The Mercouri Vineyard is not far from Katakolo and produces high quality wine which has earned wide renown. My visit was far off season and I liked the image of all the little flowers growing around the dormant vines. Something particularly unusual was the family used peacocks to keep a lookout over the vineyard and that likely sounds ludicrous to you but those birds make a huge racket when anything disturbs the peace.
Katakolo came to bloom when the cruise ships came to dock and sometimes the bloom would have an unusual form but always fascinating to behold and be in it. The rest of the time, Katakolo faded to an apparently somnolent ghost town but then it would come to life when the next ship came.
There was a lovely couple running the store. Their English wasn't so good but neither is my Greek and trying to understand each other was a pure delight. I would hang about there since often a few people would be doing the same thing. This built my strength in Greece quite a bit but the part I loved the most was with the couple running it. They were as sweet as could be and they knew I was broke so they would give me fruit to help out sometimes.
In any other season, the Mediterranean is generally placid and nothing at all like the beaches in Australia when I was a kid. There was a much of a family vibe at the beaches around at least this part of the Med. The water stays shallow for a remarkable distance into it and you can find the ruins of Pheia, the ancient city which once comprised Katakolo but went under the water in the 3rd or 4th Century.
In this picture, we see the waters of the Med in Winter and you see how differently they behave.
No comments:
Post a Comment