BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES - IT'S KARPATHOS!

We have just returned from five days on the island of Karpathos. It's seven hours by boat, and we now know it's the windy island!! Full of sweeping mountains, low cloud base and glorious beaches it was a great break, high up the wind swept through the gorges, and this was summer!
  Up to Olympos after a short boat trip, the first surprise on landing at Diafani with our guide - it was her mother who drove the coach! So along with members of our Kapi we set off up the sweeping curves to the top where the village was constructed on the side of the hill, to thwart pirate attacks from the land.
   Here the women of the village to this day always wear traditional clothing - not for the tourists. They happily call you to see their homes, often just a single room, with kitchen off our even outside with the bread oven. Inside you will find the walls covered in brightly painted ceramics and photos of their families over the years. There is a platform, called a sufi, which is the bedroom, raised high, and another if they had children. The hospitality was not put on, they handed out sweets to encourage you to look and learn their traditions.
   It was the same at another trip, this time to Mesochori, again pitched on the hillside, so lots of steps down, meaning a long way up again.We had plenty of time also to admire the beaches as we travelled around, before nights spent in the town of Karpathos.
  On our final night there was a party in a local taverna for all our group, where they provided music and entertainment, but they had not realised that one of our party, Manolis, in fact was a better singer and he took over, the local group accepted this, although all others in the tavern must have wondered what was going on.

Give me that mike (Manolis, left) takes over!

Highly decorated inside their homes

Pat tries on the traditional Olympos head-dress

A break for us at Finiki

Pity any delivery!

They still cook in the outside ovens

Olympos village perched on the hillside