The Greek weather bureau forecasted rain on Thursday morning and they didn’t disappoint. We made our way through the cool and drizzly town to the Ammos restaurant, which Google and Kim had recommended (I trust Garry’s wife, Kim, much more than Google). It has an interesting menu with such items as Healthy Pancakes, which are regular pancakes with peanut butter gluing the flapjacks together, and a yoghurt breakfast that was described as yogurt, topped with a variety of nuts and superfood. In reality it was nice yogurt with a drip of honey and three walnuts. But the Greek coffee was good and there was something very relaxing about sitting in a restaurant that whilst covered by the roof, was open to the rain and sea beyond that. Our holiday trips are usually pretty full-on and it was refreshing to not have to or not be able to rush around, but to simply sit, watch the rain and take in the ambience.
Speaking of ambience, Ouranoupoli has a slightly strange one. It initially looks and feels like any seaside holiday town, but upon closer inspection, is a little different. 95% of the tourists are men. It is bustling with men who are about to make the pilgrimage into the Mt Athos Autonomous Monastic Commonwealth, the holiest area of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Only men are allowed into this area. Even female animals are not permitted (yes, I’m as serious as they are). So every morning we saw tens of groups of men lugging backpacks, suitcases, hiking shoes and sleeping bags, readying themselves for their holy pilgrimage. Many of them were dressed in black monastic robes which wouldn’t be much fun to hike in, but I guess fun isn’t really on their minds.
Of course, commerce dictated that for every chintzy tourist shop selling Ouranoupoli fridge magnets and tea-towels there was a shop selling religious icons, holy incense and gold plated crosses. Other stores sold local produce; wine, olives, olive oil and honey. And some entrepreneurs offered all three product types in the one shop. It certainly made for a more interesting downtown than Santorini.
Eventually the rain slightly let up and we started the day’s adventures. Yoni was today’s planner and he had us beginning at the Aristotle Theme Park. Aristotle in fact came from this area and Ouranoupoli is inside the confines of the Aristotle district council. Apparently, the Aristotle Theme park is the only theme park in Macedonia (Greece’s northern province). Just as “health pancakes” with peanut butter is a somewhat loose translation, so is describing this thin strip of grass as a “theme park”. Yes, there was a statue of the old fella, a number of interesting school science type exhibits which I assume he discovered, and I suppose there was a pretty view over the sea beneath us, had it not been covered with clouds and drizzle. But a theme park? It was a nice place to wander through for 20 minutes.
Today was quaint village day. First up was Megali Penagia. We drove through the town, along winding streets and past a few cafes that only 80 year old men sat in. We parked and since it had been more than two hours since we had eaten, this was a situation that needed to be rectified. So we walked past the men only cafes that looked like from a Costa Gravras movie, past another café that looked far too young and funky for us, in a small village sort of way, until we found a little 1960’s style café that had some women sitting and gossiping on the front porch. How can a village of 1200 people have so many coffee shops, working at full pace in the middle of the day? I would guess that the cafes were the only things in the village working at full pace.
If you can’t tell, I love Greece. But let me say here and now that Greek towns in this area don’t quite have the same charm as their Mediterranean cousins in Italy/France/Spain or elsewhere in Europe, for that matter. Closer to mid-century retro than medieval magic. I am fully aware that the villages on the Greek Islands do indeed have that fairytale look, but here in Aristotle District, it was nice enough to wander through, but it won’t be getting a nomination to the Most Beautiful Villages in Europe contest any time soon.
Maybe the next town will be magical. Well, to be honest, Gomati was just plain drab. We didn’t even stop for another cup of Greek coffee. But there is a goat’s cheese dairy hidden off the main road not far outside of the town and this was a stop worth making.
The dairy is housed in a carefully restored old building, with an organic vege patch adjacent to the car park. A glass window inside the factory outlet shop shows the dairy. It looks like a relatively large, modern dairy, all stainless steel, with workers with hair nets and gloves going about their business. You could see that this was a serious business.
There’s a menu on the wall of the shop encouraging us to taste the dairy’s cheeses. The lady in the shop suggested that we purchase two large cheese platters, where the two platters were different from each other and had 8 cheeses per platter. This will be enough, she said. At 18€ a platter, 36€ divided between the 6 of us, we couldn’t go wrong. One platter, with bread, olives and a few other local delicacies would have been plenty. Two platters was gluttony. And did we finish all the delicious cheeses? Of course.
Yoni and I shared 2 beers from a local brewery with a very interesting name, very much in keeping with the holy area theme. The Seven Seals brewery offers a variety of styles of beer, each one replete with pictures of Christian horsemen, crusades, apocalyptic iconography, crosses and other fun stuff. Not the sort of labelling that makes you relax over a cold one. Maybe their target audience is the male only pilgrims walking from monastery to monastery in the Mt Athos area. Buy a six pack and get a whip for self-flagellation thrown in for free?
So well fed and ready for whatever Yoni had planned for our next stop, it was onwards to the coastal town of Ierissos, for a stroll along the boardwalk on the Aegean coast. And this boardwalk sort of sums up why I love Greece. It isn’t picture perfect. It’s not the stuff of fairytales. It’s imperfect, a little rough around the edges, a bit retro and the Greeks just couldn’t care less. It’s just a joy to hang out and relax, with no pretense.
So we wandered along, admiring the stunning views over the bluest of blue water and another archipelago off into the distant. As we wandered, a guy came up to me asking me in sign language (he didn’t speak English, I don’t speak Greek) to take photos of him in front of the sea view. While he made a range of tough looking poses and masculine muscle flexing, I snapped away, feeling like a down-market version of Annie Leibowitz. We made niceties and parted ways. A couple of hundred metres down the path we found tens of deckchairs, waiting for tourists to sit on them in the upcoming summer season. It’d been a tough day, exploring Park Aristotle, meandering through a village and eating too much goat’s cheese. So when an empty deck chairs overlooking stunning Aegean views offers itself up, then who are we to pass up the opportunity? Just as I was getting comfortable in the weak spring sun, my new found friend plonks himself down in the deck chair next to me. After about thirty seconds of self constraint, he asked me to continue the paparazzi with him lying on a deck chair, looking at once fearsome and cute (in his own eyes, not mine. I wasn’t falling for his very few charms). After our second photo shoot, he got up, climbed into a truck and drove off. I hope he gives me photo credits on his Insta feed.
These deck chairs don’t just set up on the beach by themselves. A local beach restaurant about thirty metres back sent out their waiter, wanting to know if we wanted drinks, since we’d parked ourselves on their chairs. He wasn’t very forceful and there was no hard sell or hints of a threat that if we wanted to sit in their chairs we needed to pay. It was more of the good natured Greek mindset. But it was mid afternoon and an ouzo on the beach seemed just right. The fact the ouzos came in plastic cups and cost a grand total of 4€ each just seemed to fit the setting.
After a short drive back to Ouranoupoli and an afternoon shloof, Yoni and I were ready to continue to decimate the octopus population of northern Greece. Last night’s restaurant was excellent, but it being smack bang in the middle of town meant we didn’t have romantic sea views. El Mare had been recommended, and it overlooked the beach. The deck overlooking the sea was full of men, presumably returning from pilgrimage and wanting a bit of culinary debauchery after their ascetic few days, and there wasn’t a six person table available. Instead, we were led to the area below the deck, on the beach itself where there was an available table. Perfect.
The day had started with rain and whilst it had cleared, the top temperature had only been about 18°. Now that the sun was setting and the wind picking up, it was bloody freezing. We obviously weren’t the first customers to experience the cool Ouranoupoli evenings, as the staff quickly brought out a selection of blankets to wrap ourselves in. Being wrapped in blankets didn’t stop us from devouring grilled octopus, a mixed seafood platter and delicious dish of octopus cerviche, which we had never tasted before. The other dips, seafood stew, chicken skewers and salads were also delicious, as we sat at the table, nice and cozy, wrapped up like mummies.
