 2008

Hersonissos,

Crete,

Greece

July 2008

Dear David,

 All about Brikis, Happy Birthday at Villa Ralfa, A Place to eat in Koutouloufari, Australians on tour, the wayward American, and a monastery full of nuns.

 Yes it’s four years since Villa Ralfa put out the notice board and became Crete’s first accommodation and lodgings for gay and lesbian folk! It has been interesting time in many ways, for instance when we first opened, the Google result for gay+crete was completely meaningless, and all that came up were some very spurious results! When the web site went live in June 2004 (and boy, it was naff – some would say it is not much better now!), it was about the only thing on the web that joined the two terms together and had content on the web pages to match! And three weeks later we got the first booking, much to our surprise, Australians they were. In a way it seems fitting that that four years on I should have Australians staying again. Not the same ones but friends from the Perth period.

 Now things are a little different and there is another gay hotel and what used to be ‘Tilly’s’ in Malia is Crete’s only named gay bar, now called Eros Bar.

 And yes, you are right, as it is the anniversary of moving in it is also time to make nectarine wine from the tree in the garden. This year it has excelled itself and another branch has broken off! I will never forget that day when the previous owners moved out and stripped the tree of fruit even though they weren’t ripe, but then at one stage if you remember, we thought they were going to scrape the paint off the walls! They even had the gall recently to turn up to see what they had left behind! Surprised they didn’t want to take the dog!

 At the beginning of the month I was wondering whether I was going to have time to write anything at all this month, as the house was full and it didn’t look as though there would be time, but as always thank heavens for friends who chipped in and helped whenever, and wherever they could!

 But first let’s deal with this question about ‘What is a briki?’

 Right then, a briki is the small saucepan for making Greek coffee, usually it is brass or copper with a tin plate lining and either a wooden of long brass handle. You can also buy them in stainless steel with a plastic handle but they are not nearly so romantic! Strangely enough the brass and copper versions are quite difficult to buy as the tourists shops never seem to sell them, maybe because they are actually quite expensive! There are a couple of shops in the city that specialise in brass and copperware, and I usually have one or two of these in the cupboard to sell to paying guests to save them going into the city. I also keep supplies of Greek coffee in the house, as it is not the first time that I have had emails from visitors asking me if I can send them some! This month’s web page has some pictures on it, 

OK so that’s the commercials done, so let me tell you about the Australians.

 Now I have known Ann and Phil for a long time and it was a pleasant surprise to hear from them, telling me that they were coming to stay for a week. Like a lot of Australians and New Zealanders that are visiting Crete and the Greek Islands (not all staying with me), they were over for a family reunion, and to get he most out of their airfares, they were doing a trip around Europe and Greece at the same time. This is a very sensible idea for anyone who is coming to Europe on a long haul flight to Europe, as once you are here it is relatively easy and cheap to book ‘internal’ flights within Europe. Ann and Phil flew from Gatwick on a direct flight to Heraklion, but of course these only run during the summer months. During the winter you have to come via Athens, but even this is quite easy from the UK as Aegean has flights from London Stanstead and you can travel to Crete without having to collect your baggage at Athens. There is also Easyjet but then you have to collect baggage in Athens so you have to leave yourself a couple of hours leeway to check in again!

 Now Ann and Phil are not mean, but typically Australian, they do like to keep an eye on the money so they elected not to hire a car on cost grounds, (and I suspect because they didn’t like driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road!), so they tried out our excellent bus services! I have spoken about these before I think? Anyway they managed to do all the usual trips like Spinalonga, and were suitably impressed by the service and the price, after all less than €3 one way into Heraklion cannot be bad for a trip on a nice, comfortable, air-conditioned coach. The buses run along the main road nearby, and also pass by the airport so any guests arriving during the daytime at least can catch a bus and save a taxi fare, the conductor will even help you stow your luggage underneath! And of course it is only about 300 metres from the bus stop to the house.

 Having discovered that nearly everyone speaks English, they made the trip to Knossos by bus which involves changing buses at the main bus station near the port, which is more than can be said for an American from Seattle who started out going to Knossos and ended up in Ierapetra down in the south east of the island, a pleasant enough trip if that is where you are intending to go, but I do think that when he arrived back in Hersonissos where he had started out, that he might have realised that something was amiss?

 Personally I think the problem arose because of the way Americans can never seem to pronounce Knossos properly, they always want to make the ‘o’s sound like the ‘o’ in ‘no’, as in K-no-so-s, rather than making the ‘o’ sound like the ‘o’ in ‘lot’. In their rush to get him on the bus, I think the staff misheard him and thought he said Hersonissos, which also has lots of s’s and o’s in it too!

Back to the Australians, who naturally complained how worthless the Australian dollar is these days, but I notice this did not stop them eating out twice a day. Interestingly Anne did actually say that they were impressed to find that every time they came to pay, the bill was exactly what they expected it to be which is always a plus when you are abroad and having to deal with the menu in a foreign language and a strange currency. And which leads me into one of my favourite subjects, food, and also eating out, which means that you paying someone else to do the washing up, I love the cooking bit, but hate the washing up!!

 Where to take Australians for something to eat? Well Emmanuel Tavern in Koutouloufari, naturally enough because the food is good, and also Manos that runs it, lived in Melbourne so they will be able to understand each other!!

 Now Emmanuel Tavern, situated on the square in Koutouloufari, has been there for a long time and I enjoy going there because he does all sorts of specials from the wood oven, and there is something about food that has been cooked in a wood fired oven even if it is only pizza! But in this case it is usually meat of some kind, either pork or lamb, and often fish and to my mind baked fish is one of the nicest ways of cooking it. I guess that the food picks up the smoky taste from the wood, and if it is kept a distance from the fire, then it will cook slowly which often a great advantage with some meats.

 Like many places it has its own little things that it does, like the bread rolls are always warm when you get them, they make their own gyros (it would not be the first time I have seen someone order gyros in a restaurant and have been sitting in the right place to see it arrive on the back of a motorcycle from one of the takeaways in the Port!), and they cook the chickens over charcoal too!

 On this occasion I had the most delicious lamb shank cooked with wine and herbs, with meat so tender that it fell from the bone, and more than enough meat for me to eat (the dog had the rest and the bone!) and served with vegetables and potatoes from the oven. The Australians were a bit less adventurous and had swordfish steak done on the grill, and chicken from the spit, which is half of quite a decent sized chicken! So by the time we had had the bread rolls and a decent sized Greek salad while we waited for the ‘mains’ we were all well fed. Two large beers and a bottle of very passable house red completed the effect and all for just on €66 which is fair enough for real tablecloths, comfortable chairs, and pleasant staff!

As usual when we were sitting back relaxing, and trying to stay awake, we were presented with ‘something on the house’. I predicted what this would be and was not disappointed as it was a warm pancake (crepes they insist on calling them round here), filled with ice cream and drizzled with chocolate. In spite of declaring ourselves already replete we managed to finish it!

 Having friends to stay is always a bonus as they get to help with the housework especially if they get a ride out in the car in exchange, not that I am one to hold carrots in front of donkeys, but it is one way of getting the grass cut and in spite of Ann and Phil’s success on the buses, heading to the hills is another matter as there are only two buses in and two buses out, and a lot of walking in between, so I offered to take them, in exchange for lunch. Well there’s a surprise then!

 The chosen trip was one I have mentioned before, heading south from the house through Potamies, Avdou, and Kera up on to the Lassithi Plateau, except this time I had scheduled a stop to look around the monastery at Kera.

 The journey up is a bit old hat for me now, but it was interesting to see how they are getting on with the new dam at Potamies, it still looks like ‘the maggot folk of Mordor’ have been at, but it is beginning to take shape and there are rocks and earth being moved in all directions, something which the Greeks are so good at as it is well nigh impossible to find a flat piece of ground to build on without rocks being moved somewhere!

 Anyway the arrival at Kera, via Krassi, was uneventful apart from some sharp intakes of breath from the front passenger as the road is a bit narrow in places and there were quite a few trucks around that day!

 Now I always thought that a monastery contained monks, this one doesn’t. Logically enough it contains nuns because it is dedicated to the Virgin Mary of the Holy Heart, who is highly unlikely to be served by monks, but for people of simple minds like me, it would help if they called it a nunnery. I did check later and found that a monastery can contain nuns, although usually they are monks….If you see what I mean.

 You now how I love churches, and things like that, so it was a treat to go inside and look around. Without giving too much away, the church is delightful, and the small display of ecclesiastical ‘metal ware’ and clothing are ‘to the point’ as is the very brief history of the monastery and the legends surrounding it. Most of all I think it is the sense of calm that one feels when you enter, almost as soon as you walk through the gate, and a visit is worth while just to look at the view! Like many places here you pay to go in, but at €2 each it is hardly extortionate and if you take your time looking at the frescoes and displays you are going to get a good hour out of your money. Certainly it is worth it if only for the ‘spirit of place’ which always seems to surround you in these places. (Remember those tingles up the spine when we went to the standing stones at Callanish?)

 Stopping at the first available restaurant after the monastery lands you at ‘Ilias’ in the village itself (off road parking on the left just before you get to the taverna). I find this quite a pleasant place myself, as you can either sit on the roadside (above road level though) or you can sit around the back and admire the view, similar to the view from the monastery. Interestingly some of the plants around you are slightly different from those we get down by the coast, for instance you see quite large hydrangeas and fuschias up in the hills, presumably they prefer the slightly cooler air up here as neither grows down where I am, or maybe it’s the water!

 The menu is limited but very Greek, and I would hazard a guess that everything is homemade and as you would expect they do not always have everything, which is always a good sign. Everything you see on the menu seems to be about €4 or 50 cents either way, so it is certainly not expensive. Just for a change I ordered ‘bifteki’ with chips, both the burger and the chips were homemade and served with a large dollop of the thickest Greek yoghurt I have ever seen! (For some reason I cannot fathom, when they brought the pepper, salt, oil, and napkins, they also brought mayonnaise but no ketchup, not that I wanted either). The dolmades were definitely homemade also, and the saganaki is done in the oven I guess because it came out sizzling and red hot in a cast iron skillet.

 At this point I will have to leave you with a case of mild indigestion after two meals in such a short space of time, a drop of raki will soon sort that out! You will be pleased to hear that I am putting all these places I mention on to a Google map, now that the problems with mapping on Crete have been solved, so soon you will be able to call up the map and see the distances involved, along with landmarks and some of my usual subtle humorous comments.

 As next month is August, and therefore one of the busiest months of the year, do not expect my monthly epistle to be either on time or extensive! I have put up some pictures for you as usual, you will find them at http://www.villaralfa.com/kera.html

 Yours, as ever,

 Tim

About the Author

Born in England (in spite of the name!), in the last half of the last century when Sussex was Miss Marple country and you could leave yours door unlocked for days, the author is unashamedly gay and everyone seems to know in spite of the fact that he never 'came out'. He moved to Crete in February 2004 and opened Villa Ralfa as Crete's first gay accommodation and lodgings in June 2004. You can find his web site at http://www.villaralfa.com