Taigetos

so, the sun came out, and it was a bit of a chilly 10C start after some stormy days, and lots of rain that filled the Kalamata riverbed running like mad into the sea, as we observed with Marta, as we had another sleep-over in there. We celebrated her bday with lots of walks and lots of fishes eaten in nice places as well as the new discovery of spinach-black-eye-pea dish. But today was a spectecular discovery, when we went to our usual sitting out place at the La mare cafe terrace - the Taigatos! We haven't even noticed it was there - on bad days it was joined in colour with the clouds, on good ones it just disappeared in the mist, with all the Mani-side. But today - it was all there with its majestic 2540m - and sparkling snow top!! We couldn't stop looking at it from about 9:30 we were sitting there till about 2pm. Meanwhile it was St Andrew's day here aka Aghios Andreas, a variety of village búcsú, though it only involved a few hours of praying with 4 coaches of locals and nearby villages' people, including all the schoolchildren. We quickly got bored and walk down to the cafe, but the very obliging crowd followed us down a bit later lead by the disappointingly plain black robed popa, unlike in Leonidio, where there were golden vestments by the dozen. Still, they walked down to the harbour just next to our cafe, probably blessed the sea or something. Then our terrace suddenly filled up with large and noisy family groups, with the kids running about in the harbour and on the beach, playing football and volleyball while eating snacks bought in the bakery. I wonder if they get e school holiday for all the saints of these tiny villages... Very cheerful affair. I put the photos on tomorrow. We have wifi now in the villa, but only 5giga/month, so keep to the simple things here, do photo and videostuff in the cafe. just one for taster