taxi bus donkey

November days in northern Italy are normally punctuated by rain, not a dark depressing or torrential kind of rain, but a steady drizzle broken up by moments of clear skies and crisp air. As November moved into December the days grew noticeably shorter and the temperature of the night air often dropped suddenly. I hadn’t yet experienced a real winter and the little glimpses i got of one during my travels in Europe during 2003 made me realise how hopeless an Australian male with a backpack full of summer clothes was when faced with the brutality of nature’s not so motherly ways.

On this late November night, returning home from yet another evening in one of the local small town watering holes the rain fell more heavily than what I had now been led to believe was normal for this time of year. Tonight like most nights over the last 10 days or so I was walking Mieke back to her apartment, we were drinking beer, smoking unreasonable numbers of cigarettes and no doubt amusing ourselves with the habits of the locals. (more…)

Bitsa is old, well she is now anyway, Bitsa is also the town gossip merchant, political activist, cultural advocate and she walks with a really big stick.. which as we all know demands respect. If she ever stood up straight Bitsa would without doubt be taller than she is bent over, but Bitsa is as Bitsa is and we all love her curved up ball of a self.

Early on a day which felt like a sunday I heard a clear crisp heavily Macedonian accented voice booming across my grandmaother’s back yard. The sound made me stand up to see what was going on. I cracked open the ancient plastic fly screen hanging from gran’s backdoor and peered into the garden. (more…)

In the 25 years since I last dined there my cousin’s taverna has changed, but I returned to find many echoes of what once was.

His Father Yianni opened the tavern in 1975 serving small snacks for the townfolk to munch upon during their eveining promenades. The tavern was small with about 5 tables inside, a small delicatessen style freezer behind which were the heavy cast iron grills on which my uncle would place the number of souvlakia i felt capable of eating. (more…)

Having settled into village life, I found my way to Kastoria and even located comfortable albeit not super economical Internet access I was silly enough to think that I could switch off the parts of my brain that i had become accustomed to using to absorb and analyse events, people, places spaces etc and just relax for a while. But the big guy who pulls the levers of life figured one more “point of interest” on the calendar of my travels wouldn’t be inappropriate as it would make me realise that even in relatively small towns, shit doth happen and it happens fast. (more…)

25 years since I last walked her streets, chatted with her locals and rubbed shoulders with my family who live there I found myself as I had on my first day in the village 25 years earlier, standing in the centre of Ambelokipi’s town square early in the morning watching the town wake. (more…)

I called her name so as not to shock her, or to at least minimise the shock, or prepare her a little for a moment of happiness.

I had been warned that she was weak, hard of hearing and needed lots of help around the house, in the moments I had to myself in her personal space i didn’t see any real sign of that. There was the general clutter that accumulates within a lifetime, several objects that she uses regularly within reach, the fly swatter next to the fruit bowl, her pills in a small bowl with a photo of me and my first cousins at my cousin Paul’s 12th birthday, her oil lamp and small collection of religious icons kept between the sponges and the television set, but the house was clean and cared for, lived. (more…)

Reunion achieved on Sunday afternoon, hugs exchanged, european style now as we are in a country where it is ok for guys to actually touch occasionally. Sav, Effie and I climbed into the back of their suitably dark coloured car and whisked ourselves off to a bar. And yes, I will say, a very nice bar, and not too far from aforementioned prison, but local knowledge wasnt within my possession, anyway, greatful to receive sea breezes comfy chairs and the posibility of receiving vodka the way i like it… orally… the afternoon and tales of travels washed over us. (more…)

Friday July 4th early am, managed to sneak in a little breaky courtesy of the Le Torre family, receive a firm hand shake from Alfredo and administer a promise to return.

The trip to Pisa Aeroporto wasnt very eventful, chatted with an Alitalia pilot whilst in the check in queue at the airport, they have to queue up with the rest of the plebs if they arent actially flying a plane, something which he wasnt over the moon about, whinged about cuts in salary and benefits.. all this adding to the general “i’m about to go into an airplane” anxiety. (more…)

Feeling at leat a little better and with the “you are in Italy” meter ticking ever louder I decided to indulge in that great tourist with a plan activity “the day trip”. (more…)

On Monday I sorted out my travel plans to Greece, flying direct from Milan to Salonica was the best option but due to something which nobody was able to adequately explain to me, tickets for this journey were approximately 560 euro one way. A visit to the travel agent and some explanation of the nuances of the way that airline ticketing works in this country meant than i walked out with tickets from Pisa to Rome and Rome to Athens at about 200 euro, these were return tickets, but i was not going to return,.. the one way tickets cost twice as much as the return tickets (that makes sense) and some poor sod would miss out on a flight from Athens to rome because they had allocated a seat for my ass even though I would be several hundred kilometres away in a village. (more…)