Hersonissos,
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Crete,
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Greece
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July 2008
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Dear David,
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All about Brikis, Happy Birthday at Villa Ralfa, A Place to eat in Koutouloufari, Australians on tour, the wayward American, and a monastery full of nuns.
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Yes it’s four years since Villa Ralfa put out the notice board and became Crete’s first accommodation and lodgings for gay and lesbian folk! It has been interesting time in many ways, for instance when we first opened, the Google result for gay crete was completely meaningless, and all that came up were some very spurious results! When the web site went live in June 2004 (and boy, it was naff – some would say it is not much better now!), it was about the only thing on the web that joined the two terms together and had content on the web pages to match! And three weeks later we got the first booking, much to our surprise, Australians they were. In a way it seems fitting that that four years on I should have Australians staying again. Not the same ones but friends from the Perth period.
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Now things are a little different and there is another gay hotel and what used to be ‘Tilly’s’ in Malia is Crete’s only named gay bar, now called Eros Bar.
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And yes, you are right, as it is the anniversary of moving in it is also time to make nectarine wine from the tree in the garden. This year it has excelled itself and another branch has broken off! I will never forget that day when the previous owners moved out and stripped the tree of fruit even though they weren’t ripe, but then at one stage if you remember, we thought they were going to scrape the paint off the walls! They even had the gall recently to turn up to see what they had left behind! Surprised they didn’t want to take the dog!
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At the beginning of the month I was wondering whether I was going to have time to write anything at all this month, as the house was full and it didn’t look as though there would be time, but as always thank heavens for friends who chipped in and helped whenever, and wherever they could!
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But first let’s deal with this question about ‘What is a briki?’
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Right then, a briki is the small saucepan for making Greek coffee, usually it is brass or copper with a tin plate lining and either a wooden of long brass handle. You can also buy them in stainless steel with a plastic handle but they are not nearly so romantic! Strangely enough the brass and copper versions are quite difficult to buy as the tourists shops never seem to sell them, maybe because they are actually quite expensive! There are a couple of shops in the city that specialise in brass and copperware, and I usually have one or two of these in the cupboard to sell to paying guests to save them going into the city. I also keep supplies of Greek coffee in the house, as it is not the first time that I have had emails from visitors asking me if I can send them some! This month’s web page has some pictures on it,
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OK so that’s the commercials done, so let me tell you about the Australians.
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Now I have known Ann and Phil for a long time and it was a pleasant surprise to hear from them, telling me that they were coming to stay for a week. Like a lot of Australians and New Zealanders that are visiting Crete and the Greek Islands (not all staying with me), they were over for a family reunion, and to get he most out of their airfares, they were doing a trip around Europe and Greece at the same time. This is a very sensible idea for anyone who is coming to Europe on a long haul flight to Europe, as once you are here it is relatively easy and cheap to book ‘internal’ flights within Europe. Ann and Phil flew from Gatwick on a direct flight to Heraklion, but of course these only run during the summer months. During the winter you have to come via Athens, but even this is quite easy from the UK as Aegean has flights from London Stanstead and you can travel to Crete without having to collect your baggage at Athens. There is also Easyjet but then you have to collect baggage in Athens so you have to leave yourself a couple of hours leeway to check in again!
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Now Ann and Phil are not mean, but typically Australian, they do like to keep an eye on the money so they elected not to hire a car on cost grounds, (and I suspect because they didn’t like driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road!), so they tried out our excellent bus services! I have spoken about these before I thi