Happy beautiful autumn! I appreciate your attention if you skim, scroll the photos, or read my post, and no feedback or comment is ever expected.
Slow motion. That’s how my Caboose posts have been chugging along lately. Life gets in the way and my little writing project temporarily goes by the wayside.
But I like this business of blogging (which I started in 2021) and I've written 137 posts about travel, cycling, Oaxaca, art and artists, camping in southern Saskatchewan and other random topics that momentarily catch my interest.
Nothing too serious, nothing political, there's enough of that elsewhere.
So as the season changes, here I go again.
This is my last post about our bike tour in Greece, October 2024, which I better finish before the next 2025 trip starts in a few months, Spain, 2025.
People we met in Greece is the theme here.
First, the guy below in the Indiana Jones hat. A chance meeting with him led to a bicycle escort for all nine of us to his Greek home in the middle of an orange grove.
His wife Angie had a wonderful home-cooked meal ready for us… fish, tender calamari, stuffed eggplant, roasted vegetables, authentic Greek salad, tasty treats on every plate.
Such hospitality and generosity! It was a highlight of our time in Greece. As you know, being invited to a private home doesn’t often happen in the world of tourism.
Here’s how the surprise invitation came about.
Charles was a dental colleague from forty years ago who recognized our dentist friend Kim in a village cafe. He immediately invited our whole gang to the farm where he lived with his Greek wife.
Charles met Angie many years ago when he removed her wisdom teeth at his clinic in Saskatoon and a relationship blossomed. They now live part of every year in Greece on the farm where she was raised, and then shift back to their home in Saskatchewan for the summer months.
A foot in two cultures, lucky them!
Another coincidence, their house just happens to be in our neighbourhood, just blocks from where we live in Saskatoon.
Small world. As travellers always seem to find an occasion to say.
Here's another pleasant and unplanned encounter with local residents…
Our travel buddies, Kim and Cathi, discovered an art studio tucked up in the hills near the sweet village of Vytina. We walked up a winding road in this quiet rural area to a picturesque home, a studio and a yard full of artworks.
Christina Kellidi builds large wooden and metal sculptures, designs jewellery and clothing, and served our group tea and cake.
Her equally gracious husband, Stoian Donev, is a successful painter and professor of art. I loved his exquisite works on paper and canvas.
The couple moved from Bulgaria to Athens with their children, and then to this home in the Peloponnese Peninsula of Greece where they continue their art careers.
K and C couldn’t resist one gorgeous landscape and happily left with a carefully rolled-up and wrapped canvas which they later had framed in Saskatoon.
A few days later we had a pleasant evening at Villa Incognito, a fun restaurant we stumbled upon in the city of Tripoli.
The food and wine were great and the young owner/server/sommelier named Yakinthi was a pleasure. Charming and passionate about Greek food and wine.
We assured her we would recommend her restaurant to our friends in Canada. Remember the name, Incognito, just in case you’re ever wandering the streets looking for a good meal in Tripoli, Greece.
The interior decoration was a bit unusual. And memorable. Chains and handcuffs in the basement washroom for a little edginess. Blood red paint splattered on the floors. Elegant curtains and mirrors. Not your everyday chain restaurant.
The British gentleman beside Cathi in the photo below was not part of our group. We crossed paths with him in several cities, Boris was his name, or was it Morris, a chatty retired doctor with marital problems. People sometimes tend to open up their personal lives to strangers it seems.
He was travelling solo and was quite happy to share a few drinks and stories with our group.
Yes it’s true, meeting locals and interacting with fellow travellers adds some warm humanity to the job of sightseeing in a foreign country.
In fact, it could be one of the most memorable parts of travel.
Along with sharing the experience with our longtime travel friends. Thanks for the memories Kim, Cathi, Dave S., Lorna, Connie, Cyndi, Stew and my Dave.
