In 2014, my first experience of Greek 'hospitality' was the 'Skinny Dark Awkward Europcar One' (aka Mr Bean) arguing with the 'One Eyed Troll' (aka Billy Goat Gruff) over who was driving the guests to the car depot! It was so animated! Admirable! They must have burned at least 3,000 calories between them in the process! Scary times for your mute English woman. This felt like world war 3!!
On arriving at 'Europcar Central' (I have to admit it was the most beautiful drive ever, with wild flowers galore & poppies of a blood red intensity mimicking crimson velvet! Stunning….
At this point, I turned to my fellow Brit at the check in counter & passed comment:
"A really happy work environment then?!…. NOT!"
He smiled & laughed it off as being not too dissimilar to his place of work at Landrover UK! Love it!
Poor Billy Goat Gruff drew the short straw & had to fill in the 'colour by numbers' form, detailing the dents on my shot blasted, outgoing car, before handing over the keys!! It would suffice to say, there was more blue ink than white paper at the end of 'colour with mother' session!
Off I went, repeatedly pulling myself back into the right hand lane. "You're in Greece now young lady!" but I soon realised that this was fairly irrelevant in Greece! The mode of action is:
"If there is a double white line down the middle of the road, then its time to over take! If you choose to bite the bullet & await the best time ever, its when there's a car coming in the opposite direct, straddling the very same white line! For this, you get even more bonus points!" Its a 'Greek Footloose' all over again, 30 years too late!
However, it was the most stunning 5 hour drive from Athens to Paleros on the west coast of Greece. I hadn't realised that Greece had so many deep gorges, cliffs, mountains and meadows of beautiful flowers. Its a beautiful country with an ever changing landscape. Watch this space ladies & gents, here we come on an all singing, all dancing, Nordic Walking holiday in the not too distant future.
On our arrival in the metropolis that is Paleros (which amounts to the size of a small Boston Spa) I was accosted by a local Greek waif striding down the street in a Nordic Nomads Hoodie! How very dare he!! But hang on a minute…maybe I should be feeling pride that my fame has stretched thus far!
Alas, before I had time to question my feelings further, I realised it was just my tanned best friend walking down the street to greet me. Clearly he had abused the Greek sun mote than he had tried to impress upon me in his earlier emails.
The first evening entailed a visit to 'Tomorrow's' the local Greek 'TABEPNA'….Yes, sadly for years, I went under the misguided impression that this was how One pronounced 'Taverna'. I now know more about the intricacies of the Greek alphabet & hieroglyphics!
Dionysus (The Greek God of wine, parties and festivals of madness, chaos, drunkeness, drugs & ecstasy: aka Arthur) Arthur greeted us in his blue Gingham Tim Lewin shirt & brogues (boy things have changed in Greece!) And by the way, when did Greek men learn English? I am sorry but this just doesn't hang together for me! Did I take a wrong turning in Athens?
Not only that but Arthur managed to conduct a discourse with me in Swedish! Now that does put us Brits to shame doesn't it? Greece for me, has always been with Dimitri, using monosyllabic words & gestures to describe Greek salads, kebabs & Moussaka!
What ever! The food was even better than my goldfish brain recalled. We started with the local grilled cheese. It was creamy but crusty with a little touch of rubber at the same time. Weirdly wonderful! Following swiftly on, we ploughed through the Lamb Stifado with a very nice Greek wine to wash it all down. Was it the Greek Wine or the utter exhaustion, I don't know but it melted on the tongue without any of that typical lamb, fatty, aftermath that we suffer at home. This was utterly divine. Did I REALLY do that? Did I really eat lamb? Please don't let on!
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| Lamb Stifado aka: Bandits Lamb |
My boys have been weaned on the fact that mother says:
"I don't like lamb, its far too lamby"
….but this tender, succulent concoction was from another world!
And then there was more…more lamb, more wine & more Greek dancing……
Its called 'Tomorrows'…..
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