Thursday 8th April
Mikri Mantania , Messinia Bay - Monemvassia
We must have passed several million olive trees during our travels through Europe and have been trying to find an olive mill to see how the production process works. Finally whilst exploring the Mani coastline this morning we were successful. We were driving through the prettiest villages on the west coast and in the Thalami village square there was an open olive press and shop. We spent about an hour with a pretty German girl who must have married a Greek and now runs an organic oil business with the family. She took us around the works which are idle at this time of year, and it was very interesting. They sold lots of yummy products – is there anything you cannot make with an olive, which would have been very tempting on another trip. The olive oil making process is almost identical to wine. The olives are picked, washed, crushed (and at this factory they are ‘stone ground’ or lightly crushed, the modern method is to chop them up whirling mechanical knives)and then laid out on a hessian blanket and crushed under a huge concrete slab. There is no fermentation involved so an olive can go from tree to bottle in 24 hours. She said they could strip a tree in about 30 minutes depending on the harvest.
The factory where they make 'olive oil'. The hessian nets in the foreground, the stones for crushing to the left and the weights in the middle above purple upright stanchions
The crushing stones
Vivi and our guide and the squeezing part!
Messinia Bay
This coast road is one long tortuous windy road with stunning views of valleys filled with wild flowers, gorse and a few trees. There are little chapels at regular intervals on the verges which look very old.
Minute church of Metamorphosis, full of ancient wall paintings.
The villages are all made up of stone houses whereas most of the Peloponnese houses on the west coast are rendered with cement. The mountains here are fairly barren and covered in loose stone so it is not surprising they use that to build them. It took us the whole morning to travel a short way on the map so we cut across to the other coast at Aeropoli. We can now see why everyone said we wouldn’t be able to do this on bikes, and we really take our hats off to Eddie Enfield who has. We had been hoping to follow his route from ‘Greece on my Wheels’. If we had a tent and could stop half way up the mountains at will, it would be possible, but to try and travel any distance in a day is nigh impossible. We arrived on the other side at Gythio,
Our lunch in Gythio
There must be an awful lot of these guys in the sea, they are on the menu everywhere!
an attractive port where the ferry comes and goes from Crete, so is rather more commercial than others we have been to. We sat in the sun and watched the people disembark and wondered where they would all go next as it is a very long way from any main roads.
The landscape changes whilst traveling across the next plain; this is covered in orange orchards and the towns of Skala and Vlachoti were full of migrant workers with trucks full of fruit. The oranges on this side of the Peloponnese are only ready to pick now which is about a month later than on the west coast which surprised us, but the East wind was pretty sharp. We were heading for Monemvassia on the Eastern side of Laconia and the hills here are not nearly so steep but they are very bare. We arrived about an hour before sunset so had time to find a hotel and then walk across the causeway towards the old city of Monemvassia. It is a fairly peaceful area at this time of year and our hotel overlooked the harbour so lots to look at.
Our bedroom, one of the 'pinkest' we've been in and surprisingly comfortable for a stone based bed.
The view from our bedroom.
The hotel had a restaurant attached to it, it wasn’t theirs but they all seemed to muck in together. In the restaurant was a large group of people our age (possibly even older!) having what looked like quite a sticky dinner. They were on an alpine flower tour and we had a riveting time working out nationalities. They all reverted to stereotype, the British wearing good practical husky waistcoats or similar, the Swiss in breeches and braces, and the Americans in track suits and leisure wear. They took ages working out individual bills for all 20 and the restaurant staff were amazingly patient.
The huge rock of Monemvisnia, the village (tomorrow) is tucked in around to the right.
It was a refreshing alternative to watching football which is our usual form of entertainment in the tavernas. I want Barcelona to win the Champion’s League as they play much better than anyone else we have watched. In a rather unhelpful fashion Greek T.V doesn’t necessarily tell you who is playing or what the score is on the top of the screen so there is a certain amount of guesswork involved as we are not very good at recognising many teams yet!
Mikri Mantania , Messinia Bay - Monemvassia
We must have passed several million olive trees during our travels through Europe and have been trying to find an olive mill to see how the production process works. Finally whilst exploring the Mani coastline this morning we were successful. We were driving through the prettiest villages on the west coast and in the Thalami village square there was an open olive press and shop. We spent about an hour with a pretty German girl who must have married a Greek and now runs an organic oil business with the family. She took us around the works which are idle at this time of year, and it was very interesting. They sold lots of yummy products – is there anything you cannot make with an olive, which would have been very tempting on another trip. The olive oil making process is almost identical to wine. The olives are picked, washed, crushed (and at this factory they are ‘stone ground’ or lightly crushed, the modern method is to chop them up whirling mechanical knives)and then laid out on a hessian blanket and crushed under a huge concrete slab. There is no fermentation involved so an olive can go from tree to bottle in 24 hours. She said they could strip a tree in about 30 minutes depending on the harvest.
The factory where they make 'olive oil'. The hessian nets in the foreground, the stones for crushing to the left and the weights in the middle above purple upright stanchions
The crushing stones
Vivi and our guide and the squeezing part!
Messinia Bay
This coast road is one long tortuous windy road with stunning views of valleys filled with wild flowers, gorse and a few trees. There are little chapels at regular intervals on the verges which look very old.
Minute church of Metamorphosis, full of ancient wall paintings.
The villages are all made up of stone houses whereas most of the Peloponnese houses on the west coast are rendered with cement. The mountains here are fairly barren and covered in loose stone so it is not surprising they use that to build them. It took us the whole morning to travel a short way on the map so we cut across to the other coast at Aeropoli. We can now see why everyone said we wouldn’t be able to do this on bikes, and we really take our hats off to Eddie Enfield who has. We had been hoping to follow his route from ‘Greece on my Wheels’. If we had a tent and could stop half way up the mountains at will, it would be possible, but to try and travel any distance in a day is nigh impossible. We arrived on the other side at Gythio,
Our lunch in Gythio
There must be an awful lot of these guys in the sea, they are on the menu everywhere!
an attractive port where the ferry comes and goes from Crete, so is rather more commercial than others we have been to. We sat in the sun and watched the people disembark and wondered where they would all go next as it is a very long way from any main roads.
The landscape changes whilst traveling across the next plain; this is covered in orange orchards and the towns of Skala and Vlachoti were full of migrant workers with trucks full of fruit. The oranges on this side of the Peloponnese are only ready to pick now which is about a month later than on the west coast which surprised us, but the East wind was pretty sharp. We were heading for Monemvassia on the Eastern side of Laconia and the hills here are not nearly so steep but they are very bare. We arrived about an hour before sunset so had time to find a hotel and then walk across the causeway towards the old city of Monemvassia. It is a fairly peaceful area at this time of year and our hotel overlooked the harbour so lots to look at.
Our bedroom, one of the 'pinkest' we've been in and surprisingly comfortable for a stone based bed.
The view from our bedroom.
The hotel had a restaurant attached to it, it wasn’t theirs but they all seemed to muck in together. In the restaurant was a large group of people our age (possibly even older!) having what looked like quite a sticky dinner. They were on an alpine flower tour and we had a riveting time working out nationalities. They all reverted to stereotype, the British wearing good practical husky waistcoats or similar, the Swiss in breeches and braces, and the Americans in track suits and leisure wear. They took ages working out individual bills for all 20 and the restaurant staff were amazingly patient.
The huge rock of Monemvisnia, the village (tomorrow) is tucked in around to the right.
It was a refreshing alternative to watching football which is our usual form of entertainment in the tavernas. I want Barcelona to win the Champion’s League as they play much better than anyone else we have watched. In a rather unhelpful fashion Greek T.V doesn’t necessarily tell you who is playing or what the score is on the top of the screen so there is a certain amount of guesswork involved as we are not very good at recognising many teams yet!
No comments:
Post a Comment