Sea Captains, Sea Bream and Swimming in Lovely Lindos

  

On my first afternoon in Lindos, I’d arranged to meet Karen and Claire from Exclusively Lindos at the relaxed Skala taverna on the edge of the sandy beach. Looking out across the little bay, we spent the afternoon laughing and swapping stories over a superb lunch that included fried calamari and tzatziki and a Greek salad with capers, plus three excellent cooked dishes: a spicy sausage dish called spetsofai, aubergine in rich tomato sauce, baked in the oven and topped with cheese, and one of my favourites, peas cooked with potatoes, carrots and herbs in olive oil. 

As the afternoon wore on we made our way through this feast and drank wine and the sun gleamed on the bay. We thanked chef Giorgos and the team at Skala, sending greetings to owner Sotiris who was working on his new restaurant in Lardos. I waved goodbye to my new friends for now and couldn’t resist slipping into the sea that lapped at the shore. As I swam, a light spring rain began to fall and the soft sunlight that emerged through the clouds afterwards was beautiful.

 
Just as New York isn’t really America, Lindos isn’t really Rhodes; it’s got a charm and magic all of its own. The village and its immediate surroundings have been protected from development because of the archaeological significance: it was a major trading and shipping centre as far back as the 8th century BC, pre-dating Rhodes town and sending a contingent of ships to the Trojan War. The Acropolis of Lindos with its temple of Athena may be older than the one in Athens, overlooking St Paul’s bay where the Apostle took shelter from a storm; the fortress around it was built by the medieval Knights of St John. The buildings are all in traditional ‘sugar-cube’ style and contained within the old village limits. Built around the edges of a hill with ancient ruins atop it and the sea on three sides, from the 1960s it attracted artistic types from all over the world.

I first stayed in a villa in Lindos in the 1980s with my family; a few years ago I returned in midsummer and sampled the restaurants and bars with my friend Hari. This time, Exclusively Lindos had offered me a stay in a ‘Captain’s House’ in the heart of Lindos for a few days in April. It would be a quiet time, I expected, since the season doesn’t really start until 1 May; and Lindos looked very pretty, the surroundings tinged with green.

The Captain’s Houses were the homes of the affluent merchant seamen of Lindos in the 16th and 17th centuries. Hidden behind high walls and grand doorways, they housed sizeable families and were decorated with Byzantine and Arabesque features and pebble mosaic courtyards. On my previous visit I’d seen the Papakonstandis Mansion. The Captain’s House accommodation offered through Exclusively Lindos is owned by a local family who handcrafted the interior woodwork. Off the courtyard are two bedrooms, a kitchen and the tall, magnificent sala, with its painted wooden ceiling and traditional raised platforms for sleeping and relaxing. To stay in such a place, part of the heart and history of the village, was very special.

 

The next morning I had Ayios Pavlos (Saint Paul’s) Bay to myself for a morning swim. 

My mum was flying over to join me at the Captain’s House so we would make the most of the few days. When she arrived, we went straight down to the bay for lunch at Tambakio, a stylish restaurant on the water’s edge. The tambakio was a tannery (‘tambak’ being the Turkish word for leather, apparently); they would slaughter the sheep or goats there and it had been used until World War Two; then converted into a restaurant thirty years ago, and owned by the same man who has two of the most popular summer clubs in Lindos, Antika in the village and Amphitheatro up on the hill. We ate tsipoura, a type of bream which was grilled and tasted delicious with salad and wine.

   

 

Later, we were invited to join a wedding reception at Yannis’ bar, and after dinner at Symposio – where we ate excellent lamb kleftiko (and Joanna, the chef, recognised me from my appearance on the Tilos episode of 60 Lepta Ellada!) – we were invited by new friends Giannis and Michalis for drinks and dancing at Socrates Bar, which usually has rock music except for Saturday nights when they play Greek music. It was a warm welcome to Lindos and by the early hours, it seemed it wouldn’t be such a quiet few days after all.

After a late start next day, we spent the day lazing on loungers and swimming across St Paul’s Bay and had lunch this time at the opposite side, the ‘kantina’, where the tiered patches of land around were planted with vegetables and herbs, and the olive oil, coarse salt and oregano were all local. It was another beautiful setting. In the evening as we availed ourselves of the internet connection over a lovely glass of wine at Giorgios’ bar, Joanna, the chef from Symposio, came by to offer us some of her home-made, delicious chocolates. We ate dinner at Calypso: another bream, this time with horta and dolmades. After a few intense days of walking in Embona, I was making up for it with plenty of dinners and drinks...

On Monday morning, I sauntered around the village just as little kids were walking to school, and bread was being delivered, hanging in plastic bags from door handles. Like the donkeys grazing in the car park, it was a nice reminder that in spite of the style and glamour, Lindos is also a simple Greek village. Once again, I had St Paul’s Bay to myself. In spite of a cool spring breeze and some clouds, the sun was warm and the sea beautifully clear. 

The weather turned rainy again in the afternoon, but Mum and I felt like stretching our legs so we walked around the coast towards Pefkos, up to the little church of Profitis Ilias and then to the thirteenth-century monastery of Ayios Giannis Meroglitis. 

It gave us an excuse to live large again in the evening, with a return visit to Symposio for a wonderful dinner: olives crushed with lemon; succulent kalamari fried whole; bread with tapenade and taramasalata; a salad of lettuce, rocket, tomato, cucumber, pomegranate, avocado and honey-roasted walnuts; a sea bream with a very light lemon-herb sauce; and fresh potatoes with sea salt. We’d had three days of sheer enjoyment in lovely surroundings, eating and drinking, swimming and dancing, with a peaceful Captain’s House to call home, and new friends to visit again.

  

Adventures in Rhodes – Two Nights in Rhodes Town

 

 

It's the last day of March and we disembark from the Dodecanisos ferry at Kolona Harbour, entering the walls through the huge stone gate. Late afternoon sun spills over Rhodes Old Town. 

From Ippokratous Square we walk up Sokratous Street, usually busy with strolling tourists but empty at this time of year with most of the shops still closed. We follow it to the pink Suleiman Mosque at the top, originally built soon after the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1522; turn right before the clock tower, towards the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes. Built by the Knights Hospitaller in the fourteenth century, its façade was destroyed during Ottoman times but rebuilt by the Italian occupiers during the late 1930s. And there is our hotel, Nikos Takis, its location immersing you at once and unmistakably in the history of Europe’s biggest medieval city.

Nikos Takis Hotel is built in the old quarters of the Sultan’s harem in the nineteenth century, and is decorated in eastern style – this is the tip of Rhodes that noses into the coastline of Asia Minor, after all. The founders of Nikos Takis were fashion designers whose clients included Liz Taylor, Sofia Loren, Maria Callas and Jackie Onassis. I loved my first stay in this historic boutique hotel a few years ago, in the Grand Master Emery suite with its terrace view of cruise ships coming in. With the evenings not quite warm enough for lounging on a terrace, the Ontas suite we get this time is perfect – it's got a warm, opulent feel, decorated in soothing reds and oranges and burnt umbers, with old wooden ceiling beams and a bed you could sink a small submarine in. There are hand-painted details and swathes of brocade and silk. I love it. And the welcome is very friendly, there are only eight rooms, and it’s open year-round.

 

I like the happy, relaxed mood on any Greek island when shops and restaurants are just opening and the weather is mild. In early evening, we wander to find a place to eat. We get talking to someone at the newish bakery and pizzeria Il Forno, in a building which I remember as the lovely bar Angel, and I giggle when he hands us what he called a ‘flyeraki’. He tells us a place where we can get good, authentic food, and it turns out to be the place we eyed earlier, Ta Petaladika, a bright, buzzing fish meze place. As an Old Town resident tells us, any restaurant open now is probably good because it caters to locals. We have grilled calamari, salt cod and skordalia (like garlic mashed potato), and a house salad with rocket and pieces of smoked salmon, washed down with the clear spirit tsipouro – which comes in a nifty holder with ice around it.

Rhodes town feels like coming to the city for us, living on tiny Tilos; it’s where we run our errands, but also good for a break, to eat different foods and meet other people. And of course a lovely hotel makes it even nicer. By the time I wake up next morning in the super-comfortable bed, looking out of the window at the old school lit up with morning sunlight and the blue sky above – Yiannis is already leaning out of the window with his camera – I am relaxed to be on holiday. A few opportunities have come up to explore Rhodes again, and I'm looking forward to it.  

After a morning of appointments and shopping – including a browse around a new shop in Mandraki called Eva’s Walk specialising in natural Greek beauty products and food – we sit down to a late lunch at Stavlos. There used to be a bakery here, a couple of streets up from the bus station, but since Theodoraki Street in between has become a happening cafe-bar street for local Beautiful People, this has reinvented itself as a ‘kalofagadiko’ or a place for good food. All around us, young people from Rhodes (and Tilos – look, there’s our football team!) are feasting on gargantuan plates of roast meat and Yiannis orders kebab and chips, but I choose one of my favourite dishes, Cretan dakos, just tomatoes and feta and wholewheat twice-baked bread all heaped together and drowned in olive oil. And I eat half the chips. With a half-litre of cold red wine, it’s just right to send us off to sleep for a while.

In early evening, when the light is good for photography, we head out to explore the Old Town once more. I thought I knew every part of this place from my many wanderings over the years, but no - we get delightfully lost and captivated by its intimate corners. 

 

 

Then we relax back in the room until it’s a reasonable time to find some nightlife, given it’s Friday night and all. Ten o’clock, Yiannis insists, is still far too early to go out but I fear I'll fall asleep if we don't get moving. He's right of course: Legends is still playing some fairly dodgy rock when we arrive but the early start means we bag a couple of seats, have a couple of drinks and eventually the live band starts close to midnight. After the first set we move on and find a cool new dance bar called Oda just up the alley towards Fuego, where I discover a worrying new enthusiasm for Jaegermeister and a type of music which Yiannis shrugs and says could be called ‘industrial atmospheric’. Next day, he grins and asks if I remember half the things I was talking about. And I don’t. But I don’t care. I’m enjoying myself. I’m on holiday.

And we’re off on a road trip around the island.

Part Two follows soon!!!!

My two nights in Rhodes were courtesy of Nikos Takis Hotel, Panetiou 26, Old Town (22410 70773)

Ta Petaladika (‘ouzotaverneion’), Menekleous 8, Old Town (22410 27319)

Stavlos (‘kalofagadiko’), corner of Tarpon Springs and Karpathou (22410 77180)

It’s (not) Easter!

Thanks to Eleftheria for this photo of Lisa trying to pull me into the sea at Ayios Antonis!

While many places celebrate Easter this weekend, Greek Orthodox Easter falls late this year, as April turns to May, so in Tilos we’re just quietly enjoying the sunshine, walking in a landscape green from winter rains, and swimming in a still-bracing sea… 

This might be my favourite time of year; I can sit here with the sun warming my arm and the occasional bee buzzing through the open window, while in the evenings, even though there’s no real need for heating, it’s sometimes cool enough to light a fire in the hearth. Even though I wouldn't call myself a flower fanatic, it's impossible not to be wowed by the fields bursting with colour, and the tiny orchids. And I’m seeing hoopoes! Hoopoes seem shy and I’ve never been able to get a photo, but they have ginger mohicans and black-and-white striped tails. 

If you want to experience a different kind of Easter, you still have time to book a flight to Greece for the ‘Big Week’. You won’t find much in the way of chocolate eggs but it’s very beautiful and brings the community together, from its mournful processions with a flower-covered bier to the firecracker-popping end with lamb or kid roasted on the spit and the burning of Judas. Easter Sunday will coincide this year with Protomayia, the First of May, a national holiday when everyone gathers flowers and hangs wreaths on their front doors, marking the start of summer.

There are plenty of reasons to be thinking of Greece in the coming month leading up to Greek Easter – here are a few….

-         * My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 – the movie is launched this week (!)

-         * The Durrells, a six-part series based on Gerald Durrell’s books about his childhood on the Greek island of Corfu, is starting on 3 April (https://www.durrell.org/wildlife/the-durrells/)

-         * Five chefs from Athens are taking over The Real Greek in London’s Bankside on 19 April, hosted by Tonia Buxton, presenter of My Greek Kitchen.

-         * Athens has been voted #2 Best European Destination for 2016

-        * My Map of You by Isabelle Broom, set on the island of Zakynthos, is out on 21 April

-       *   An Octopus in my Ouzo, by… oh yes, by me… is out 14 April!!!!!

To rest up a little before the big launch, ahem, I’m looking forward to few little holidays. What? Yes, I know I live on a Greek island. In fact, this is what I just saw when I took the dog for a mid-morning stroll around the village….

But sometimes it’s fun to see other Greek islands too, especially ones not very far away. First up, Y and I are off to Rhodes this time next week, for errands (because it’s our nearest ‘city’) and then for pleasure. We’ll be staying for a couple of nights at the lovely NikosTakis Hotel – described in my new book – in the heart of the Old Town near the Palace of the Grand Masters; then assuming Y’s car passes its MOT we’ll be doing a fast tour of the island… And the following weekend I’ll be with my mum in Lindos, staying at this traditional Captain’s House run by Exclusively Lindos, which promises to be a treat.

If you haven’t seen the Alpha TV show 60 Lepta Ellada when they came to Tilos in February, you can now see it online here (Lisa and I get our three minutes of fame around minute 16, though several people brought me down to earth by saying that Lisa was the real star). I had some lovely messages from viewers in other parts of Greece and made some new friends. ‘You have touched the meaning of life!’ wrote Yiannis. Stavros wrote to say he’d been to Tilos 20 years ago and the show brought back wonderful memories. Tassos said he was jealous of my life, and thanked me for helping people to learn about his country. Costas wants to learn the key for escaping from a life dominated only by work. And Ilias said he liked to see people enjoying nature and doing what they want in life, not what others want. I now want to watch all the episodes about other parts of Greece, though it will make me want to travel more….

In the meantime, it’s Lent here, so it’s almost obligatory to eat halva, the delicious sweet. Last week, to get into the spirit of things, I cooked fasolada, a thick soup of white beans with carrots, celery, tomatoes and olive oil. Yesterday, around this hour, I heard the shout of ‘Psaria!’, or ‘fish’, and walked down to the road to buy fresh gopes from Nikos’ truck. We grilled them last night and I picked a lemon off my tree to squeeze over. I boiled local potatoes and we sprinkled them with salt and oregano and drizzled them in local olive oil. With a mound of salad and a glass of ouzo... It’s not bad, life on a Greek island. 

With apologies to those of you who might already have seen some of these photos on my Facebook page, I'll leave you with some snaps from my walk up to the old Italian Observatory last week. Enjoy yourselves, wherever you are and whatever you're doing... X