Our Big Fat Greek Visit

I never realised how easy it is to return to a place where you know how everything works. Our arrival into Greece at Thessaloniki was exactly that. I have to confess that it was a little funny watching nervous travellers almost getting off buses at the wrong stop....mainly because that was what I did a few years ago.

Apart from being a bit chaotic, and the shock of a completely different alphabet, everything went very smoothly for our first stop in Rahia, near Veria. This is the village my Grandad comes from, and we stayed with his brother Yianni and wife Domna, two of the friendliest people in the country I reckon. We were a little nervous about our arrival having already eaten lunch...our concerns were well founded as before we had even brought our bags inside we were sitting at the dinner table eating a meal big enough for a large family. My stomach and the organs it presses on copped a real hammering the whole time we were there.


Apart from eating, we did manage to squeeze in a few activities. We went for a day trip with Eva and Babi (a relative and husband) to St. Nikolas park in Naoussa which has a stream that is freezing cold even on the hottest day, owing to the fact that it spring out of the mountain just up the path. We also got to Edessa which is a beatiful town on top of a cliff looking out over the plain towards the sea that has a few waterfalls to boot.


Another Aunty and Uncle (Kostas and Yolanda) took us around to Pella, home of Alexander the Great, and to the tomb of Phillip of Macedonia (his father). They also took us down the second finger of Chalkidiki to Eva and Babi's holiday house near Marmaras and Porto Carras. Apart from the fact that they don't speak english, and we don't speak much greek we had a great time and managed to communicate on most things. Sometimes we had conversations in mime, if that's possible (we'd be a shoe-in for a game of charades right now!). The beaches there were fantastic and the water absolutely beautiful.


After 2 weeks in Veria, uncomparable hospitality, Anita's Greek cooking lessons, my Greek language and eating lessons, and a million games of backgammon we jumped the train headed for Athens. We'll spend a couple of nights here before we head to the islands for the next month or so.