From Mt. Pelio last week

This photo was taken from a hotel balcony on Mt. Pelion. The altitude is 1200 meters. It is early morning and the view is spectacular. The photo has been annotated to indicate certain geographic features visible. Click on the photo and it will enlarge. The Sporades do not show – they are behind the mountain on the left. Volos is behind the mountain on the right foreground. This is a panorama made from 12 photos and the field of view is almost 180º. Mt. Tymfristos is at least 75 miles (120km) away.

Take out a map of Greece – center on Hania Pelion – and see if you can find all of the spots.

Agios Riginos program

Tomorrow, Saturday, the patron saint of Skopelos, Agios Reginos is celebrated. There will be a church ceremony starting at 19.00 hours tonight in the church belonging to the monastery. On Saturday morning at 07.00 hours the 2nd ceremony is held and will last several hours. When the liturgy is finished a procession will start going towards town and will end near the Christos church in the village. For the entire day it will be possibile to visit the church, the shrine and the monastery to “pay homage” A candle can be lit and many people leave flowers behind.

Be aware that many shops are closed and after this day Sunday and “Clean Monday follow. You have to stock up. On Monday morning the famous laganes (flat breads) can be bought.

Advice to British travellers in Greece ‘alarmist’

Daphne
I wonder how it is going to work in the summer. Holidaymakers who want to have a holiday in Greece will take time off to register themselves in England and what is left of their holiday they will spend in Greece ? My advice: go on holiday in Greece. Try to meet a nice greek family and seek shelter with them when necessary! Lots of nice hospitable families around. They will give you their bed and sleep on the floor when necessary. There is always food in the fridge and any time of the day you come into their house you are invited to stay and have a meal with them.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, has been criticised for urging holidaymakers in Greece to register with the British consulate in case of civil unrest in the country.

The Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO) dismissed the advice as “alarmist” and “far from reality”.

Derek Moore, the AITO chairman, said: “Our specialist holiday companies are unanimously reporting that there is no problem, except in two very small, highly-contained areas – firstly, around Syntagma Square, by the Greek Parliament in Athens, and, secondly, in central Thessaloniki, Greece’s next largest city. This is nothing new – it’s exactly the same situation as the past three years.”

He added: “Very few holidaymakers fly into Athens or Thessaloniki. To claim that Britons living in Greece or visiting on holiday are likely to need emergency evacuation is, quite frankly, ridiculous. The riots in London, Manchester and Birmingham last summer were on a significantly bigger scale than anything in Greece – yet did the Home Secretary, Theresa May, advise people against visiting the Cotswolds or the Lake District?”

For the rest of the article see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/9096661/Advice-to-British-travellers-in-Greece-alarmist.html#pd_a_5964786#pd_a_5964786

Kalderimi in area Klima/Loutraki

The Other Heather has sent these photos to us of the kalderimi that was restored in Old Klima and the area around it.

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Heather says: “There is now a covered picnic table [without the table] on the platea outside Agios Anargiris. The woodwork was done in the course of a day and is good. The stonework on the platea and on the kalderimi to Loutraki was completed some time ago”

Heather has some questions about how the kalderimi was made with the stones being placed in the photos in the photo gallery. There is no sign of cement etc.

The kalderimi goes all the way down through Palio Klima from the main road; that part is done nicely as they just repaired the old one in the traditional way with the local stone. It goes down into the valley and then up again past the old mill and up to the church of Agios Anargiros. They have paved the platea, and the kalderimi then leads down to the shore and into Loutraki. It is a lovely walk.

As an alternative, you can drive/walk down to the church from the main road after Palio Klima, just at the sign for Glossa, at the bus stop opposite Villa Katerina on the main road. This way, you don’t pass through Palio Klima

Brits Urged to Register

The Foreign Office is urging all Holiday makers in Greece from the UK to register with the Foreign Office.
The Government appears to believe that Greece is engulfed with violent demonstrations and could be on the brink.
Read all about it here.

Naturally the announcement angered independent tour operators who accused the Foreign Office of flying off the handle and acting irresponsibly. Read responses here.

Give blood

There is a chance for everybody to donate blood tomorrow Wednesday from 09.00 hours until 14.00 hours and from 17.00 hours until 20.00 hours. On Thursday from 09.00 hours until 14.00 hours. The blue truck is parked in the harbor. If you have not been before ask the people inside. You are registered and will be examined briefly. Your blood type will be found. A card where your donations will be registered, will be given to you. And then you are good to go….

It is still carnival

Last Saturday a carnival party was organized in Rigas house and about 120 children from the age of 6 months until 15 turned up. About 40 adults were present. Everybody had a great time dancing, eating and laughing. There was a big buffet with various cakes, pies and wonderful drinks. A “dancing with the stars” competition was organized and about 40 couples joined. The costumes were original and well thought of.

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Deal reached, what now ?

Just saw a press conference with the greek minister of economy stating :” a deal is reached ” What is next is unknown. More measures coming, elections ? This weekend a new poll stated that support for the 2 leading parties in the government are at an all time low. More and more political parties are formed and if they have elections, how many parties do they need to form a government ? It will need a lot of talking before they can form a government. And their hands are basically tied with all the austerity rules. It might take as long as in Belgium (more than a year it took to form their government)

This article from Reuters says:
Euro zone seals second Greek bailout
Euro zone finance ministers sealed on Tuesday a second bailout for debt-laden Greece that will resolve its immediate financing needs but seems unlikely to revive the nation’s shattered economy.

After a marathon 13 hours of talks, euro zone officials said ministers had nailed measures to cut Greece’s debt to around 121 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, close to their original target of 120, after negotiators for private bondholders offered to accept a bigger loss to help plug the funding gap.

If you want to see more look at the Reuters article here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/21/us-greece-idUSTRE8120HI20120221

Trata !!

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We caught up to the Trata celebration yesterday in Gyftorema. There were four boats and crews. Plenty of on-lookers, well wishers and accidentals were there to cheer them on. Casual observation of various irises indicated that some youngsters had left sobriety well behind. However, the group was determined to finish their round the village romp. The representative of Dionysos, the “Captain’s wife” (a man dressed in woman’s clothing), was curiously absent from the group this year, at least at Gyftorema. Perhaps he showed up later.

Win a holiday on … Skopelos … again!

[As this is still scrollable on our front page, it might interest all Skopelos-watchers out there to know that this story ran again, with the photo of Stafilos featured once more on the front page, today, Friday February 24. (Oh, and on Saturday the 25th, too...)]

Thanks to eagle-eyed, er, legal eagle Mike Crebbin for tipping us off about this, which appeared in yesterday’s Guardian travel section. The newspaper’s annual reader travel awards invites readers to nominate their best holiday experiences in a variety of categories (the former Skopelos specialists Laskarina, now sadly defunct, were regular winners in the ‘independent travel operator’ category). Among the prizes is a week at a villa on Skopelos (we’ll spare you the lame jokes about what the two-week consolation prize might be…), offered by GIC.

While readers of Skopelos News who are resident in the UK can enter here, as we suspected, the small print confirms that the competition is not open to anyone living anywhere else, although anyone now resident here who tried to enter and actually won would have faced the prospect of returning to what Lawrence Durrell called “Pudding Island” and “the Isle Dolorous” to claim their prize. But at least it means that there will be two more Guardian readers joining that beleaguered cohort here, if only temporarily, and possibly more…