Pictures of places near our villages

Here are some pictures I took from the road that leads from "velimahi" to "Tropaia"This is a picture from "Viziki"."Viziki" is a village right next to Tropaia. 

Some great flowers outside of Velimahi.
"Ladonas" river from high.
Okay I upload this panorama just to tell me how many mountains and hills can you count.....

Just try.....

(Click on every picture to enlarge it)

Yummy Yummy !!!!!!!!

Oh my!!! As you can see, both are ready and on the fire. The lamb needs about 4 hours but Kokoretsi about 3!!!Soula turning the kokoretsi (for the lamb we had a electrical motor to turn it)
Katerina (as you can see, there were no fun at all doing this thing)

Vagelis too ....
What left from kokoretsi right after I took it off from the fire....
.......while the lamb wanted about 45 minutes to be ready........ 
No photos of the lamb ...... don't you know why?..... my hands was holding pieces of the lamb so there was no time for me to hold my camera....!!!!

mmmmmmm ............. great ......... yummy.....!!!!

Preparing the Lamb and the "kokoretsi"!!!

Holly Saturday was the day that we had to make our "kokoretsi" and put that iron stick to the lamb so it can be roasted on Sunday.

Here you see us trying to tie up the lamb (It a job that you must know well, because the lamb will be turning round and round for about 4 hours on fire so if you don't know how it will be loosen and you won't be able to roast it).Here I make th stitches to lamb's stomach right after we put salt inside it.
And here we are with Soula making our "kokoretsi"

(I'm sure that some of you wouldn't like to hear what is made of, ... but .... it's has great taste!!!!) 

Easter at the Village

The last week was our "Passion Week" so we went to "Velimahi" (Soula's village).
We left from Athens on "Maundy Thursday" (or Holly Thursday? ... excuse me if I'm wrong, I only check my dictionary) at 6:00 am so, we were at 7:30 am outside of "Vitina" (a big village 45 minutes far away from "Velimahi").

Here is two pictures I took from the morning fog. It was great to see the fog "crawling" between the hills and the mountains.

Right after we arrived at "Velimahi", Vagelis started relations with the lamb of the next picture.

(Do you want me to tell you the destiny of the lamb? ... for those who doesn't know it just keep reading and you'll find out) 

As I told you before, it was "Maundy Thursday" and our religion custom says that this is the day that we paint the eggs red!

So Soula started to put the eggs one by one in the hot water. First the must be boiled then let them cool and then paint them red. Next to he eggs Soula was boiling wild herbs (I don't know how to call them in English, but they are delicious) to eat them at noon. 
But wild herbs weren't enough for all of us so she decided to cook these great "Kalamari".

(I know that in  English you say it like that but I don't know how you spell it).

Katerina was waiting for the food to get ready... but she doesn't like neither of those!!!Okay here are our red eggs. Almost ready. They want to stay in the "red painting" for a while before you take them of.How do hey look?

Red and shiny!!!We made some green ones too. It was our first time painting the eggs with a different color.

(wondering why green? ..... Just because Vaggelis and Katerina wanted them like the color of their team) 

Vaggelis's Birthday Party

Here is Mr Vaggelis!
Two weeks ago (April 2nd) has his birthday so yesterday went to a place were Vaggelis with his friends could play, have fun, and blow his candles on his birthday cake.Here are some of his friends (there were about 35 children).Katerina invited 2 girlfriends too.I tried to convince all the boys not to play soccer all around the place.

This is a kind of game I invited for the kids to play....
This game didn't last long.... it wasn't so excited!!!

Here is Vaggelis with one of his best friends....and here is Vaggelis blowing the candles on his birthday cake...After they eat Vaggelis wanted to dance. We ask the guy at the store to put some music but Vaggelis wanted some Greek traditional songs!!! There were no traditional musin in the store so Vaggelis with some of his friends started to sing some songs that they have learned from their school and dance too!!!!!!!!


As you can see from the photos, it was a tricky dance....
While they were dancing there was that beautiful little girl that was very mad with Vaggelis, just because he didn't pay any attention on her.

So she was standing there and every time Vaggelis  passed in frond of her she was pushing him to make him fall.

So Soula stood beside her. Just look the expressions of both of them....!!!!!!!After the traditional songs was stopped, the guy in the store put some hip-hop. The kids made a dancing-show for us!!!!! Yeap !!!!!!I hope you can understand what I'm saying from the photos that you see.....
....and suddenly..... Vaggelis started Brake-dancing!!!!!!!!!!!!!........... Me and Soula were seeing him for first time ever dancing brake-dance!!!!!!! We were speechless!!!!!!!!........we sending our son to his school just to learn our traditional dancing, ...... and he already knew how to dance brake-dance....!!!!!!!

Me and Soula  asked him later, were he learned to dance like this, and he told us that he and his friends were doing it just for fun at school...!!!!!

Well done Vaggelis!!!!!!!!
Here is Soula with her friends
(they also work together) 

Sparti - Kalamata - Gythio

Last week, I went for a business trip to Peloponisos. I went to Kalamata then to Sparti then to Gythio and then back to Athens.

I took my camera  with me in case of seeing something interesting.I knew that I had to drive from Kalamata to Sparti. This is one of my favorite road because it is a narrow road with many turns and you have drive from the bottom of "Taigetos" mountain all the way to the top and then get down from the other side where Sparti is. The first 2 pictures you can see how the road goes (from the side where Kalamata is).

This is a picture I took from the top of "Taigetos" mountain. There is a nice coffee with great view

This side of mountain is leads to "Sparti.
I told you that this is a great road!!!!

Just look the next 4 pictures..... You'll understand why this road is one of my favorite

(No, very big trucks can't use this road and you  can see why...!!!!)



This is a shipwreck between  "Skala" and "Gythio". (These two are two towns about 20 minutes far away on from another).

You can see the great beach and at the higher left corner of the picture is "Skala". 


I was on the top of a hill, and suddenly I saw this seagull flying so low !!!! so I took this picture.