Pat and Paul go travelling: Meganisi: Walks, food and odds and ends

There is little to do on Meganisi other than walk, swim, eat and enjoy drinking a cold beer or two whilst gazing at the views. If you enjoy walking, you can choose any combination of roads on the above map and you will invariably find something worth seeing and usually find a taverna or two along the way.

We managed a few walks before the weather became too hot and one was the walk through Atherinos Bay to the beach at Fanari. The bay is popular with yacht

charterers (there were 40 moored when we walked through) and the above picture of the Niagis Taverna is shown simply to remind us of the superb honey and yogurt they serve together with freshly squeezed orange juice – and by freshly squeezed we mean that they squeeze the oranges and immediately give you the juice to drink rather than giving you “fresh orange juice” from a carton. It is a traditional family taverna as compared to the “Yacht Club” taverna also in the bay.

Fishing the traditional way is very common around Meganisi and the fisherman above was slowly puttering up and down the bay trawling for fish. His boat was only moving at a few kms/hr and he was totally at peace with his task.

The bay also provides an opposite direction view to that which can be seen from our balcony – the Hotel is in the upper centre of this photograph.

Often when you are sitting at Fanari Beach just watching the sea, small fishing boats returning from their night’s work pass you by.

Walking in a different direction takes you to

Elia Beach where the early morning view is quite magical. This view is towards Kalamos

Island and behind it, the Greek mainland. Sometimes in the rocks, you come across a mermaid.

Christina’s Cooking

There are numerous websites devoted to Greek cuisine but for our own pleasure we are including a few photographs of the food we ate, most of it prepared by Christina at the Hotel Meganisi.

Tzatziki

Big Beans

Green Beans in Tomato Sauce

Greek Salad

Pastichio

Homemade Honey and Yoghurt Ice Cream

Honey and Yoghurt

A meal fit for a Queen (she did not eat it all).

Although the menu was always “all the usual starters; the usual barbecues; fresh fish…..”, there was always a new main dish every night such as Pastichio, or Stuffed Peppers or Lamb cooked in the oven ….. everything was home cooked and the portions were enormous, hence I put on 2 kg during the week.

Flora and a little Fauna

For you dear reader, this is more a task of “name that plant” rather than an opportunity to read a discourse on the flora of Meganisi.

So, if you know the name of one of these plants please use the comments section to tell

us. The above seems to be a variant of the

Thistle and the flower heads were teeming with flies and wasps.

Bougainvillea is very common throughout the island and luckily it was in full flower when we were there.

This flower was very common and a great favourite with butterflies.

This was a very common plant throughout the island and was towards the end of its flowering period when we were there.

The bush is slightly thorny and the pods are slightly hairy.

These small blue stars were very prickly.

This smelt mildly aromatic.

Olive trees were everywhere of course and by June, the trees had started to grow olives. Judging from the size of the tree trunks, we were seeing a number of trees which were many hundreds of years old.

Shrines

A very common sight along Greek roads is the roadside shrine and they seem to come in every shape and size and invariably had a lighted oil lamp inside together with a number of icons. We never saw anyone tending them but suspect the numerous black widows we would meet when at walking.

Shrines are sometimes every 100 metres along the busier roads. One might be tempted to assume that the large number is directly related to the quality of Greek driving, apparently this is not the case. Whilst some shrines are erected to mark the site of an accident, they are also erected to give thanks for good fortune.