We all
agreed that today was the best and the luckiest day of the trip. First of all,
we said goodbye to our favorite beach in Tzambica because tomorrow we should
return the car (everyone is complaining – we fell in love with this great
Ford). Though the sun was roasting us we tried to prolong the pleasure as long
as we could, built a maze with a lot of fake ends and cashes. Often you get
used to things around you so quickly that you just stop appreciating them. I
was swimming back to the coast, observing these beautiful rocks in the
perimeter of the bay and was thinking how much I’ll miss this area.
Finally,
when it became too hot we packed and went to expore the villages inside the
island. We passed already familiar Archipoli, where we visited a Typical House
Museum the day before and the village Eleoussa. Next destination was a village
Apolona (well, you can guess who it was called after) and where according to
the Internet should be a museum of folklore. We passed also a pretty small
mountain village where neat cozy houses were almost hanging over the steep
slopes of mountains.
In Apolona
(thanks, God!) we found a direction sign to the museum quickly, parked and went
there by foot. The time were for “siesta” so there were only few people
outside, only kids were dancing and crying near some building (it turned out to
be a school). Well, we found a museum but it was closed and there was a
notification to call certain number if we want to visit it. We didn’t have
local phones so we kept going in search for someone to help us. Soon we found a
building looking as administrative building (we for sure didn’t understand an
inscription in Greek). We looked in and discovered a fire station and a nice
guy Costas who called into three places for us to find the person who is in
charge of the museum. “That was the beginning of the great friendship”. Costas
not only called the right person but also amused us with conversation till this
person came. Approaching the museum we saw a beautiful, old stone house in
really great conditions. His owner was sitting on the porch so we told him how
nice-looking his home is. Nicos (his name) was so proud of his house which he
restored after his grandfather and so nice to us that he invited us inside to
show everything. This house is really very interesting and unusual because it
combines ancient elements with a comfort of modern family. A real mountain-rural
house. With wooden plank beds, ancient ceramics and a white tablecloth, with a
fireplace and a stone semicircle in front of it, where you can lie, sit and
have a lunch. Nikos showed us everything: all rooms, details, wooden beams with
carved decorations and told us what and how he restored. Everything was so full
of huge love to his home and a quiet pride.
Impressed
we went to the museum which was much bigger than all other local museums that
we saw before. They have a big collection of local crafts and everyday life
objects, hut the most impressive thing was the way how it was presented – with
so much taste and love to their history. Sabas
showed us and explained everything in English. When he showed us a press
for an olive oil, he mentioned that he also makes some small amount of olive
oil from his own olives. Finally, we bought three bottles of really natural oil
from him. At that moment a fireman Costas joined us at the museum and brought
Max some candy. Max was conquered, us too. We bought also some olives (I’ve
never tried that delicious olives before) and some fragrant soap made from more
concentrated oil. And helped Sabas and his wife with their advertisements in
Russian by pointing grammatical mistakes. We exchanged e-mail addresses with
them and left the village. On our way to car we saw Nicos (an owner of the nice
house) again and his two sons, he called us and said that he wanted us to taste
his home made wine. Just to try. It was pure grapes juice – delicious and
pretty strong. And it was incredible Greek hospitality everywhere, we were just
plunged into this warm attitude. We left so happy and satisfied that even
didn’t notice that we spent about two hours in this village.
Everyone
recommended us to visit another village in mountains Profitis Ilias where as we
were told there is an old hotel built by Italians with a striking view on the mountains
and on the sea. So we decided to have a lunch there. Honestly, the view
probably was really great but only from the second floor where there are rooms
of the hotel and the entrance is forbidden. On the first floor where the
restaurant was there were a lot of trees that didn’t allow to see everything.
Though the restaurant had traditionally delicious Greek salad and great pizza.
Nastya also discovered a very nice Greek coffee.
We
continued our trip and accidentally found a Byzantine Church of 15th
centuary Agious Nikolas that we were looking for yesterday. Definitely,
everything amazing happens accidentally. The church was all covered inside with
tremendous old murals and the building itself was really charming. The most
important thing was an absolute silence outside, no one around, only sounds of
murmuring water in the spring, flowers blossoming everywhere around and the air
is so fresh that you want to breath, to breath, to breath…
Even though
we were pretty late (we also wanted to visit an ostrich farm) we walked around
it a lot and made a lot of great pictures. Finally we turned to our road to
Butterflies Valley and started spinning on the serpentine. Suddenly, on the way
up to the mountain we notice a guy on the bike. We were impressed by his courage
– it was really steep rise, we would die even going on foot and he was going by
bike. We are passing him and showing him a thumb to support his efforts. He
doesn’t react anyhow. Nastya is making jokes that he probable is fed up with
such “idiots on the cars”. We keep going and suddenly when we were on our way
down, this guy on the bike is outrunning us! That was called “I got you!” The
laughter was choking us.
Finally, we
reached our ostrich farm just in time to examine all animals in one hour before
they were closed. It was so great! We bought a packet of corn to feed animals
and were happy like kids. First we fed ostriches – they were very funny, with
huge eyes and “pursed lips”. They peck from your hand and sometimes they pinch
you because it’s not comfortable with such beaks. WE also met donkeys, they
were puffing and asking for food so touchingly that they got more than others.
Goats are really crazy: they are climbing the fence and gracefully knocking
with a leg to ask for food. The camel was super cute: when you give him corn on
the hand he takes it softly and chews it with your hand. It’s ticklish and very
funny. We even managed to feed wild boars because they were grunting and
pushing their snouts through the grating. Finally we found monkeys and the
baboon firstly stretched himself to Nastya to kiss her but suddenly got
offended for some reasons and turn his back to us and looked hurt. We tried to
apologize but he didn’t listen to us.
We made a
circle and came back to the entrance just at about closure of the zoo. I forgot
to mention also two cute fluffy puppies who accompanied us everywhere were very
funny and sweet. So the last point of our program for today was to catch the
incredibly beautiful sunset somewhere from the top of the mountain. We were
hurrying up to our favorite place (we definitely exceeded the speed limit a
lot) and were just in time to see an
unusual sunset with small clouds on the horizon, ruins of ancient castle at a
distance and slow disappearing of the light. It was gorgeous! Satisfied we went
home and bought a bottle of local wine. Actually, now we are drinking it while
Max is sleeping.
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